An Award For Protesting Trappist Nuns

Trappist Nuns are a cloistered community living a life of pray and work according to Benedictine Rule. It is not easy to imagine them doing anything that would merit an award given unanimously by the subcommittee on Environment of the Bishops' Justice and Peace Committee, but that is just what happened.



On Oct, 7th the head of the Committee, Bishop of Incheon, presented them with the award. The committee in giving the award said that the sisters in opposition to environmental destruction were following the lead of the Church and the teaching of their religious community. They were not only able to read the signs of the times but gave a prophetic voice to the concerns of the Church and were an example to the citizens and the Catholics.



The city originally planned to build apartments for the residents who live around the reclaimed site in the Sujeong-ri section of Masan, a city in the south bottom tip of the peninsula. The City changed the plans being strapped by finances to allow a ship building company to build a shipyard on the land.



The superior of the Cistercian Order of the Strict of Observance had to receive permission from the Trappist Central Administration to be part of the opposition and depart from their rule of cloister for the time necessary to be in solidarity with the villagers. It is very possible that without the help of the sisters the city and the shipyard company would have had an easy time of getting their way.



In receiving the award the superior of the sisters said in the two years of opposition to the city of Masan and the ship building company she saw greed and tyranny of the administration, and the shamelessness of the shipbuilding company: it's always the poor and the weak that have to suffer. She mentioned win or lose they will continue to fight with the villagers to the end.



On another occasion she said, "Our charism is prayer, of course, but living the spirit of the Gospel, which is love for neighbor, is our priority." She explained her nuns are concerned about the plight of the local community and the area's natural environment.



This must be the first time a cloistered community has even received an award from a Justice and Peace Committee for efforts in ecological environmental involvement.

A Korean Priest's Reflection On A Bus

A priest in our diocese writing for the Pastoral Newsletter recounted his experience riding on a city bus some years ago. It was late morning, the bus had plenty of empty seats, at the next bus stop a woman with two bundles got on . She put one of the bundles on the bus and went outside again for the second one. The bus driver with an irritated tone "is this a freight car!" he yelled.

The woman very sorry for the delay tried to get everything in order, pay her fare and get to a seat. Since she had two bundles unless someone helped her it was going to be a problem. A woman advanced in years sitting behind the priest quickly came up front to help with one of the bundles.

Since the the priest was the closest to the front of the bus he said that the thought never entered his mind to help. His only thought was one critical of the woman for carrying more bundles than she could handle. It was only after some thought that he realized the woman was poor, not able to travel by taxi, and forced by circumstances to travel with her bundles.

It is true that a man of advanced years in Korea is not expected to help a woman in such need; although it is not considered a fault he had misgivings. He considered that the main reason was his living as a priest and being the object of other peoples services that kept him at his seat.

He says Mass everyday, prays, reads the Scriptures and this in order to love more. He gives many talks on love and realized that when it came to acting in a loving way he was not ready.

The woman behind him did not read as many books on love or give talks on what it means to love but acted in a loving way when the occasion was presented. Her life was one of receiving and giving and when the occasion came she knew what to do.

We can fool ourselves he thought into thinking that because we have read many good books and have a theoretical knowledge of what is required that we are just wonderful. No matter how much theory we have in our heads that is not going to help us acting in a loving way.

Having high ideals is good and many are the people who act on these ideals. But if we do not live with others; do not make the effort to act on what we believe then just reading good books and praying will do little, he concluded, to enable us to be concerned for others.

Catholic Korean Pastoral English Magazine

The author of Blessing of the Rainbow ( can be ordered in English) and founder and head of the Future Pastoral Institute, Fr. Dong Yeop Cha, will have an English edition of the Korean magazine Catholic Pastoral Information.The September issue will be the trial issue with the first inaugural issue in October. It will try to facilitate the exchange of ideas on ministry with those with experience in different parts of the world.

The first publication of 500 copies will be for Europe and the United States, 40 countries and 240 dioceses and the concerned Vatican departments. It will also be sent to all the foreign missioners in Korea. The articles are taken from the existing Korean Issue and will be in digest form in the English edition, It will be an exchange of ideas, cross fertilization of experiences in pastoral work.

