Foreigners in KoreaㅡCatholic Missionaries

Back in the early 60s the missioner would ordinarily be the only foreigner walking the streets of the farming area in which he worked. He had one of the better looking houses in the area; one of the few cars travelling the roads seemed to belong to a senior civil servant, police chief or a missioner. The missioner excited widespread interest in those who passed his way. The word you heard was "American American," (미국 사람 미국사람) sometimes with a not too complementary adjective but most of the time just the word "American". I wondered how the other foreigners at that time liked to be called Americans. The Koreans had seen many foreign soldiers right after the Korean War and most of them were Americans.

If in the 60s foreigners where an odd sight to most of the Koreans especially in the country it is not hard to understand why during the years of persecution the Paris Foreign Missioners wore mourning clothes to disguise their appearance.

Coming into recent times the foreigner is no longer a stranger, even the children in the country do not bother to look twice. We have become a part of the Korean way of life. Korea is no longer a hermit kingdom or the home of a racially homogeneous people. This change came quickly and within a few years it will be 2 million foreigners living in Korea.

In the paper yesterday the front page carried an article reporting that the number of foreigners in Korea has topped 1 million. From the last time they made the count back in 2006 the increase was almost double. It seems that all the different groups have had an increase: different national groups, naturalized citizens, children of foreigners, illegal aliens, workers, overseas Koreans residing in Korea, students, and business people. However not mentioned were missionaries. Most of the missionaries that were here before the Korean War would have a decrease in the numbers working in Korea. The Maryknoll Society from the high mark, close to 100 Maryknollers have only 17 that remain in Korea. The Korean Church does not need us and some of the men, who have worked in Korea, have volunteered to go to China, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia and even Japan. (Click to see where we work) Those of us who remain try to help the Korean Church in areas where they accept us and most hope , health permitting , to remain until we return to our true home country.

Like a Little Child

From our Maryknoller in Hong Kong Fr. John Cioppa.

...I can see why Jesus loved children. He saw them as so genuine. At their stage of life they were still open and sincere and still so trusting. My two nieces gave me a greater appreciation of why Jesus chose a child as a model that we should imitate and learn from. The image He put forward as the ideal to strive for was not an image of a great hero or person of great strength or powerㅡ not even an old wise man or saint from the Old Testament. The image of true greatness was the image of a child and that's the secret of the spirituality of Jesus Himself.

I am sure we have all been moved by a mother holding a child in her arms or a child sleeping on its mother's shoulder. They are so full of trust. They have no reason to mistrust anyone or anything. It is only as we grow older that we learn to mistrust, becoming fearful and suspicious of others. Feelings of fear are natural especially in a situation of danger, and I' m sure Jesus experienced these some feelings of fear., We are told that he sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane when threatened with arrest, torture, and death. But He trusted His Father and prayed that famous prayer, "Your will be done" (Mk 14:36). Jesus experienced fear but His response was one of trust in His Father.

Another remarkable quality of a healthy child is a sense of wonder. Everything is new and surprising. I can still see the expressions on the faces of my nieces when the wind blew the leaves and flower during a rainstorm and when the rain stopped, running out to play in the puddles on the sidewalk. For a child everything is new and magical. As we grow older we lose that sense of wonder.Everything becomes ordinary and taken for granted. When the wind blows the leaves and flowers bend and when the rain is over there are puddles on the sidewalk. But our reaction is," So what?" Not so with the child. One of the ways of staying young is to try to preserve that sense of wonder. Nature is a good place to start. Just take a moment to become conscious of the world around us: the beautiful scenery, mountains, the astronauts living on a space station for three months. Eventually we too begin seeing everything as mysteries: the oceans, flowers, grass, trees. Then there are all the marvels of science, like taking a space ship to the moon. Jesus had a deep sense of wonder. He was enthralled by the beauty of the lilies of the field, the birds of the air (Mt. 6:28), and the wheat that grows quietly and invisibly while the farmer sleeps ( Mk. 4:28). In all these marvels of nature, Jesus shows the mysterious hand of God. He was a mystic and a poet

