Sad Statistics

The Catholic Magazine for priests that was published for many years called Samok stopped publishing in the beginning of 2007. It was the theological magazine for the clergy of the country; the expense of publishing and the subsidy it required was too much to carry, so it was discontinued. In 2008 the Gaudium and Spes Pastoral Institute began publishing with an introductory issue Joy and Hope (Gaudium and Spes). This year the 3rd volume has come out and below is an article that I will summarize titled, Sad Statistics.

Money is the standard of happiness and success in our world , he begins .

He mentions in the Gallup Poll taken last August the young Koreans see money as the prerequisite for happiness. The following was taken from a daily newspaper.

1) Do you believe that becoming rich is life's meaning for success?
Korea (50.4%), Japan (33%), China (27%) U.S. (22%)

2) Do you think that any method of making money is permissible?
Korea (23.3%) U.S. (21.2) Japan (13.4%) China (5.6%)

Transparency International this year had a survey among the middle and high school children in Korea, Bangladesh, Mongolia, and India they were asked.

3) To become rich is more important than to live honestly? Right?
Korea (22.6%) Bangladesh (3.1%) India (8.4%) Mongolia (9.1%)

The writer makes it very clear the sadness he feels seeing that the Korean students are over 3 to 7 times more disposed to wealth over honesty even though they are the better off of the four nations listed.

He mentions that 90 % of the European population has become much wealthier over the last 30 years but they have not been able to translate this into happiness. He feels that the Church has not been able to portray itself with the spirit of poverty. Jesus made it very clear that life is not the amassing of material things. They are absolutely necessary, important, and good but they are not everything. He concludes his remarks with: "The Church has joined the way of the World in its trust in the material and by doing so we have not been able to give Him to the world. "














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The Catholic Bishops' Report

The report of the Bishops on the 2008 Catholic Statistics had no real surprises except for the fact that the number of Catholics has reached the 5 million mark- 10% of the population consider themselves Catholic.


The first official statistical report was published in 1907 with a total of 70,000. There has been a very large increase over the intervening years. However, it is not all rosy as one editorial expressed it in business parlance: "we have been selling more with a decrease in the profits."

From the year 2000 we have been increasing but the number of infant baptisms, those frequenting the Sacraments, Sunday attendance has decreased, the number of tepid has increased. The number of women is 58% and men 41%. This can be seen in any Sunday Mass. The Seoul Diocese has the largest percentage of Catholics with 13.6% .The number of those coming into the Church over the past 7 years is an increase of about 2%. This seems to hold steady for the other religions.

The most significant figure for me is the number of those attending Mass on Sunday. This should be a reliable figure of the devotion of our Catholics. It is 24% a decrease of 6.7% from what it was in 1998. The United States despite the problems the Church has had with the sexual abuse issue, the closing of Churches and other serious scandals, the number of Catholics is reported to be 25 percent that attend Mass on Sunday. That for me is an extraordinary figure when I compare it to the Korean 24%. We know statistics can mean very little but it does make the Korean Church concern on trying to match the internal situation with what we can see externally a very important task for the future.