The New Way of Family Life in Korea.

The traditional family structure in Korea has weakened and in many cases broken down in the past few decades. We are seeing nuclear families and a great deal of divorce in our Korean Society. Part of this is the secularization and globalization that is taking place throughout the world. The good is that there is much more of an equality in family relations and an improvement in the status of women but it is doing havoc with many families.

In the small community in which I am in residence there are only 6 children who are part of our

Sunday School program, all of which are from broken families. The sons married and with the failure of the marriage, divorced, and sent the children to the homestead to live with the grandparents. The fathers do remarry but find it difficult, in most cases, to bring the children to the new marriage. Many of the mothers do not seem interested in the children, for they also want to remarry; without the children it is much easier. In most cases it is understood that the children stay with the father. This is the predicament that many of the families have to face. If the grandparents are healthy this difficulty, at times, can be surmounted but in most cases the children suffer a great deal and it is easily seen in their faces.

Just as in the west both the parents usually have to work. The traditional Korean family where all would be living under the same roof is disappearing. The norm is the sons leave the homestead and move to the city to find work and start a family. This seems to be the choice of all concerned. The farming families continue working without the sons and this lack is made up with modern day farming machinery.

There is also the case of grandmothers who live alone. They prefer at times to live away from the sons , for the freedom that it gives; they do not want to be a burden but poverty, at times, is also part of the picture. These woman have a difficult time for they have to do all the work and take care of the upkeep of the house but it is apparently easier on them then to live in the restricted atmosphere of family.

It doesn't take long for a society to change the way things are done and part of the reason for this is what they see and hear both in Korea and from the the rest of the world.

The Couple Who Married... with a Picture

One of the stories by Fr, Roman Theisen taken from the People I love.

"Could we arrange a marriage in the Church? None of us are Catholic." The speaker was a man about 40 years old. His question made me smile. Just a short time before, as member of a commission appointed by the Korean Bishops to draw up a directory for pastoral work in Korea, I had persuaded the the Bishops to allow non-Catholic marriages in the Churches of Korea, provided neither party had a divorce or any impediment of natural law.

"You see, Father," the man explained:"my parents were too poor to have a marriage ceremony with a picture. They just registered their marriage according to civil law. Then they had to support me and my six brothers and sisters. They always felt bad they had no picture of their wedding to show us as we grew up. Now my father's 60th birthday is coming up and we want to chip in and pay for a marriage ceremony for them. If its not too expensive, a real marriage... with a picture."

I assured them it wouldn't be too expensive. There were three wedding dresses at the Church and if one fit his mother they wouldn't even have to rent a wedding gown.

The Lord blessed the Wedding Day with a bright sun, and the bride was radiant with happiness, walking down the aisle to meet her groom of 40 years. Young women of the choir sang and the grandchildren played in the aisle as the couple promised to love and cherish each other. After the ceremony I stood with them before the altar as the local photographer took a picture.

Bride and groom smiled happily as they left the Church, surrounded by their seven children and numerous grandchildren. They were really married now... with a picture!

Decorating the Parish Church

One of the professors from the School of Art in the Diocese was invited to help in the remodelling of a parish Church. As he entered the parish grounds he noticed a number of statues of the Blessed Mother in different parts of the parish courtyard. "Father why in the world do you have so many statues of the Blessed Mother out in the yard?" To the question the parish priest answered that he asked for a donation for a statue and 5 parishioners, who could not be persuaded otherwise, left him with this problem of conscience. He couldn't give the statues away and could not destroy them, so the predicament.


In Korea the Protestants have difficulty with statues and crucifixes for they see them as images that are prohibited from their reading of the Old Testament. The Catholics have heard this but pay little attention. You also see at times a statue of Jesus or Mary on the top of a church building that turns to different parts of the parish. The professor of art would not see a difficulty with using statues and images but the place and surroundings should be considered in their placement.


In conclusion he reflects that we are influenced concretely with the connection we have with time and space. The images that we see affect the mind and heart that we do not see. No matter how good the image is, it can never express the reality that we want to see. That is why we have to be very careful with our images. That is true, he says for the images that we have outside the Church but more so for the images that we have in the church.


We should not attempt he says to decorate the Church in the way we decorate our homes. The Church is the place where we keep the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord is the master there, present in silence and in word those of us working pastorally, he concludes, should always remember this.

She Never Heard of Jesus

From the People I Love by Roman Theisen.M.M. (Incident took place in 1990)

Miss. Lee met us at the airport in Shanghai, China. She would be our official guide for the next 15 days. We were meeting officials in the Korean speaking region of North East China to discuss an invitation for Maryknoll Missioners to teach English in Universities there. Our itinerary included important tourist spots, such as the Great Wall and the archaeological sites of Xian, as well as sites sacred to us, including the chapel in Shanghai where the first Korean priest, St. Andrew Kim, was ordained in 1845.

As we toured China we visited seminaries and Churches of the Catholic Patriotic Association, the government supervised portion of the Catholic Church which has no contact with Rome. Both we and the Patriotic Association leaders were careful to obey Chinese law, which allowed us to say Mass privately in these Churches, but never in public. One site of great significance to me was the cemetery in Beijing in which are found remains of Father Matteo Ricci and other great Jesuit missionaries of the early 1600s. Their memorials are protected in the "back yard " of an official Communist office building.