One final quality we associate with childhood is playfulness, laughter and fun. Children laugh so easily. They pretend they are gown-ups: doctors, nurses, teachers, mother, firemen or policemen. Jesus also noticed the kids playing in the marketplace, some singing the songs of weddings, others the songs of funerals ( Lk. 7:32). Unfortunately we tend to lose this playfulness as we g row up and become more serious.We often think of the saints as serious, humourless, quiet people. Not so. Just consider St. Francis. He used to sing to the birds and flowers and roll in the snow in wintertime. Some even say that Jesus wasn't a joyful person because the Gospels never say He laughed. When we see His great love for children, I am sure He smiled and laughed all the time.

Jesus' choice of a little child as a model provides us with an image of the kind of person we need to become if we are to become like Him. The image of a childlike joyful personality I think gives us a good idea of the person of Jesus Himself. And he told us to imitate His love as He imitates the love of the Father.

The next time you see children playing, or a new born baby or a mother holding an infant in her arms look closely to see if you can see Jesus.

Examination of Consciousness

Fr. John Meehan's points for making a private retreat.


One of the symptoms of addiction to alcohol and other substances is called a blackout. During this period a person seems to be going about their usual activities, working, driving, or anything else but they are not aware of what is happening and they do not remember anything about it afterwards. This happens at a very late state in the addiction, near the time when it becomes life threatening. In a lesser but almost as dangerous a sense, all of us suffer from symptoms similar to blackouts. I go through long periods of time without much awareness of what is going on. All too often I do not even bother to remember what happened today or last evening or anytime. My life goes on with little awareness and even less reflection on what I am doing and what life is doing to me. This life style is destined to lead to boredom, depression, and is perfect training to be the opposite of a wise person.

On the other hand, if I want to grow in wisdom, understanding, and love of life and living, I need to reflect on my own life. To know myself and learn from my own experiences is the beginning of wisdom and healthy living. Reflection and awareness are the most important qualities needed for the growth of my spiritual life.

Self awareness and self knowledge are the strong foundation for any growth in the spirit and for both wholeness and holiness. To aid my self awareness and self-knowledge I will make it a practice twice daily to make such an examination, both during and after my retreat.

This exercise develops awareness and draws my attention to the presence of God in my life. Twice a day for five or ten minutes I will stop whatever I am doing and take a few moments to center myself. I will become quiet and internally alert. Then I will gently place myself in the presence of the Spirit of God, for a minute I will rest quietly and then review my day to that moment. To do this exercise well I need to recall what has taken place in my day up to this time of prayer. I will ask two questions of each happening or activity that I remember: was God present? How was God present? For God's presence and action in my life, I will offer a prayer of thanks; for my lack of awareness and for my sins, I will say " I am sorry".

This is a good prayer to record in my journal . After some time it will be important to reflect back on the various ways in which God has been present in my life and how God has shown love and has influenced my life.

If this discipline is followed daily, several very healthy effects will come into my daily living. The most telling one will be growth in my awareness of the presence of God. This awareness will not only be of past things reflected upon but will also involve my own growing awareness of God's constant activity in my life. I will slowly become more and more conscious of God's actions and learn to be alert to them most of the time. I will with patience become aware of the divine activity in my life by breaking through the various obstacles that I have developed to block out much of God's grace.

Over time this discipline will aid me directly in developing the contemplative openness to see and experience God's working and presence at all levels of human experience. God actually gifts all of us with the graces of contemplation but usually I am too preoccupied and distracted to be aware of the opportunities. My growing awareness of the presence of God, will contribute much to breaking down the barriers that limit my full human development and my experience of the divine.

Finding a Martyr Saint

The discovery of a shallow grave from the 1866 persecution period by an American priest in July 1980, led to the recent dedication of a church in the memory of Saint Luke Sokdu Hwang in May 2009. The saint is one of Korea's 103 martyr saints most who's last resting place are unknown.

