A Peek into the Life of a North Korean Refugee

Another vignette about the life of  North Korean women refugees living here in the South appeared in a column in the Peace Weekly by the Sister working with refugees in Incheon. Taking one of the women to a large market, she noted how everything surprised her, from the  size of the market to the number of products on the shelves.

The Sister stayed  close to her so she wouldn't lose her in the large crowd. The woman bought a 5kg bag of brown sugar. The Sister asked her why she bought so much; she laughed, telling  Sister it would be alright if she didn't  know.

But knowing the Sister's desire, she relented and said that it was to wash her face to make it smoother and more woman-like. She then sang a little North Korean ditty: "Womanhood is a flower/ a thrifty flower of the house/ an affectionate wife and sister/ without them an important part of life would be empty." The song uses an old word for a wife not used in the South, meaning "the sun of the house."

These refugees are thinking of those they left behind and are dreaming of being reunited with them some day. So they try  to save money in every way possible. They will walk instead of taking a bus. When they need to call Sister, they will often hang up after the first ring, not  wanting to run up the telephone bill and hoping the Sister will know who called and will return the call. 

Since they have no skills they work at odd jobs, such as packaging chocolates, assembling hand phones in their homes and in restaurants washing dishes. In trying to realize their dreams, they pay little attention to their health. And feeling sorry for the children left behind, they try to make up for it by buying for the children that manage to rejoin them, but too young to appreciate it, expensive clothes and hand phones.

Their life is full of intensity and warmth for the family, a part of life the South was accustomed to in the past. These women from the North are showing us the kind of life that once was the common experience of many in the South,  but now is fast disappearing.

Addiction to Internet Games

We revisit again the  problem of internet game addiction of the young. A professor emeritus in preventive medicine of the Catholic Medical School writes in the Culture of Life column in the Peace Weekly that the level of addiction is serious.

A survey made last year of 123,000 students from a 4th grade grammar school and a 1st year middle school found about the same level of addiction in the grammar school as it did in the middle school-- over 5 percent. Another survey of students, age 9 to 19, found that 14.3 percent, or about 100,000, were addicted  and in need of therapy.

The effects of this frightful addiction are not limited to the excessive amount of time spent in gaming. The effects are also felt throughout society, as our young people, becoming languid and spiritless, withdraw from society. This addiction, like alcohol and drug abuse, can lead to mental and physical health problems and complete lose of self-restraint. The very young who take up internet gaming are even more susceptible to being harmed, and the prognosis less hopeful. And for some, depression and suicide are possible outcomes.                                                                                                                                                           Even though the facts are clear the government still views the problem of internet addiction as an individual problem. To promote the internet industry, they are willing  to accept this dysfunction. The Korean market for internet games is vast, and the foreign news media see this economic fact as not unrelated to the addiction. The income from the internet game industry this year is expected to increase by 17 percent. The professor wonders how many more problems are we going to have before the harm is seen as serious.

The evening shutdown of the games--promoted by a number of groups--from 12:00 midnight to 6:00 am is a help, the professor admits. But in the society we have made, simple regulations alone, he insists, are not going to remedy the situation--urgent problems need urgent remedies.
 

The Catholic Church, with its on-going interest in promoting the culture of life, should be especially interested in developing programs to wean our young people away from the lure of internet gaming, and its potential for harm, into pursuits that will benefit both the individual and the society. 



















    

A Lesson on how to Alienate People from the Church

A diocesan priest, professor at the Incheon Catholic University, writes in the Pastoral Bulletin for priests that one of the big issues confronting the Church in Korea is the large  number of tepid Christians. We also call them "on holiday Christians"  but by whatever name they're called, they have distanced themselves from the Church. Whether it's the weakening of their belief or someone in the Church they dislike or for some other reason, they find going to Church  a burden.

To blame this situation on selfish individualism or the materialistic society we are living in, the priest assures us this is not the proper perspective. In the last  years of the  20th century, many Europeans, he reminds us, still believed in God and in his goodness, but felt a growing dislike for the Church and a conviction that it was no longer relevant in today's world. He wonders if this  perspective would not be  a better way of describing the situation we are facing in the Church today.

The Church has become not a place of hearing the "happy news" but a place where those facing  difficulties and worn out by life have been given more and heavier difficulties to contend  with, without the necessary understanding. The Church, for a growing number of Catholics, has become not a place of rest but a place where they are considered sinners, treated coldly, a place of many words and much weariness. Let us put aside whether they are treated like  adults, he says. They are required unconditionally to obey their priests if they are to be considered good Catholics. Their emotional life often is  treated lightly, and when they are people with little money, power and honors, they often are disregarded and made to feel alienated. Is it any wonder, he says, that the Church has become a place where we cultivate tepids.

