Background to the Faith in Korea Part I

We have many histories of the Catholic Church in Korea but only one concerning the work of Maryknoll which Fr. Robert M. Lilly spent many years compiling. It is the history of the Korea Region from 1942 to 2002 Mission in the South. I will take sections from the preface and prologue which will give a brief overview of the early history of the Catholic Church of Korea.


Taken from the Preface

Mission history usually embraces wide vistas and a broad theme with incisive and penetrating descriptions of personalities and events- a collection of tales that help explain and reflect an era. For those expecting something of the same I can only offer an apology for a poor attempt in that direction.

The whole Korea mission north and south, has been an ongoing entity for some eighty years. nothing would do it less justice than a single overview. Instead, this is only an attempt to lay the foundation for a history of Maryknoll in the South. It is a bric-brac of names, places and dates- with an occasional vignette to underscore a point- but on the whole a telephone book of collected date.

Prologue
Background to the Faith

The Korean Church is justifiably proud in being the only one not started by foreign missionaries. In the 17th century when intellectuals increasingly questioned the suffocating confines of Confucian society they came across the writings of Matteo Ricci in China. At first Christianity's philosophy and practical aspects for solving social problems was the main attraction. "Gradually though the scholars were captivated by the beauty of the content. "

Korea as a vassal state of China sent royal envoys and yearly tribute to Peking. Those diplomats knew Chinese because it was the language of the educated class. Except for the royal convoys no one could enter or leave the hermit kingdom. Books were brought back and studied and in time a select few under the leadership of Lee Byok came to understand and appreciate the Christian religion. Finally in 1784 one member of the winter convoy was encouraged to seek baptism.

Yi Sung -hun christened Peter returned and baptized others . The number of believers increased. Soon they began to appoint their own "priests" to offer Sunday Mass and administer sacraments. Realizing their mistake they stopped the practice and sent a request for priests to the bishop of Peking. In March 1785 the young community was detected and the first martyrs gave their lives in 1791. This was the first in a serious of persecutions lasting for over one hundred years.

Father James Chu Mun-mo a Chinese priest, entered Korea ten years after the first baptism. When he assumed pastoral direction of the faithful in 1794 Catholics already exceeded four thousand in number. In 1801 seven years after arrival, Father Chu was martyred and the flock was without a shepherd for thirty-three years. Though deprived of Mass and the sacraments they encouraged each other in the faith and continued sending emissaries to Peking with requests for priests. Paul Chong Ha-sang later canonized with Father Andrew Kim Tae-gon as a proto-martyr of the Korean saints, made nine trips to China pleading for clergy but the Church beset by persecution was unable to send anyone.

Rome prevailed upon the "Societe des Missions-Etrangeres de Paris" to take the Korea mission despite the congregation's shortage of priests and funds. Three missionaries, two priests and a bishop, arrived separately in the years 1836 through 1838. They were martyred in 1839. Another French bishop already had died on the China-Korea border waiting for an opportunity to enter the country.

Father Andre Kim ordained in Shanghai, China on August 17, 1844 was the first Korean priest. He was martyred at Saenamto, Seoul on September 15, 1846. Intense persecution continued but the laity fearlessly spread the faith and one by one French missionaries slipped into Korea. Of the twelve present in 1866, nine were martyred and three escaped to China. In the following years repeated attempts to enter the country failed. In 1876 two priests, Fathers Jean |Gustave Blanc and Victor Deguette, entered Seoul in disguise and for the first time since the persecution in 1866, the Church had priests.

Imposition of trade treaties forced an opening to the West. Persecution ceased and Catholics began to enjoy full liberty. When freedom of religious practice was decreed in a treaty with France in 1886 there were five priests and 12,500 baptized members. To continue in the next blog.

Community as Vehicle for Teaching

Over the years I have attended many workshops and seminars that Maryknoll has sponsored for the energizing and renewal of the men. One seminar that I attended, many years ago, left its mark on me. We were asked to bring what we were using for catechetical instruction in each of the countries in which we work. I did my homework and filled a traveling bag.

The seminar was not more than a few hours old when I realized that my bag would remain closed. They were talking about catechetics but not the kind I had in my bag. They are part of the teaching process but not the one that was being treated in that particular seminar.

Catechetics in the words of those attending the Seminar "was found to embrace the total process of discovering, developing and living Christian values and convictions". The Church, the living Christian Community, is the essential vehicle of catecheses; catechetical programs, with their personnel, aids and facilities are instruments of the Christian Community in this task.

Can we say that community is alive and well in the Church? Community requires cooperation: to have a catechetical meaning it has to be evident and central to the apostolate. We have prayed, played, celebrated and met together but worked together? From my experience it is this working cooperation that becomes a behaviorally induced form of catecheses and the one that makes the the biggest impression on those concerned.

This morning the small community here in the mission station, at the recommendation of the catechist, came to do some weeding and work in the rock garden. They began about 5:30 am before the sun came up and worked to about 8:00 am finishing with breakfast. They returned to their homes by 9:00 am. This working together has a dynamic that is different from the other types of being together. It is not only manual work but any type of working together. It is non- threatening, it gives the Christians time to talk with each other without a need to talk. It has a target they work to accomplish, find satisfaction in doing something that is bigger than their own needs; the by product is that the community becomes stronger, and the Spirit has plenty of time to work with us as a community.

We hear today of behavioral and affective approaches to belief. It has become very obvious that in many of the works of the Church we have limited ourselves to the cognitive so that those who have been exposed to the Christianizing process have everything but the heart for the work. The differences of Catholics to others in behavior is very little. This makes many think long and hard on what we are doing in preparing our Christians. We can not ignore the feelings of people and think we are reaching the whole person. It is in community that we can best reach the whole human person and it is only a community behaving like a community that is a vehicle of catecheses. If we forget this, we will continue to do a good job imparting knowledge, but do little to move the heart.