When Pope Francis visited South Korea in August 2014, he seemed absolutely charmed by what he found. The church there wasn’t planted by missionary clergy but by laity, flourishing for a century before the first priest arrived, and it’s also known for political and social commitment on behalf of the poor and oppressed.

Those are two things – lay empowerment and social engagement – which Francis very much admires, and thus he felt right at home.

Today, South Korea may also have a new candidate for one of the most “Pope Francis” dioceses in the world in Busan (also sometimes transliterated as Pusan), the country’s second largest city, located on the south-eastern tip of the peninsula and home to one of the world’s busiest ports.

Busan was already known in Catholic circles as the place where Monsignor Aloysius Schwartz, a native of Washington, D.C., moved in 1957 to serve the scores of widows, orphans, beggars and street children left behind by the Korean War. Deliberately, he didn’t want to just minister to the poor but to live among them.

“One’s surroundings definitely conditions one’s thinking,” he said at the time. “By living more or less poor, I discovered it was easier to think poor, to feel poor, and to stay on the same wave length as the poor.”

It was in Busan that Schwartz founded two religious congregations, the Sisters of Mary in 1964 and the Brothers of Christ in 1981. With his early band of followers, Schwartz founded “Boystowns” and “Girlstowns” to take care of orphans, street children, and youth from extremely poor families.

Today, Boystowns and Girlstowns continue to serve poor children in South Korea, the Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala and Honduras, having become one of the world’s iconic humanitarian initiatives.

Schwartz eventually moved to the Philippines, where he died in Manilla and was buried. In January 2015, Pope Francis approved a decree of heroic virtue for Schwartz, the first official hurdle to be crossed in his sainthood cause.

Today, there are clear signs that the same spirit of concern for the poor lives on in the diocese that welcomed Schwartz 60 years ago.

Recently, for example, the diocese sold off some land and aging property in a beach neighborhood of Busan to a real estate developer, who intends to build a mixed-use residential and commercial property on the spot. Proceeds from the sale were $2.5 million.

Built in 1964, the apartment complex owned by the diocese was designed to provide housing for 35 low-income people. Over time, however, needed repairs were never made, and the facility began to languish.

Called the “Catholic Charity Apartment,” it was funded by donations from the Australian Catholic Women’s Association.

Given the way dioceses around the world are continually cash-strapped, one might assume an infusion of $2.5 million would be seen as a godsend, a way to pay bills, maybe repair a few churches, and tuck something away in the diocesan coffers for a rainy day.

That, however, is not the direction Bishop Paul Hwang Chul-soo and officials of the diocese decided to go. Instead, they opted to donate all the proceeds from the sale to the poor.

“In the early stage of the diocese, when we were poor and underwent hardship, we gave alms to the poor,” they said in a statement. “We decided to use the money to practice this spirit.”

When he was installed in Busan ten years ago, Hwang said, “I think that living by abandoning oneself means living a life of love and sacrifice … In light of this, I think today’s possession of the see is not coming into a position of power, but being called to become an example of self-abandonment.”

That’s obviously a very Francis-esque sentiment, and it seems that Busan on his watch is also walking the talk.