The Church should be, he says, like a mother, a spiritual oasis. A place where the mind finds rest: a place of religious experience, of sharing. A place where through sacrifice we become acquainted with grace. A place where we don't look for money or material things but happiness and freedom.

For those of us who believe in Christ, the Church should be a place where the cross is not an embarrassment but a sign of the resurrection and of our salvation. This world is the place we are to find liberation, to feel the great love of God and his providence. To give ourselves fully to the quest for fulfillment, we turn naturally to the Church. If the Church can change into this kind of refuge, then it is not only God that becomes believable and good but the Church as well.

Interview with Korean Ambassador to the Vatican

Korea's new ambassador to the Vatican, Han Hong-soon, appointed last year, gave his guarded opinion on a few subjects dealing with the Korean Catholic Church in an interview with the Dong-A-Ilbo.                                                  
The ambassador was the head  of the Catholic Lay Apostolic Council of Korea and knows the Church well from his many years in positions of authority. He was one of five members selected in 2008 to the Vatican's International Council on Financial Matters. Previous ambassadors were career diplomats, but his background is in academia, receiving his doctorate in economics from the Roman Gregorian University; he taught  economics for over 30 years in a Korean university. He did not look for the job, he said, and when it came, he suddenly felt like the donkey that carried Jesus into Jerusulem for the last time.

Asked about the future of the Korean Church with the retirement of Cardinal Chong: there will be changes. The Cardinal had submitted his resignation before his 75th birthday as is required. (Cardinal Kim's resignation was accepted when he reached 76.) Cardinal Chong is now 80 years old and his resignation has still not been accepted. He is highly respected in Rome, said the ambassador, and in canon law few are his peers.

To the question what  did the Pope say about Korea when he presented his credentials, he answered that the Pope said that Korea has gone from a receiving Church to a giving one, and  a great deal is expected from such a large group of educated Catholics.

He was asked about the possibility of another cardinal for Korea. (Japan, which has only 500,000 Catholics, had  two  cardinals in years past.)  The ambassador mentioned that Cardinal Kim, on his visits to Rome, had asked for another cardinal, and that he also will when the occasion presents itself. Korea, he said, is entitled to another cardinal. 

The interviewer asked about the priests in the Catholic Peace and Justice Committee ,who were asking for the Cardinal's resignation. A position criticized  by many lay people. When asked what the Vatican thought about this issue, he said they were pleased with the way the Cardinal handled the situation.

The ambassador also discussed, off the record, some of the possible candidates who are in a position to follow Cardinal Chong, and when asked about one possible candidate, who is not on good terms with the Government, he had nothing to say.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

The Goal of Religious People-- Living in Harmony

"The basic norm for religious people to live in harmony is to respect and understand one another. We have to rid ourselves of self-righteousness and exclusiveness." These are the words, quoted in the Peace Weekly, of Archbishop Kim of Kwangju, the new president of the Korean Conference on Religion. He  is also the president of the Korean Bishops Committee for Promoting Christian Unity and Inter-religious Dialogue.

The Archbishop said that Korea is a department store-like country when it comes to religions. He aims to try to work for an understanding among religions. Remembering the conflict recently between Protestants and Buddhists, he was moved to work for harmony among the different religions.

"Korean people have a respect for  different religions," he said. "It is part their religious nature." The beautiful coexistence we have had, and continues to exist, was broken by only a small  segment of Protestant fundamentalists and should not be seen as a Protestant problem. We have to make efforts, he said,this doesn't happen again; these conflicts are not easily understood by the majority of our citizens.

What I hold with great value, the archbishop said, I should see others holding with the same value. He reminds us of the Korean expression to put ourselves in the other person's shoes when we are tempted to speak or act in a critical manner.

During his two years as president, he said he would like the religious people of  Korea to help establish a bridge of communication with the religious groups in North Korea, in order to begin solving some of the smaller problems between us.

When religious people  get involved in  societal and political issues superficially, without great thought, it can be understood as demagoguery. We need more study and self-reflection on our problems,not only to point out the problems but to look at them from our religious outlook, to diagnose and offer directions for the future.

He hopes that the Korean academic worlds of philosophy and theology will show us ways to look on our long-standing problems from different vantage points, giving us hope and a vision for a better future.