Miss Lee continued to observe closely everything we did and said, and even attended our Masses. She impressed us as a highly intelligent and well educated woman. I was surprised when she approached me one day with a question that troubled her. "Who," she asked, "is this Jesus Christ? Is he a leader in your Church and does he live in America? And the Apostle Paul whose title I saw carved on one of the Churches as 'Apostle to the Nations'... Is he like your Foreign Minister? And does he live in America, too?"

I explained to her who Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul is. It was the only time in my career as a missionary that I've had the privilege of proclamining the Good new of Jesus Christ to someone who had absolutely never heard of Him before.

Miss Lee stayed with us until we finally boarded a boat of Panamanian registry at Weihai on the northern coast of China, for an overnight voyage over the Yellow Sea to the P0rt of Inchon, Korean . Out trip to China had been successful We now have four Maryknoll priests teaching in the Korean speaking Universities of North East China. (formally called Manchuria. )

Decrepit Old Men

The following is a incident retold by Fr. Roman Theisen in his booklet "People I Love".

As the three elderly men walked away, one with a slight limp the young Sister who was with me asked: "Who are those decrepit old men?" She had seen me invite them for coffee and walk with them to the gate. "Those are living martyrs of the Korean Church." I told her.

On June 25, 1950, the communist army of the North invaded South Korea, and sent millions of refugees pouring from the North into South Korea. Women and children were stopped at the bridges and train stations; young men of military age escaped on boats and trains to the South, remaining behind they would be conscripted in the North Korean Army, coming to the South they were conscripted into the South Korean Army.

When the fighting stopped and the Bamboo Curtain stabilized at the 38th parallel in 1953, dividing North and South Korea, these men were caught in the South and their wives and children sealed off in the North. As they were released from the Army the Catholic men, faced a cruel predicament. In Korea these men would find it very difficult to survive without their wives. Loyal Catholics, presuming their wives survived in the North could not remarry.

One of the priests invited such men to join him in a religious Brotherhood. As Religious Brothers they remained faithful to their wives in the North and at the same time supported themselves as carpenters, farmers, or by whatever occupation they had before the War. They were called the Brothers of the Korean Martyrs. Over thirty men joined him. When they petitioned for approval as a religious congregation Rome refused saying they must eventually return to their wives in the North.

When I started a parish in Kan Sek Dong the Brothers lent us their monastery chapel for Sunday Mass until we built our church. I was appointed to be their Confessor. I got to know these men. Since I was assigned elsewhere these Brothers would come several times a year for confession and spiritual direction. Several have died. Four of them left the Brotherhood and married, after I investigated the circumstances of their wives in North Korea and concluded that they must be presumed dead. Eight of the Brothers still visit me. Tired old men now largely forgotten by the Korean Church, somewhat looked down upon by the younger recruits to their Brotherhood, they continue to say their morning and night prayers together and work long hours on their farm. It has been an honor to know them.

The Focolare Movement in Korea

At the beginning of this month the Charismatic and the Focolari Movements had their gatherings in Korea. The Charismatic event was an international gathering of 377 persons from 44 countries. The Focolari was a Korean gathering of 3,000 meeting in Seoul to commemorate their 40th anniversary of beginning in Korea.

Focolare is an Italian word for "hearth," or "family fireside". Chiara Lubich, who died recently founded the movement in Trent, Italy, during the Second World War (1939-1945). Its spirituality focuses on unity among all peoples and religions, drawing inspiration from Jesus' prayer in Saint John's Gospel "that they all may be one."


The aim of the Focolare movement is to live like the early Christian communities . It started in Korea in 1969, Focolare now has about 25,000 members in the country, and this year they have ordained their first Korean Priest for the movement.

The bishop who presided at the Mass mentioned that the movement has done a great deal for unity and has given much warmth to the Catholic Church in Korea. He said " without the Focolare movement would not the Korean church have been the Jewish wedding where the wine ran out?"

There are many movements in the Church and they have done a great deal to invigorate the Church and bring enthusiasm to those who participate; they in turn have been a leaven for the whole community.








The Yongsan Tragedy Visited Again

The Yongsan redevelopment project and the aftermath are still very much a part of the news in Korea. Six persons were killed, five were protesters and one a policeman. The government and the construction companies went ahead with the removal of the tenants but not all agreed with the compensation that was offered; the refusal to move started the confrontation with the police, ending with a fire and the tragic death of six.

Urban renewal is an important part of any city's development but the problem comes when sufficient negotiation does not precede the removal of the tenants. Some of those who were living or had stores in the area were asking for more in compensation, enough to start again. The force that was shown by the government and the contractors was according to those who sympathize with the protesters returned in kind by the protesters. The protesters are reported to have used thinner to make Molotov cocktails which started the fire and caused the deaths.

In this week's Catholic paper it mentioned that the bishop in charge of pastoral ministry in Seoul made a visit to the site, extending condolences to the families of those who died. He expressed his surprise to see that the incident took place in a building facing the main street. He did not want to get sidetracked by the issue on who was right or wrong ( between the government and the families). There are people that are hurting and the Church should be there. It is difficult to decide who is in the right with both sides saying something different but he did say that we should be on the side of the poor and this was an issue where the poor are hurting.

The families of deceased are asking the government:

1) for the truth concerning the deaths,

2) an official apology from the government,

3) restoring the reputation of those who died.

If these conditions are fulfilled they will stop the demonstration and proceed with the burial of the dead who have been in the hospital mortuary for 5 months.

From the end of March there has been the office of the dead and Masses celebrated at the site of the tragedy. Let us pray that this will end soon with the Government taking steps to solve the impasse.