Abortion in Korea and St. Gianna

Why is the Church so strong in its opposition to abortion? Many in Korea would have difficulty  giving  a good answer.  Probably a better question would be: Why is there such a lack of interest to the question?  In Korea,  abortions are illegal in most cases, and yet it has one of the highest rates in the world, and is referred to as the  abortion kingdom. An article on the open forum page of the Catholic Times mentions that a wry smile comes over the face of those who say there are over 1000 abortions daily in the obstetrics and gynecology departments across the country.

The law, on the books since 1953, is still in force, the columnist says, but the atmosphere  is such that it is easily ignored. This became public recently when four doctors, arraigned  for performing 405 abortions, were given suspended sentences by the High Court of Daejeon, with no penalties. The Catholic bishops issued a statement on the decision expressing their disappointment and pointing out that the decision went against against the court's own constitutional laws.

The judge presiding over the case mentioned that a midwife had performed an abortion and was not prosecuted because the judge of the constitutional court said it was not contrary to the constitution,  and the judge used this precedent for deciding in favor of the four doctors. Here we have a case where the law is ignored and accepted by society. The Church sees this as a step to make abortion more frequent than it has been, and a green light for similar decisions, despite the law.

The columnist mentioned the case of Gianna Beretta Molla (1922-1962). She was canonized in 2004 by Pope John Paul II. He said at the canonization that she was an ordinary woman but with a meaningful message from a loving  God.

When she was pregnant with her fourth child, the doctors discovered a  growth in the womb and told her it was necessary to operate, otherwise her life would be in danger. She choose to ignore the warning and told the doctors to do everything to save the child. She waited 7 months and gave birth to a girl she called Gianna. For a week after the birth the mother was in serious pain, and died at the age of 39. She is the first woman in modern memory to be canonized as a mother.

She left four children without a mother, which for many would be reason enough to question the wisdom of what she did. But in her mind the child in the womb needed to be loved and respected and not someone you could randomly treat as you wished.

The position of the Church on abortion, not only in Korea but in most of the world, is not seen as reasonable when compared with the right of the mother to do what she feels is necessary. However, all our acts, whether religious or not, have eternal repercussions. There are consequences to everything we do, some intended, most not intended. This is true not  only of religious believers, but for all. Our actions have consequences.

The Church, with its long common memory, senses this in its history, "We reap what we sow." We are either building a culture of life or one of death. The columnist, in conclusion,  quotes  the saint Gianna:  " Beautiful words are not sufficient. We have to show the loftiness and beauty of our faith by witnessing to what we believe."

Expressing Movement in Art Without Arms

What does an electrical engineer do when he loses both arms, is fitted with a prosthesis, and his young son asks him to draw a picture? If he's Chang Woo Seok (Peter), he becomes an artist. Nearly killed in 1984, when over 20 thousand volts went through his body, he underwent 12 operations and was finally given a prosthetic replacement for arms.The Catholic Times tells us his story. 

Wanting to please his son, Peter  picked up a pen with his artificial arm and thus began his career as an artist. With the encouragement of his family he began to study the art of calligraphy, and from there he moved on to ink sketches of the nude figure, followed by an interest in the graceful movements of athletes, which he wanted to capture in his ink drawings. He says it was after the accident, and his own difficulties in moving his artificial arms, that he became interested in the beauty and mystery of movement.

At this time, he also found religion, and his paintings often include scriptural quotes. He says he is happier now than he was before the accident. He believes that if we change our habitual ways of thinking, we can learn to accept and benefit from everything that happens to us.

He has had 36 individual exhibitions, has traveled around the world, and given demonstrations of what can be accomplished with artificial arms. He will have an exhibition at the end of the month here in Korea, which will give artistic expression to  bodily movements often found in traditional Korean music, such as the Samulnori, made with four different kinds of percussion instruments-- gongs and drums.

