The bishop acknowledges the rapid growth of the Catholic Church, that it's been blessed with many vocations, but he stresses that more attention has to be paid to the inner qualities of our faith life. The Korean Church needs now, he says, to go out to other countries to give them what Korea has received. We have moved from a receiving Church to a giving Church, a local church ready to help others.
The Korean Church in the last 50 years, with North Korea included, has grown greatly. There are 18 dioceses, 32 bishops (9 retired), more than 5 million Catholics and 4,500 priests. This external growth has been great but humbling, the bishop says. We have to confess that internal maturity has not accompanied the external growth. Because of the rapid growth we have not had the time to ripen in certain areas.
The bishop mentions that unlike many other countries the period of the catechumenate in many of our parishes is six months. Not enough time, he says, to reflect on the gift of faith received. It is not only the head that must be involved but the whole person.
He brings to mind the words of Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Exhortation on Evangelization, where he states that we are to become a new people, to become different persons from what we were. It is to be born again, which we are far from achieving in Korea, the bishop laments. Although many have been baptized, we cannot say that many have undergone this type of change in their life: adopting new values and and a new way of living.
To the question: What will the Church of Korea contribute to Asia and the rest of the world? "To help the poorer countries of the world," was his answer. He went on to say that what the foreign missionaries did for the Korean Church, the Korean Church should do for others. He concludes with a wish that Korean clergy will dream of going out to the world to make others disciples of Jesus.
