After the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, the war between Protestantism and Catholicism continued with a fight on reason and religion.
Humanity was seen negatively by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Our condition: "was a war of every man against every man." A philosophy professor in the theology department of a Catholic University, in his column in the Catholic Times, believes most of his readers would have difficulty understanding Hobbes.
He mentions the humidifier sterilizer problem Korea experienced that included fatal chemicals, the cause of death and disease, and took many years to come to the attention of the public: an example of money coming before justice and public good. A society where money is necessary for certain jobs, a society where a small mistake made while driving is returned with revengeful acts; a person's feelings slightly hurt by another's action, will respond with violence; a society where the poor in the educational system end up dropping out and becoming losers, and we blame it on them; a society where we don't work for the common good but for the few. Hobbes' understanding of society is not without reason.
According to Hobbes, our natural desires are not decisions on good and evil, or concern for the virtuous life but maintaining personal security. This kind of situation makes for a very unstable society. For Hobbes the human condition of mankind was: "a state of violence, insecurity and constant threat." Is this not part of the feeling that many have in our society?
When our desires control us, and without any examination of our situation, we go in chase of our desires are we not falling prey to the thinking of Hobbes and being controlled by it?
Meaning of our daily life is not success and great deeds but little acts of concern for others and a virtuous life, which begins by looking into ourselves. Examining ourselves, we listen to the small voice that is always speaking in us. It is then we recall our vocation.
We need the belief that we are called to heal the sickness of society. It is not the picture given to us by the mass media, but the reality that we experience daily: facing it positively and objectively.
Trust in our working for the healing of society is not something that comes without a price. We are faced with these many varied desires that come to us daily, and we examine them for their meaning, and continue working for the common good. This requires effort and a fighting spirit.
In the Peace Weekly the head of a spirituality counseling service deals with a question received in his column in which a writer asks: is religion just a question of experience? Every time the questioner brings in theology he is made to feel his faith life is misunderstood and considered infantile. Faith needs experience he acknowledges but is faith only a matter of experience?
Priest Columnist answered his question, and calls these experiences a strong feeling of being one with a transcendent being. A person's very self is seen at the center of their being, and gives a person a vision of what life should mean. "The man who learns in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, come to know the invisible companionship of God." Thomas Merton is quoted as saying we are spiritual beings and not material existences. A person with this kind of thinking can expect to have an experience of oneness with God.
He mentions St. Thomas Aquinas, who is considered one of the greatest theologians of the Catholic Church, who had an experience of God while at prayer. After that experience, he gave up writing and devoted himself to prayer: Scripture and the cross were all he needed.
Care must be taken, he says, with these experiences. They are not to change us completely but change the direction of one's life. However, we have those who think that what they experienced has changed them into another person, and gathers others to follow them. They expand the way they see themselves, and are under the illusion of being God like. They often leave the church they belonged, and start their own movement. This divine experience becomes the beginning of a personal quest for marketing their own religion.
Second problem is addiction. They become so overcome by the experience it's like an alcoholic who feels he is living only when he is drinking and continues, for everything else seems futile. Often they leave family, and work in search of this addiction.
Our hearts are like a rubber band. We expand and return to normal. No matter how large the experience we will return to normal. It is at that time that our response is important. When thanks are expressed to God for the experience, all is well, but with those who do not want to return to their daily life. we see many aberrations.
He concludes the column with the example of Peter, who experienced the transfiguration of Jesus and wanted to build three tents; he wants us to reflect on Jesus' response.
What we hear often bothers our consciences. A religious sister adds to the burden with her words on the opinion page of the Catholic Times. She recounts her encounter with a homeless woman who she helped. She fed her and gave her a place to stay on church property without notifying anybody, and sent her off with bus fare.
Results were that she returned repeatedly, strongly asked for food, a place to stay, and a job. When the sister told her she would find her a place to stay, she said no; she didn't want anyone to notify her family. She refused to leave, which put the sister in a difficult situation. The church grounds had many different rooms, classrooms and facilities, but it was difficult to find a place for a homeless woman.
Church property is not a public welfare facility. It is not a place where persons can stay for any long period of time. This fact she knows well but whenever we are required to turn our backs on those looking for help, she finds it difficult.
Churches are not used during the week as they are on Sundays, and she who gives many talks finds it awkward using Jesus' words about what we do to the least we do to him, and when she finds herself saying no to those in need: homeless, the elderly, children, these words come to mind. All could be welcomed to use church property.