Maryknoll Father Robert M. Lilly, former pastor of Su An Bo Church area where the grave was located, placed a relic of the martyr in the new church in Cheong Ju diocese. "I was fortunate to find the ancestral burial ground of the Hwang family in a mission station of my parish," he said. " My desire to find out more about his role in the growth of the Catholic Church in Korea evolved from that discovery."

Luke Sokdu Hwang was martyred with four companions at Kalmaemot on the west coast of Korea in March 1866. Childless, he had adopted his nephew, son of an older brother, some years earlier. At the time of martyrdom, the adoptee no doubt had heard the news,
but waited two months before going to the site. Then secretly at night he retrieved the body and carried it home. Other members of the family had already fled and dispersed in every direction. Only another nephew, Andrea Hwang and the martyr's adopted son John remained to bury the corpse in a temporary grave. They observed that the body still seemed supple and life like in appearance. They then took leave of the village where a number of the family had lived prior to the last great persecution.

Andrew Hwang was martyred that same year in Seoul, while John Hwang underwent the same fate in Seoul In 1867. Previous to that, John Hwang had transferred the remains of Luke Sokdu Hwang, his adoptive parent, to their ancestral roots in Pyeong Pang Kol in north Chung Cheong province. There, one hundred and fourteen years later, on July 9th 1980, the heretofore unknown grave was opened.

Luke Sokdu Hwang's name was on the list of twenty four candidates beatified by Pope Paul VI in Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome, on October 6,1968. Added to the seventy nine already raised to that honor, the total amounted to one hundred and three awaiting canonization. That historic event, conducted by Pope John Paul II, took place in Youido Plaza, Seoul on May 6, 1984.

Meanwhile, through the years local gossip at Pyeong Pang Kol had always rumored that a Christian believer killed for his faith was buried in the mountainside Hwang family grave site. About ten years after the beatification ceremony in Rome and following an extensive search of church and civil records, the quest narrowed.

The grave revealed skeletal remains resting in water only a few feet under the surface. The severed head lay upside down on the chest and the whole scene suggested that the burial had been carried out in a harried and confused fashion, nothing like the usual Korean respect for the dead.

Later , on closer examination at Sou An Bo church the remains showed that the neck had been cut through at the third vertebrae of the spinal column by a blunt instrument, such as a heavy sword, with such force that it had driven the fragmented bone into the skull. The upside down position of the head upon the chest bone would have alerted attention in any subsequent exhumation and the shallowness of a water filled grave again was contrary to rigid Korean custom.

Present through out the procedure were the late Church historian, Father Joseph Kisoun Oh, the Su An Bo pastor, a senior family member and a medical doctor from Saint Mary's hospital in Seoul. The bones remained at Su An Bo for two years before being transferred to Yon Pung martyrs shrine on August 25, 1982, where then retired Korean Archbishop Paul Kinam Ro officiated at the internment ceremony.

Needless to say it had been a long journey for the saint from a mountainside unknown grave to a site of veneration in a beautiful new church of Cheong Ju city and a spiritual trek as well for his persistent companion.

Lastly, it is a fitting postscript to point out that had not the opportunity been seized to seek out and save the relics of a martyr of the Church, a different scenario might have occurred, as it has on many occasions. In the mid nineteen eighties the separate graves of Pyeong Pang village were moved and it became part of a huge public works project, an interchange in the burgeoning Korea superhighway system.

The Catholic Church and the Poor

In the Now Here Catholic New's Site an article asked is the Catholic Church the religion of the elite in our Korean Society?

The point that is being made is the Catholics seem to be gravitating to certain areas where the educational level, the income and place in society is rather high.