Going to the Internet and writing, "Korean artist Chang Woo Seok" in the search engine, you will get examples of his many ink paintings.. He has developed a way of painting movement into his ink sketches because he uses his whole body to paint. Without the handicap, it's unlikely that we would see this unusual aspect of his art, which is present in much of his  work.

He says he intends to continue traveling around the world, exhibiting and doing his ink sketches. "I want to feel their cultures," he says, "and to paint their movements. I want all those that attend my exhibitions to be open to feel in whatever way they want. However, more than anything, I want to go along with what God has planned for me, and to continue for as long as he wants."

The Power of Walking

The Sk-Ryu-Ni trail in Jejudo is background for the article, which appeared recently in the magazine With Bible, on combining the benefits of spirituality and walking  The writer, a priest who has studied spirituality and has walked the Sk-Ryu-Ni trail, tells us what he finds sacred about such a common activity and how it can refresh both body and mind. Walking even when one knows it will rain is a common experience of those who love to walk, he says, and the fragrance coming from nature, permeating the whole body, is a memory they want to return to often. They would also like to see, he adds,  the construction of more walking trails in the future.

In the past, there was no need for this kind of effort but today many of these paths have disappeared. They remain, for the most part, because of the interests of tourists. When they began to disappear, he doesn't know, but laments the fact that all the beautiful places seem to have turned into golf courses or other recreational facilities. People who now want to take a leisurely walk can do so only on asphalt or concrete roads. This can be seen by some as progress, by others as destruction of our environment, and as a breakdown of the vital connection between humans and nature, and between the natural world and its inhabitants. And we become, the priest says, like secondary elements, cogs on a wheel.

The Chinese character used for path or road also refers to the truths necessary for life, for self-improvement.  Those who are walking for the sake of walking are communicating with themselves, and are aligning their bodies, he says, with the rhythms of nature. Those who use their cars to arrive at their destination do not have this communication or rapport. Only those who walk are able to hear the internal voice and become one with nature. The sounds, sights and smells of those in cars cannot be compared, he says, with the sounds surrounding  someone walking in a natural environment.

He laments that with the improvement of our transportation system and the ability to arrive faster to our destinations, we have also, in his eyes, become more isolated and alienated. He refers to how Le Breton expresses it in his book In Praise of Walking, "When we walk we are set free from the original requirements of our gaze and not only from the space that we occupy; it also allows us to go inside to search for the way." To walk this way we are improving our lives, seeing the internal  map, and seeking the right way, the priest says.

There are many different roads, different ways presented in the Scriptures. There is the way of the Samaritan who helped the person lying on the side of the road, and the way of the priest and the Levite who both walked past him. There is the way of the 11 disciples and the way of Judas. There is the way of parents who can choose among multiple ways to raise their children--good ways and bad ways. When we ignore the right way or walk the wrong way, there will be confusion and suffering.

He concludes with the ways our Blessed Mother took. Right after the annunciation she quickly walked the  mountainous  road to the home of Elizabeth. Because of Herod, Mary and Joesph took the road to Egypt to live in exile. They took the wandering road to find Jesus in the temple. During the public life of Jesus, Mary walked the roads in search of her son, and finally, the road to  the cross. She walked the ways that God had spoken to her in her heart.

The Greatest of these is Love

When Jesus sent his disciples on their first missionary journey he told them not to bring their money bags. A surprising condition in today's world and one we have  little sympathy for. A pastor working among the poor, in an article Bible & Life, gives us his thoughts on the difference between sharing and donating.

He often hears the words, "You are making light of our sincerity" from those who come to him offering money for the poor. Though he appreciates their generous spirit, he refuses the money.

And says, when he refuses to take their money, "What I have is all that is necessary. Poverty is not misery; you do with what you have. What is important is to love and be concerned. Help the priests around you. I have seen that when you help the poor with too many material things, you often deprive them of their humanity. Help those who are more in need. When I need help I will ask you, and you can then give."

