Searching for Peace

"We've done too many things against our conscience." In the Light of the World column of the Catholic Times the priest writer uses the first words of a prayer by  Cardinal Stephen Kim to begin his column on searching for Peace.
 

"Pew Research Center" in Washington released a report titled "Diversity and Division in Advanced Economies" for 17 countries, including South Korea. Korea had the highest degree of conflict on political views and differences in supporting parties. (90% answered that the conflict was high) The U.S. is similar to Korea, with second-ranked groups Taiwan and France at 65%, Sweden and Singapore at 35%, 33%, respectively.
 

In addition, 92% of respondents said that conflicts between cities and rural areas were high, and that society would gradually be divided by COVID-19. The report states that Korea is divided in the fields of race, urban and rural areas (real estate), including politics. Last summer, Korea's conflict index was announced as third among OECD member countries, and experts see Korea as a  conflicted republic. The annual average number of complaints, the large income gap among citizens, the high poverty rate of the elderly, numerous social conflicts and fierce confrontations over politics are not of recent appearance.

Korea's social conflict should be seen as a result of accumulated complex causes, but to name a few: short-term rapid compressed growth, rapid changes in society, marked differences in values between generations, lack of mutual communication and understanding, and the collapse of the family community. Today, in Korean society the different generation find it difficult to live with  trust and warmth with others: MZ generation (born 1980-2004) does not mix with the  Korean War generation.

If the situation does not improve, enormous social losses, fatigue of the people, and tension will continue to increase. The numbers of suicides, the poverty of the elderly, and the young people having to give up: romance, marriage, children, house  and career they were the five things they had to 'give up' now it has become the N-Po generation,—Po meaning to give up.

 

Of course, any society has conflicts or problems, and a happy society is not without difficulties, but a mature society has the ability to overcome difficulties. So, what do we have to do for this? Institutional supplementation and improvement are also needed, but above all, it is the restoration of the evangelical values of inclusion, tolerance, love and sharing. 

 

This year, we are in the Advent  period, waiting for Christmas. The writer recalls the legend  where Peter was leaving Rome running away from persecution and meets our Lord walking towards Rome. "Where are you going Lord?" "I am going to pick up the cross you abandoned!" It is considered no different today. At some point, the sacred objects have become decorations, prayer and spirituality, indiscriminate greed rather than gospel, love for money, obsession with success and prosperity, and indifference to neighbors make our society sick and crucify our Lord again.
 

There may be limitations in politics and society, but what should we do with our refusal to love, share, forgive and reconcile? What else should we do with the temptation to be liked no matter what, and the inner heart of looking for money rather than God? The writer as a person with many failings has feelings of great shame in this time of Advent. 

 

Catholic social doctrine teaches that true peace is possible through courageous reflection and repentance, and that it is the beginning of social change and the way to realize God's will on this earth. Lets make it a time of true repentance beginning with ourselves.

 

Peace on Earth—which man throughout the ages has so longed for and sought after—can never be established, never guaranteed, except by the diligent observance of the divinely established order. (St. John 23, Peace on Earth Encyclical #1)