One of the graphs showed those over 18 years of age who were graduates of college or junior college: Buddhist 21.7 %, Protestants 34.1%, Catholics 38.0%. In looking over the graph the Catholics are those with the most years of education. The higher numbers of those that have white collar jobs are also the Christians, Catholics and Protestants. The proportion of Buddhists, Confucians and Won Buddhist engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing on the other hand would be noticeably higher.

It seems that from polls of the past it is easily noticed that those who have a higher educational background are also those who have adapted to the modern life style. This is also becoming true of the Won Buddhists.

The conclusion is one that I have seen expressed over the years by many who have seen the growth of the Catholic Church. The Catholics were the poor but knew they were part of the community and were proud of their role. In certain areas this is no longer true. Also the young people who are not college or junior college students may not feel welcomed in the youth groups.


I have heard it said over the years that some of the poorer Christians do not feel comfortable in a Church were all are better educated and have a better life style. This problem is not easily solved and it may be the reason the poor and uneducated no longer find the Catholic Church as welcoming as in the past.

I Thirst

From In His Own Words, Fr. John Cioppa Maryknoller in Hong Kong.

Two small words . Simple and plain. But we remember them as two of the last words spoken by Jesus just before the end. Like all religious people we have a deep interest in reflecting and examining the last words of a person before he dies.We do that with our parents, we do it with our friends.We value those words and we wonder what they mean. For Jesus these two words become a key to knowing him and understanding His heart. We look at them not just as an indication of His physical need for water, but as a gateway through which we begin to understand who He is and who we are.

Long before Jesus spoke them and the Gospel writers recorded them, we find these words in the Psalms as a cry of anguish and distress poured out by the Jewish people to their God:

O God you are my God whom I seek;
For you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts,
Like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water. (Ps63:1)

Jesus knew these words and understood their deeper meaning. True, His body needed water, but even more His soul needed the consolation and peace of His Father. Those two words spoken by Jesus reflect the thirst that exists in all of us as we struggle to find the true fountain of life and peace and true meaning. These two words reflect the deepest desire of our hearts. Knowingly or unknowingly we thirst for the Father just like Jesus. We look everywhere and try everything to find water that can slake our thirst. Then we drink only to find that the water is bitter and poisoned and our thirst continues.

On the first Friday of each month we honour the Sacred Heart of Jesus and reflect on the words, "I thirst" as spoken by Jesus on the Cross and experienced by each of us in our hearts. The Gospels record that after Jesus died, soldiers pierced his side, and blood and water poured out from His Sacred Heart. As we go through life and try many different waters to satisfy our thirst, hopefully one day we will try this sacred water and find that it is not only sweet, but is the only true water that can bring true meaning, peace and joy to our hearts.

Background to the Faith in Korea Part II

Continued from previous blog.

Bishop Blanc, who succeeded Bishop Felix Ridel as seventh Apostolic Vicar in 1884, assembled the first open synod and published a Directorium Commune or "Rule book of the Korean Church". It was based on records made by Father Ridel of resolutions passed at a conference of priests held from 1868 to 1874 in Chakou, Liaotung, a province of Manchuria (Northeast China) contiguous to Korea. The Bishop's directives guided mission work until revision forty-five years later.

Paris based French missionaries devised a system of registration to keep tabs on who were active and practicing Catholics. It mirrored civil regulations and gave a sense of urgency to being listed as a parish member in good standing. Twice a year the pastor gave an oral exam on prayers and doctrine after which he gave a ticket to be handed in at confession and recorded in the parish registry. The obligation included all from First Communicants to the elderly.

A seminary was established in 1885 with the first ten priests ordained in 1896. The Church started welfare work with a lay run orphanage in 1885 and an old folks home soon after. French Sisters of Saint Paul de Chartes arrived from Saigon in 1888. German Benedictine Fathers and Brothers of the Congregation of Saint Ottilien came to Seoul in 1909 and soon established a presence at Wonsan in present North Korea.

