In 1954, the year after the end of the Korean War, a 28-year-old young American missioner stepped on Korean soil. The ship on which he and his fellow missioners were taking was a cargo ship that departed from San Francisco, and 16 days later landed at the Pusan Port.
His first sight on land was a welcoming group of Koreans standing on the pier as they landed. What were his thoughts at that moment? He had no idea that one day he would be the bishop of Incheon and the longest holder of the office as ordinary of a diocese in Korean history.
Bishop McNaughton was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1926. It's a small town near Boston. Settled by those from a Catholic culture: Irish, Italian and French Canadians. Naturally, Lawrence became a strong Catholic city. He grew up in a Catholic family and graduated from a Marianist High School in 1944.
He entered the Maryknoll Mission Society right after high school. After completing his seminary education at Maryknoll's major seminary he received his master's degree in religious education and was assigned to the Korean mission. He spent one year at Yale University studying Korean and began to get familiar with what he had heard from the old missioners from Korea.
He was assigned to be assistant to the KamKok parish in the Chungju diocese but at that time it was still a Vicariate under the leadership of Bishop James Pardy the first ordinary of the Chungju Diocese. He became the pastor of two parishes and was a consultor to the Bishop and vice vicar until he was named a bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Incheon in 1961.
He was 34 years old. On June 6, 1961, the Incheon area, where Maryknoll priests had been working was raised to an apostolic vicariate. McNaughton was named a bishop and appointed apostolic vicar of Incheon. He was ordained a bishop by Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston in St. Mary’s Church in Lawrence Aug. 24, 1961.
On March 10, 1962, St. John XXIII raised all the apostolic vicariates to the status of dioceses, and McNaughton became the first bishop of the new Diocese of Incheon and served for 41 years. "UT OMNES UNMM SINT" (May they all be one, John 17,21) was the bishop's coat of arms.
Both papers singled out some of the traits of the bishop. During his time as bishop, he was known as the bishop who rides the subway. He was frugal and the late Cardinal Kim Soo-whan who was a pastoral companion for many years called him a really humble man and made known that not once did he ever absent himself from a Bishops' meeting. He was extremely diligent and sincere in all he did. This also showed in Rome during the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. He never missed a session except for a couple of days when sick.
When he became bishop the country's economy was difficult and the parishioners were few. When the diocese was founded in 1961, only nine parishes existed, with only 23,000 believers. Bishop McNaughton believed in the population potential of the industrial area of Incheon. He prepared for the future by buying land and building churches. In the last years as bishop, there were 85 parishes in Incheon and more than 372,000 believers.
Also, Bishop McNaughton paid great attention to labor and human rights issues and made great efforts in these areas. In particular, his stance on the deepening textile incident in Ganghwa Island in 1968 was highly regarded as the church began to stand on the side of the weak.
The pastor of the parish on Ganghwa Island at that time was Fr. Michael Bransfield whose JOC, the international organization founded by Rev, Joseph Cardijn in Belgium, was active in the textile factory on the island. The workers were organizing a labor union and were illegally fired and the factory was asking the bishop to transfer the pastor. He strongly protested and responded with a strong statement in support of the workers.
Due to a large number of factories in the diocese the bishop's interest in workers continued, and he established the 5th week after the Resurrection in 2002 as the Sunday to remember workers for the first time in the Korean Church.
When he retired in 2002 he was the last foreign bishop in the Korean Catholic Church. May he rest in peace.
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