Hearing  these words of the pastor, many are shamed, he says, and understanding their feelings, he feels uncomfortable saying them. But he reminds us: if we had seen the results of what material giving alone has done to many, we would understand his thinking. Much of what we give is not given to the whole person but only to the  material well-being of the person. Have you ever thought of how the material aid we give often has bad results? he asks.

We all have a desire to help those who are having difficulties. This is a good sentiment. But we have to think deeply on what is the best way to help. We at times have a good feeling of having helped but are not concerned with what may have been the unfortunate results of that generosity. Material giving for those in dire straits is proper and necessary. To help people get out of their serious state of poverty, with hope for the future is necessary, and not just to relieve them of their serious present situation. That is why love and concern is important in giving.

He confesses that at one time he was satisfied in just giving material aid. But living with the poor in these slums, he changed his thinking completely. True sharing comes from living together with them, he says. There is a world of difference between sharing and contributing material goods. He now says he understands not only with the head why Jesus came to live with us. It was to share love. Just contributing our material goods is not what is necessary. What's necessary is doing it in the way Jesus did.

In a busy life, this is often not easy to do. However, he hopes that we will not only be satisfied in giving of our material goods but reach out to others with our love and concern. More important than thinking how we can materially help another is sharing our lives with them, to be with them with love and concern.

Is the Dream Possible?

Working with others in a cooperative way to solve our common problems is a dream of many and the reason the coop movement has been so successful in much of the world.  Working for justice and the common good instead of for profit and growth is an ideal we should applaud and support.

However, many of these schemes never see the light of day, and many end up as failures, and yet without these dreams of a better future there would be few successes. The Peace Weekly recently profiled an entrepreneur who had such a dream: to start a citizen's oil company to both lower the price of oil by 20 percent and to put people to work in a healthy environment.

Many saw this venture of competing against the current four oil companies and their lobby as an impossible  task, but Lee Tyae Pok (Daniel) would consider it a David-Goliath scenario. The influence of the four oil refining companies on government and part of the mass media, according to the Peace Weekly, is a serious problem. Some of Daniel's foreign friends see the oil market in Korea as grotesque: Why do the intelligent Koreans allow this to continue? they wonder. Using a citizen's income as the measuring standard, the money Koreans spend on gasoline is one of the highest in the world.

He lists four reasons why it is possible to lower the price of oil about 20 percent: The current oil companies buy crude oil at a high price, they pay unnecessary royalties, they buy and use catalysts, they also, in collusion, raise prices unnecessarily.

Korea has, he says, only four refining companies, while Japan, with about twice our population, has 18 companies, and China has 650, which keeps the price down. He says our oil companies are using mafia tactics to keep the medium-size businesses from entering the oil market.

During the movement for democracy, in1981, he was sentenced to die. With the help, he says, of Cardinal Kim and many others he was pardoned. And last year, after 31 years, he was formally acquitted of any crime. He has worked for the alienated in society, worked also in government, and now wants to spend the rest of his life working to make his dream of providing oil at a cheaper price a reality. He asks for our support. He is a man with a noble goal and his efforts to achieve it deserve our support.

Forgiving is Difficult

On the opinion page of the Peace Weekly, the columnist tells us about a judge who was so angry at the person living in the apartment above him that he punctured the tires and destroyed the lock of his car. 

Problems with  noise in older buildings are not that uncommon but to have a judge, an upholder of the law, react as he did received a lot of media coverage. A legal system is of course supposed to do away with the use of violence in solving conflicts between citizens. And when someone from within the legal system itself resorts to vigilante-type punishment it surprises everyone.

What made the incident especially surprising to the columnist, however, was that the judge was involved in a case where a college professor was fired; the professor litigated against the college for firing him and demanded to be reinstated. He lost the case and tried to harm the judge. Our  judge was involved in this case where the professor because the verdict went against him took revenge on the judge. The  incident was made into a movie, well-known in Korean society. Obviously, what made the  judge resort to this kind of action was a sign of how upset he was with the situation in which he found himself, and a lack of trust in the legal system.