She mentions how Pope Francis has asked that they open the religious houses in Europe to the migrants and refugees which gave her great joy. How would Jesus look upon the way we use our facilities in Korea? In this year of mercy are we using our facilities to express this mercy?
Many are those who remember using the church's buildings and playgrounds as children. Neighborhood children can use the parking lots of the churches as playgrounds. Young people can come to use the basket ball courts and ping pong tables. Migrants and foreign workers can use the rooms for meetings and celebrations. Those who have for one reason or another not had a marriage ceremony can use the churches for these activities. The homeless can find rest from the rain and a place to rest in rooms set aside for this purpose.
She concludes her article wondering if this is only a dream. Is this kind of thinking unrealistic, impossible?
All societies have structures, pecking orders, 'caste systems' a good example would be the military. Korean society is patriarchal and hierarchically strong. Age is an important element in society: elders first, consequently, the need to determine the age when meeting others.
These words begin an article in With Bible, written by a man of letters, with a background in teaching. He describes himself as a person who spent 25 years studying, 25-year teaching and now hopefully spending 25 years reading and writing as a free person.
The Second Vatican Council he says emphasized the place of the laity in the Church, but the Church in Korea is still centered on the clergy: one of the deformities of the Korean Church. Power of the clergy is not small, and he blames the laity for the problem: lack of knowledge of theology and scripture. Laity, consequently, rely on the authority of the priest and the bishop in all they do.
On the Korean Bishops' ad limina visit, the pope said to the bishops: "I ask you above all to be servants, just as Christ came to serve, and not to be served. Ours is a life of service, freely given, for each soul entrusted to our care, without exception." Pope Francis reminded them: "Korean Church is built upon the thrust of the laity and the blood of martyrs." He asked them not to forget their roots as they enter the future. The pope also asked the clergy not to follow the easy life and reign over the laity.
He sees many good clerics but also those who by their words and actions are proud and self-righteous, many believe they are living according to the words of the pope, he says, but are not. Change will not be easy.
'To be on the side of the weak' has lost all meaning, polarization has become a reality in Korean society. The weak are now the majority.
The
role of the prophet is not only to criticize those in authority but to
read the signs of the times and to warn about the wrong directions
society is taking. This is the work of the Church and its members. We
find few who are doing this and often criticize those who speak out and want change, and
call them heretics.
The president of the Bishops Conference is quoted as saying that as society is getting more worldly and materialistic, we in the church are becoming middle class, and our faults are exposed. Our interest in the poor is disappearing, clergy and religious are becoming more worldly, bureaucratic, young people are leaving the church and lay people are distancing themselves from the sacraments and religious life.
Why haven't the senior citizens left the church like the young people? Devotion and a strong faith life are reasons, but also they are more interested in hope, consolation, and compensation while the young want hope, proposals and plans. The Church has not seen the problems of the young and countered only with empty words. It is no surprise they are leaving.
He concludes the article with gratitude that the bishops have decided to put aside money in a 'Good Samaritan Account' to help the needy but there is also a need to reduce the numbers of the needy, which is a work of the whole church and what service means.
On the opinion page of the Catholic Times, a religious priest writes after the manner of Thomas Merton on his own revelation gained in his mature years.
During one of his recent trips to the market and hearing the traditional Korean music blasting away on the old speakers, he was not hearing it as a saucy young man but with strong feelings that brought tears to his eyes.
"You don't know me/ How would I ever know you?" These were the beginning words to the song. His feelings on hearing the song were not positive: "Even if you knew me how much would you know? I don't know you either." And to his surprise he finds himself singing the words without reason, often to himself.
However, going back a year before, while riding a bus, he heard this song after many years, and it brought to mind the reason it made such an impression in the market. The word 'You', and 'I' are very similar in sound, and he is from a province where they don't ordinarily distinguish between these two vowels. Consequently, what he heard was: I don't know myself how am I to know you?"
We are on a journey to God and in prayer, I am discovering God and myself in the process. We are made in the image of God who is the foundation of who I am. "After all, you have died! your life is hidden now with Christ in God" (Colossians:3:3).
We can all say we don't know who we are. We have the image of God in us and are consequently, related. This reminds him of the insight Thomas Merton had at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville.
"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people,that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world.... If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred,no more cruelty, no more greed...." (Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Thomas Merton)
Individuals and groups when separated into different camps, says the columnist, either assimilate or continue division. I don't know myself how would I know you? Knowing the meaning of these words would allow us to bow before all those we meet.
(Tathata) is Sanskrit for a title of Buddha: ''the ultimate inexpressible nature of all things" and the name of the song.