Fr. Cha feels that since the Korean Church is acknowledged as being in the forefront of evangelizing in Asia, Korea should take a lead in making known our experience and results to others.

Bishop Choi, the Bishop of Inchon, proposed the idea for such a magazine and hopes that it will be the means of not only helping the development of the Korean Church but help others by sharing the strong points of the Korean Church.

The Catholic Korean Church has been on the receiving end for many years with information, theological studies, research results and has learned a great deal. It is now time for us to share with others in ministry what we have learned and help others.

The Future Pastoral Institute has as its founding principles: be led by the Spirit, new approaches to information, and living in hope.

The vision:

1) Not to work alone but with others- Lay Apostolate.
2) From a waiting Church to one in search- from come to us - to going out to others.
3) From a belief of duty to one of grace- animated with life.

Five Works:

1) Study for a model of Church that is life giving.
2) Educating and giving talks on the integral life of faith.
3) Study and research for new leadership.
4) Research new methods of evangelizing.
5) Make pastoral aids for those in the work.

Proposals for Seminary Education

The Korean Church has 7 major seminaries. The number of seminarians in these seven seminaries is 1,413 as of 2008. Just this year the Seoul seminary decided to extend its priestly formation by six months to facilitate work for the graduate program.



The Suwon Diocese Seminary had a recent academic symposium in commemoration of its 25th year with an examination of the past, present and plans for the future. Both Catholic Papers had articles on the symposium. Those present on the panel were very candid in what they had to say: not much change from pre-Vatican II ways of thinking. One panelist mentioned there has to be subjects that will enable the students to be messengers of the Gospel to the society in which they live.



The making of the man was also stressed as being very important. One of the panelist mentioned there has been complaints of pride , authoritarianism and other character faults that come from a lack of interest in character formation of our students. Shouldn't the very public thinking of what are considered faults of the clergy be taken into account in the education of our seminarians?



The faculty unlike those in outside colleges do not see the results of their training for they are often changed to other assignments in the diocese. The faculty should be full time, devoted to study, and the recruitment should transcend the diocese , the provinceses and even the country. We should get the best available.



Another panelist mentioned that the changes in knowledge, and teaching has been extraordinary over the last 30 years but he thought the seminary has not kept pace. An effort should be made to form a committee working on the improvement of the curriculum. He stressed that if the education is to been successful, the faculty , the students and the the teaching process has to be first-rate. It is important to have stability in the recruitment of the professors, improve the research meetings and work to get better students. He also mentioned that the number of subjects should be reduced to make room for other areas of study.



Time has to be spend in character building and getting spirits of the Seminarians to shine. Another one thought it was not right to just think that seminarians are waiting to be formed, they also have the obligation to work to form themselves.



The president of the Seminary thanked all present and mentioned the seminary can not be oblivious to the demands of the times and the symposium will do a great deal to prepare the ground for reforming the seminary education program.



The Church in Korea is open to new ideas and better ways of doing things. They are extremely well organized and once they see a need results do follow.

Communion and Communication

Korea has seven Catholic seminaries, and although this helped to open the way for more vocations it has also divided the clergy into different groups. When they had only the Seoul seminary they all new each other and when the Kwangju seminary was built it was the first division but now we have seven and for some, in a very homogeneous and well organized society, hard to accept.

For the religious this is a bigger problem for they have experienced community and are not easily able to fraternize with their fellow Korean religious-divided as they are in formation, among the different seminaries.

One of the religious in an article thought that (communio and communicatio) communion and communication are two very important elements in the life of priests. He would recommend a proposal that has been around for some time that after the course of studies for the priesthood is finished, all end up at one place for the final year for communion and communication. He feels that this is necessary for renewal, they have a need to build community and through communication to work towards renewal, an ongoing sign of the health of the Church.

Although this has many approving of the idea he acknowledges that it does not seem feasible. There are just too many obstacles to overcome to have it see the light of day.

The whole idea of communion and communication does present one with a good blueprint for life in the Church. A problem that we have is a failure to communicate and possibly the first step is communion. Unless we know one another and make an effort to understand and talk to one another from the heart, divisions that we have will continue.

