By Damien Gayle for MailOnline and Associated Press The Pope sheepishly asked thousands of nuns and priests to skip their vespers today after he run behind schedule on a busy day touring South Korea. Francis had three consecutive meetings in Kkottognae, a religious community which cares for disabled people, but by the time he hit the second, he was running out of time. 'I've got a little problem,' he told the crowd of 5,000 nuns and priests who had come to see him give a vespers service in Latin and Korean. Scroll down for video Never skip your prayers... unless the Pope tells you to: The Pope sheepishly asked thousands of nuns and priests to skip their vespers today after he run behind schedule on a busy day touring South Korea
@highlight
Pope holds up Korean martyrs as models for church's expansion in Asia
@highlight
800,000 come to see him give an open-air mass in central Seoul
@highlight
Catholic leader warns if he doesn't miss vespers his helicopter might crash
South Korea
South Korea
Francis praised in particular the fact that laypeople were so crucial to the church's foundation and growth in @placeholder - a theme he stressed later in the day when he met with leaders of Korean lay movements.
South Korea
South Korea
Historians say @placeholder's early believers were struck by the idea of a religion that preached universal equality in divine eyes at a time when the nobility's discriminatory hierarchical system brutally exploited ordinary people.