Suffering for the Church was far from over with the end of the Great Persecution(1866-'72). It continued with Japan's hegemony over East Asia beginning as early as 1904 but especially during the whole period of the occupation of Korea (1910-'45) in the form of Japanese hostility to Christianity and opposition to the role of foreign missionaries.

Following World War I which cost a heavy loss of personnel in European missionary institutes, the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda in 1922 thought to increase the number of apostolic works in Korea. Maryknoll consented to assume responsibility for the territory northwest of Seoul in the two provinces of North Pyong Yang and South Pyong Yang. Father Patrick J Byrne arrived in Seoul, May 10th, 1923 and was joined in the fall by Father John E. Morris and Patrick H. Cleary to make the original mission band. Father Byrne made his headquarters at Sinwiju ten miles distance from Wiju near the mouth of the Yalu river. Maryknoll Sisters arrived in 1924, German Benedictine Sisters came in 1925 and the Columban Fathers arrived in 1933.

The Centennial celebration of the erection of Korea as a Vicariate Apostolic was held September 26, 1931 in Seoul Cathedral. On this occasion, bishops and priests, foreign and Korean, well qualified both in experience and ecclesiastical training gathered in national synod. Archbishop Edward Mooney, Apostolic Delegate to Japan and later Cardinal Archbishop of Detroit, presided. Representing the Pyong Yang prefecture were Monsignor John E. Morris, and Father Patrick Cleary, Dean Chisholm, Walter Coleman and Leo Sweeney.

Not unlike the first assembly, the synod's purpose was to review and improve the regulations of intervening years. The Directorium was updated and revised as a mission-related compendium of theology, cannon law and liturgy. It became standard reference for pastors in legislative and juridical matters concerning spiritual life, social conduct, mission work and the exercise of pastoral authority. Monsignor Morris described it as a code of regulations applying to all areas, which the faithful were encouraged to follow for their salvation. Responding to Pope Pius XI's call for lay participation, the bishops started a movement for collaboration in evangelization and reminded the laity, of their glorious heritage of responsibility for the faith.

When the missionaries were expelled in 1942-'43 the local clergy under Bishop Francis Hong, who was consecrated June 29, 1943, took responsibility for the Church in Pyong Yang Vicariate. The division of Korea in 1945 brought increased difficulties until finally with Bishop Hong's abduction in May 1949 and the arrest of his priests in the following months the Church ceased to exist in the north.

Meanwhile in the south individual Maryknollers had returned and served at various posts in Seoul and vicinity from 1947-'50. Monsignor Patirck J. Byrne, founder of both Korea and Japan regions, returned from Tokyo in 1947 as Visitator Apostolic for Korea. He was appointed the first Apostolic Delegate in April 1949 and consecrated bishop on June 14, 1949 in Seoul.

On June 25, 1950 the fratricidal Korean War began. Maryknoll priests in the Republic served as chaplains during the fighting 1950-'53. In June 1950 Bishop Byrne was arrested at Myong Dong Cathedral with Father William R. Booth and endured a "death march" to North Korea where he died November 25, 1950 in a prison hut. In 1951 Father Joseph W. Connors established Choryong parish in Pusan.

Renewed emphasis on evangelization and a Second Spring began with the acceptance of a mission field in the Province of Chung Chong Pukto, in September 1953. Personnel included members from the former mission and newly ordained all serving under the leadership of society superior Father James V.Pardy. He was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Cheong Ju in 1958 and installed as first bishop of the diocese in 1962. The Inchon mission opened in 1958. Father Joseph W. Connors was appointed Vicar Forane with ordinary responsibility for the district and islands. Father Joseph P. Gibbons followed as vicar. In 1961 "Father William J. McNaughton was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Inchon and with establishment of the hierarchy in 1962 became first bishop of Inchon diocese. Parishes were staffed in Pusan, Seoul, Suwon and Masan. Like Pyong Yang (1942) in the north, Cheong Ju (1968) and Inchon (2002) dioceses were turned over to a Korean Ordinary.