Conversation With Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk

On March 18,  Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk will be celebrating his 50th year of priesthood. It is rare for an ordinary in office to be celebrating his golden jubilee. In a two-page spread in The Catholic Times, the managing director reports on a conversation he had with the Cardinal.

The cardinal recalled his years with thanks for the great love he has received despite what he called "his many failings." He was baptized in the cathedral parish of Myong Dong, served as an altar boy and said his first Mass in the Cathedral, and now lives in the Cathedral parish.

                                                      

As an only son, in the past he would not have been accepted for the priesthood because of the cultural expectations for an only son in  Korean society. He recalled mentioning to his mother his desire to be a priest, knowing the difficulties this would cause her and even expecting some opposition on her part; if so, he was prepared to give it up. However, she wasn't surprised, suspecting that was his intention from the time he was an altar boy. But to go to the seminary, he needed the permission of the bishop, Archbishop Ro Ki-nam, who had been assistant priest at the  Cathedral  for 12 years, during which time the lay head of the parish was the Cardinal's grandfather. Archbishop Ro often visited the family and knew it well. The mother, once she knew the desire of her son, went to see the bishop to get permission and persisted even though he was opposed. She finally got her way. The Cardinal remembers his mother as a person with the faith of Abraham.
 
I became acquainted  with the  Cardinal's mother  from the time in my  first parish in Incheon, where she was a parishioner for a few years. She was, a very happy, devoted and outgoing person.

The Church in Korea when he was ordained, the Cardinal recalls, had few members. While in Rome for studies he was often asked where he came from; he would  ask them to guess. Usually the response  would be Japan or China, in that order; Korea would come in about 10th. Korea at that time was largely unknown to the Europeans and even more so when it came to the Korean Church. 

The Cardinal remembers the time after being appointed bishop of the Cheongju Diocese, when there were only six Korean priests and 20 Maryknoll priests in 22 parishes. When he left to become the ordinary of Seoul, the 100th Korean priest was ordained for the diocese.
 
Asked about problems encountered during his 50 years as a priest, he said that not all has been peaceful but does not remember any really serious issues. There was always someone there to help him, he said, and his habit of writing a book each year of his priestly life also helped him overcome any difficulties; he devotes at least one hour a day to writing. 

His hope for the Church is to have us more concerned with evangelizing ourselves and the Church. We are always being called, he said, to change and to be renewed, which was also the subject of his pastoral message this year. With this way of thinking, the Cardinal feels the new evangelization will take hold and spread.

 May the Cardinal continue to be blessed with  good health and happiness, and continue to write a  new book each year for the rest of his life.                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Distractions in Prayer

The Koreans have a great respect for ritual and rites, partly because of the Confucianism that has influenced the culture. As a result, our Catholics find it easy to adapt quickly to the liturgies and rites of the Mass, which are performed with a great deal of devotion and attention, also evident when performing other spiritual exercises. 

In a recent article in the Catholic Times, the columnist refers to some questions he has received on what to do before the Blessed Sacrament when in prayer. How long should one spend in meditation? Should we use the Scriptures? What should we do with our hands? What is the best posture?

Although they have tried, when before the Blessed Sacrament, to leave the body by closing their eyes, the mind goes from one thought to another in an endless stream; trying to keep the mind centered is difficult. As the Koreans say, 50,000 thoughts come to us in a day, and during our prayers is the time most of them seem to appear.

"Today is not my day to meditate!" may be the distracting thought that may come during our time before the Blessed Sacrament. The word for distractions in Korean is a 'mind that is divided'. Whether we want them or not, distracting thoughts are always with us. To be completely free from them would mean not to be among the living, and, the columnist laments, some do in fact  rid themselves of distractions by taking their own life.
 
When it comes to how much time should be devoted to meditation, he recommends doing away with the idea of obligation by making every moment a sacred moment, like our breathing. The less attention we give the distractions, the better; without our attention keeping them in mind, they will come briefly to life and just as quickly exhaust themselves.

Today, the first Sunday of Lent we meditated on temptations. The distractions we often experience when praying are like little temptations. The meditation for today, in the Magnificat Magazine--from Fr. Walter Hilton, who died in 1396 -may be helpful in dealing  with distractions: "... temptations no more defile the soul than the barking of a dog or the bite of a flea. They torment the soul but they do it no harm if they are despised and set at naught. It is not wise to fight directly against them and to seek to be rid of them by force, for the more one fights against such thoughts, the more they return."