Cardinal Avery Dulles had one of the models of Church as a Community. The six that he proposed need not be independent of each other but help to make for an integral vision of Church. The problems we have in parishes, dioceses and communities is the absence of a desire to talk to one another at a deeper level. The communio is missing and the lack of communication naturally follows.

Here in Korea where we still have a very uniform society it is still noteworthy to see some in the Church desiring an almost impossible dream. It is is a beautiful dream but the obstacles are just too many to overcome - having more communion , however, is not something that we should ignore because of the difficulty.

Seeing in a Different Way

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (after this therefore because of this) thinking is very common and one of the fallacies which we are prone to commit. The Post Hoc Fallacy is committed whenever one reasons to a causal connection between two events merely because they follow one another in the order of time.

A columnist in the Catholic Weekly had some thoughts on this fallacy for our enlightenment. He is not using our Latin words but Korean equivalents and asking us not to confuse before and after with cause and effect. Just because something precedes doesn't mean it is the cause. Because I lit a candle in the house and the house burnt down doesn't mean the lighting of the candle was the cause. When I have sinned the punishment that may follow was not necessarily caused by my sin. It could be the instrument for my glory.

Often when help is given to others in difficult straits many think they will get grace or be blessed. This is not correct. The very fact that you have helped others means that you were helped by grace.

When some of the Catholics in the parish have returned from some work or service to the poor many expect some kind words from the pastor and if they don't receive it they are dejected. Even when we do a good work we want that recognized , encouraged by words of compensation.

It is thought that for the parish to be revitalized it is necessary to have a great pastor. Take the example of a class in school, learning is more dependent on the quality of the students than the teacher. That would be true also in a parish.

When we criticize others it is more a reflection on us than on the person who is criticized. Little is really ever accomplished. Let us try to see things differently. We have to get away from our ego centrism and empty ourselves for that is what our life of faith is all about.

Let us see things differently. Get rid of selfishness and stubbornness. Ask for the Spirit and move ahead. No pretence in our laughter, no severity in our service, no meanness in our kindness, not desiring compensation in our concern for the other, no ostentation in our justice, no showing off in our giving , no self admiration in working for justice. This is only possible with the help of grace and maturity of mind, the starting point is humility.

If we have been looking ahead in haste let us now stop for awhile, look both on the right and left and see if we can see something different. Our lives will be happier.

Evangelization Jesus' Way

In continuation of yesterday's blog there is a great deal to be said about evangelization:what to do and what not to do. We are not good carriers of the message that Jesus gave us. Catholics are not united as we should be, although in Korea we do have a certain type of unity; there are serious divisions among Protestants, and in recent times, not obvious in the past, fundemental issues separating Christians in the different Churches. The unity a very important part of Jesus' message is not considered important enough to make it central to our thinking.


This lack of unity is no help in the work of evangelizing that Jesus gave us to do. One has little difficulty seeing how mystified are those without religion looking upon us with religion. In Korea as in other parts of the world the numbers of those without religion is becoming one of the largest segments of society very likely most of the blame belongs to us.

In the presentation that was made at the symposium on Evagelization the conclusion was to do a better job in presenting our message. One of the suggestions was to use the three Cs approach to evangelization which is taken from the business world: Content, Community and Commerce. The case was made that in our world it is no longer duty that speaks but grace, gift. One has to experience the gift of grace or else we get nowhere. We have to use the operating methods of the market. The competition to bring people to Jesus is great, there are just too many out there doing what we do and those who do a better job in the marketing will get more followers, we are dealing with consumers.


The conclusion was to have a diverse spiritual product that fits the culture. We have to draw plans that fit the mental world of our people and build the future community.

This reminds me of Maryknoll's own attempt many years ago to use some of the know how from the business world to do a better job as missioners. I have forgotten the order but some of the words we were using were: aim, plans , targets and goals. We can learn a great deal from business and other areas of life but grace will always be what it is all about.

Catholics have to be the example of what it means to be persons of grace. The life of grace has to be seen: persons of joy, peace love... the gifts of the Spirit. The future will have the product speak for itself. It will not be words or our selling but the attraction of what we are. What we need is saints who can show us the way of grace. That will be attraction enough. It was Jesus' way.