The legal system we enjoy helps to maintain a peaceful society, and private revenge is not permitted, but we also need to understand and respect the pain that many feel before they resort to revenge outside the law.

We are all familiar with the horrible crimes of murder we are continually exposed to by our media. Not only the victim suffers, but their families as well, because of these crimes. The mental suffering the families have to experience and the hate they have for the perpetrators of these crime is hard for us to understand.

In contrast, it is often heard that criminals while in prison find religion, and are forgiven. We have had a lot of talk recently about self-forgiveness. The documentary films Forgiveness and Secret Sunshine are two such films. It is easy to understand the mixed feelings of the families that have suffered from these crimes, when hearing that the criminal has found religion and been forgiven.

Often, because of a failure to forgive, there will be conflicts such as the one over a noisy apartment dweller, a breakdown in family life and  so-called ethic cleansing.  The lack of moral training to develop the virtues of patience and generosity is also a dimension of this sad story.

Jesus told us to forgive seventy times seven. These words are beautiful but also harsh. Harsh because he did not give us concrete guidelines on how to forgive. But when we think deeply on the matter, Jesus had trust in us. He entrusted us with the ways to go about solving our problems, supported by his great love. We have to admit, however, that are efforts have been feeble. 

Countries further advanced than Korea have more facilities, says the columnist, to help persons with mental scars to overcome their difficulties in forgiving, both self and others. The Church, the columnist concludes, should take a lead, perhaps with special programs on how best to open ourselves to a more willing acceptance of the way of forgiveness. It would, at the very least, remove some of the conflicts that now burden our legal system, and make for a more peaceful society.

Capitalism with a Heart

Capitalism is the economic framework of our modern society, and no one can deny its success in achieving for most of us a flourishing and  abundant life. However, the desire for ever increasing profits and the acceptance of the "survival of the fittest" idea gave birth to heartless competition, the motivating force for the flowering of capitalism, states an editorial in the Peace Weekly.

But the editorial also points out that not everything we have created, in efforts to improve our lives, is perfect. And as we enter the 21st century, we are seeing the problems associated with this particular economic creation: the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the natural environment getting worse. No longer is it possible to be an innocent bystander, says the editorial.

The Church sees the reason for this sad state of affairs in the lack of interest in the common good and in failing to adhere to high moral standards within the  capitalistic system, particularly by our large commercial enterprises. They are controlled, says the editorial, only by a desire not to break laws in making profits. This has been a rather insignificant change in their behavior from the past.

We have movements in society promoting social enterprises and consumer accountability, attempts to provide some warmth to offset the harsh realities of capitalism. Consumer accountability examines the products we buy for their relationship to the environment, for fair wages for workers, and for their public benefits. A social enterprise is defined as a company concerned with employing from all strata of society, interested in the environment and in conserving energy, and interested not only in profits but in the workers and the environment.

Hopefully, social enterprises and consumer accountability will be the beginning small stepping stone to greater changes in society. Attempting to enter the enormous capitalistic marketplace motivated mainly by the common good and morality motif may at this time be imprudent.  Nevertheless, says the editorial, social enterprises and consumer accountability, as formulas to change the world, are efforts that a Christian may not avoid. The effort to have all live well and search for the common good is a basic Christian call.

There is much that can be done but the editorial recommends we begin with buying the products that have been selected as coming from socially interested enterprises. The Caritas Social Enterprise Support Center has been inaugurated for this purpose.

As Christians, we listen to what our Lord has taught. When it comes to consumer products, this should also be true. An accompanying article on the front page of the Peace Weekly suggests that we consider the possibility of boycotting products that are  produced by companies that ignore these goals. The boycotts are not intended to put these companies out of business but to influence them to change.