A Catholic University professor of Sociology mentions in her column in the Peace Weekly that she approaches the subject of live broadcasting of public opinion surveys and exit polls with trepidation.
Number of those questioned is very small, and the response is smaller still. Humans quickly change their minds. This makes the predictions unreliable, but they continue to take the pulse of the electorate. Exit polls are also often wrong. Why do they continue when the expenses are so large? The reason is that live broadcasting of the results gets many viewers and the price of advertising increases: making the surveys and those who broadcast the results all benefit.
Many years before we began converting public opinion into political numbers, we were doing it in the financial field. Numbers become the reality with which we think we are dealing. We forget what the numbers represent, and only remember the numbers. This is what happened in 2008 during the financial crisis.
Korea's history with political parties is short and consequently; changing of party names continues. It takes about ten years to determine exactly what a special area of study is all about. In politics, newcomers are welcomed and the learning begins.
Election time brings the nominating of candidates for the different parties, and pressures begin, for they again use numbers often to select the candidates. Difference of candidates, policies, the meaning of reform all is figured out by numbers. Going from quantity to quality takes time and is difficult. All of this is determined by public polls and surveys: policies and discussion yield to numbers. When one candidate leads another by just one percentage point, all discussion disappears.
We were all surprised at the results of our recent election on April 13th. We saw that the results of the surveys and polling were not accurate. Very little was said about this except that polling used home phones rather than mobile homes ( the younger generation was not contacted). Political words were translated into numbers, and numbers were converted into our social reality. No one gave this any concern.
Voters this past election were alert, and they made a collective appeal to intelligence. It's nonsense to think that live broadcasting of public opinion will help us understand issues. She hopes public opinion numbers will be ignored, and we go directly to discussing politics. This past election helped us to wake up.
Families are faced with many problems, and domestic violence is one of them. Kyeongyang magazine has in its recent issue a number of articles on Domestic Violence: a sin and a crime.
The writer is a woman who has been working as a social worker and counselor with one of the dioceses helping families. She begins the article with the story of a woman who lived with an abusive husband and mentioned how before marriage some of the signs were present during the period of courtship, but she didn't recognize them.
After being out with him for an evening, he would always be attentive in her getting home without mishap, and she saw this as kindness and concern. When she wore a short skirt, he would complain, and she saw this as his ardent nature. She accepted everything as signs of his love: a person who was strong, and she could trust but after marriage, she realized that it wasn't love but extreme possessiveness and jealousy: lacking trust in her faithfulness to him.
He
would beat her on coming home from work routinely. He would bring up a
relationship she had for a short period of time with a boyfriend, after
mentioning it to him, and it would often come up in conversations. He
even brought this up when she gave birth to their first child without
reason and out of the blue: "this is my child isn't it?" His verbal
abuse was hard to accept. She would be hit without reason, even in the
most common everyday issues communication was missing, put briefly all
was hell.
One day, he didn't return home after work; she received a call from him early that morning to come out to where he was. He was in his car, and she began to fear for her life. He began beating her, abusing her sexually, and she broke away and ran to the nearest house which happened to be a rectory unbeknown to her. The priest brought her to a shelter. Her face was swollen, broken bones and nose; it took some time to recover her former appearance.
They were a young virtuous couple who were envied by those that knew them. She was 33 years old and a member of a research team in a large enterprise, and the husband worked for a big company. Who would believe that an attractive educated and professionally qualified mother with two children would be the victim of domestic abuse?
From 1998, there has been a law on the books to prevent this kind of domestic abuse, but most have not paid much attention and has remained a family problem. The present government sees it as crime. More than twice in a period of three years, perpetrators may be confined to prison. If the victim does not want the confinement, he will have to attend a program, and will be given a stay of prosecution.
According to one agency in 2014, 69 women were killed by their spouses and 57 were nearly killed. With this 57, family members and friends were also killed or injured. These are the ones that have been reported. In 2013, less than 1 percent have asked for help in domestic violence incidents.
In 2014, the women's family bureau reported about 48,000 cases of domestic violence, the previous year 38,000 were reported. For the last three years, there has been on average 562 cases reported daily. The main reason for not separating is the children. However, studies show that it is better for the raising of children to leave this situation for their emotional health. Children living in these situations show uneasiness, depression and anti-social-behavior.
Many women find finances a reason they can't leave. Beatings have taken away their self-confidence: "they are not capable of anything." A woman who has been abused for many years has a feeling of powerlessness and without the help of others they find leaving the situation difficult.
