Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jinsuk of Seoul said the agreement, announced in Beijing Feb. 13, had “averted a catastrophe of unimaginable consequences.”

“If things had gone differently, we would have seen a nuclear conflict that would have destroyed us,” the cardinal told AsiaNews, a Rome-based missionary agency.

The agreement followed three years of talks among six countries, including the United States. North Korea promised to shut down its main nuclear facilities within 60 days and to begin the process of nuclear disarmament, with international inspections. In exchange, the country would receive one million tons of fuel oil.

The agreement also set in motion talks on a wide range of related issues, including normalization of U.S.-North Korean relations.

Cheong, who is also the apostolic administrator of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, said the Catholic Church in Korea welcomed the announcement with “joy and satisfaction.”

Unfortunately, he said, the fuel delivered to North Korea will probably go “first and foremost into the tanks of the military,” but he said the people would also benefit to some degree.

The cardinal said the nuclear program of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had put the Korean peninsula and the rest of the world at risk. Last October, despite international warnings, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon.

If a war had broken out, Cheong said, refugees from the North would have flooded South Korea.

“We want to welcome our suffering brothers, but we are not ready to do so. Their economic conditions are disastrous and a mass exodus would transform into a reciprocal catastrophe,” he said.

He said the only long-term solution was to “wait for the death of the dictator” and prepare North Korea for gradual economic aid. Only when the economies of the two Koreas are on a par will South Korea be able to open its borders without fear, the cardinal said.