Ecumenicism in Korea

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity this year was the combined work of the different Churches in Korea. This material was used throughout the world.

The Catholic Church in Korea, is not a leader in this Ecumenical Movement but it does participate and this year the 9th annual forum was held at the Franciscan Education Center on May 14 with the guest speaker Jurgen Moltmann the renowned Protestant theologian.

The Catholic paper said Moltmann introduced a different direction from the polemics of the past. He proposed that we work together not only about life issues but with the problems that we face in globalization and to work together in a common effort to remedy the situation.

Moltmann felt that following the methods of the past in ecumenical dialogue we are not getting any closer to one another and suggested that we in the future not remain trying to directly get the unity of the separated Churches but work together against the dehumanization in our society, destruction of the environment, and the polarization in our society. He felt that this would enable us with God to grow closer and this is the meaning of the unity we seek.

My reading of the article was that there was not unanimity on what was said. One participant made a good point, I thought, when he said the whole idea of the work for unity is not just the work of the specialist but of all the Christians. In Korea it is mostly the work of the leaders in the movement. It will have to get down to the level of the ordinary Christians. It is here in their lives , works and sharing their faith experiences with others, that we will see change.

The Catholic Education of our Young People

Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday and Youth Sunday in Korea. The Church has been concerned for many years now on the decrease in the number of our young people who have stopped going to Church. It is a “dark cloud” over the future of the Church in Korea.

The Seoul diocese’s report on the state of the problem is that there has been a decrease in the number of children attending catechism classes comparing to what it was 10 years ago. Only about 10% of the young who have graduated from high school attend Sunday Mass. This also holds steady for the number of 30 and 40 year old Catholics who have stopped going to Church. Only 5% of the youth are involved in Church activities.

The Church will have the second youth day next year trying to put some life into the youth movement in Korea. The influence of the mass media on the education of our children is something that we all acknowledge but can do little about. There are few of our young people that find a joy in their religious practices and what it means to be Catholic. There is an effort to make discipleship more of an experience; to feel and not only know the presence of God in our lives but how this to be done is the question.

A recent editorial on this problem wondered whether our programs have a lot more to do with dealing with the stress of our children than with educating them. We have to put feeling into what we teach. In our diocese we had a very strong YCS movement going for many years. The Young Catholic Student movement had the principle of See, Judge and Act and was an attempt to get the Children involved not only with the head but with the heart and body. It discussed problems within society and putting Christian principles to work in trying to solve the problems. It was to develop leaders and to help change society. It was a strong program but the parents did not like to see the time taken away from the student’s studies and the program eventually died.

The editorial ended with a rather gloomy forecast : “If the family or school is not able to educate than the Church should do it.” It is a gigantic job and if the individuals involved are not equipped to benefit by the education it will be an attempt ending in frustration.

Funeral of Korea's 16th President

The funeral service for the late former President Roh Moo-hyun took place today at 11 a.m. at Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul. There was also yesterday a Mass at the Cathedral in Seoul for President Roh offered by the the priests of the Catholic Priests' Association for Justice.

President Roh came up from poverty to the highest position in his country. He did not have a college education but with determination and confidence in his ability was able to pass the necessary exams and work as a human rights lawyer, helping the poor. He showed a desire to benefit the underprivileged of our Society. How much of what is said about him after leaving the Presidency and his involvement in bribery will be the job of history to determine. How much of the publicity concerning the scandal was politically motivated is also a question for history but that politics was part of it is very difficult to deny.

The Catholic Paper's editorial mentioned over and over the intensity in which he did everything and even the way he chose to die. The editorial went on to say our desires were not considered when entering this world and we should not take control of the way we leave it. There is a sadness in that the late President Roh died in the way he decided. By doing so he cast a shadow on the intensity of his life, its meaning and values that he lived. This makes the grief and regret over his death all the harder to bear.

The Mass at the Cathedral was celebrated by Monsignor Kim Pyong-sang as the main celebrant. He mentioned that he was disappointed in that the bishops were not the ones saying the Mass. Although the President was baptized he never lived the life of a Catholic but the monsignor mentioned that he tried to live the contents of the Encyclical of the Holy Father, Deus Caritas Est.(God is Love ) He was a man who took seriously chapter 25 of Mathew, and monsignor felt that few would deny this.

We can all pray for him, the family and the country; pray also that the different political camps do not use his death as a ploy to further their own political ends at the expense of the unity that we should strive to achieve in these difficult times.

Second Part - Visit to Cardinal Kim

Stephen Cardinal Kim was a work of art.
He was like a lake that reflects the sky, and the light and the scenery around it.
You can't be awe-struck by a lake.
It demands nothing for itself, but enhances everything around it,
Allows us to contemplate beauty.

In April, 1974 I spend 40 minutes in his quarters talking to him alone.
How I wish I could remember more of what he said.
I was very wound up about false arrests and torture
And am sure I did most of the talking, especially as he was such a good attentive listener.I had knocked at his door and began to apologize to him for the impertinent letter I'd written about the lack of Catholic reaction to worsening repression.

`But before I'd gotten a few words out of my mouth, he ushered me in, seated me while
saying, and waving his hand:
"No, no no! These are daily problems of my heart."

In the 35 years since that April day I have often repeated those words of his to me and I usually tear up and sometimes choke up, too, when I say them.

Just like I tear up and choke up seeing shots on TV of the long lines of people waiting to spend a few seconds before his body in the cathedral.

One day in 1969 or 70, soon after taking office, he came to Maryknoll and spoke to us, asking a favor of us as citizens of a culture that was by nature more tolerant of
differences than most.

"Our Korean Catholics would die to protect the Church, but they are not trained to care for the rights of others," he told us, and asked, "Teach them to do so in your parishes."

I filed that away, remembering it only years later, after that unfair letter I'd written him, unaware as I was of the "daily problems of his heart"

The cathedral he was buried from became what he wanted it to be, the center of more
than Roman Catholic worship. Those 400,000 mourners proved that to be true, By
providing sanctuary behind its wall he broke down walls, and by being the person he was, he led the Church out of its own walls.

Adoption in Korea

Many years ago I was asked if there was a possibility to adopt a Korean baby by one of the Catholics. I was new in the country and did some asking about adoption procedures and it seemed that there would be no problem. The Catholic told me that he would not be able to tell his parents of the adoption because of the strong feeling they have to bloodline. He told his parents that while he was on a business trip he met a woman with whom he had a affair and fathered a son. This was at the same time that he was making preparations to adopt a baby from one of the orphanages run by the Church in Korea.

This was something that I found difficult to understand -the adultery was not as important to the family as having a grandson who was in their blood line. I believe this has changed a great deal over the years. In recent years the domestic adoptions are larger than oversea adoptions.

The government efforts to offer financial incentives and health benefits for adoption have helped a great deal but there has been a change in the thinking of the ordinary Korea. It was an embarrassment that the Koreans were exporting so many of their babies to overseas parents. Also the whole idea of preserving the blood line is not as strong as it was. In our yearly ordination classes to the priesthood it is surprising to see how many are an only son. When I came to Korea they would not accept an only son. Things have changed greatly.

There is also the change in the eyes of many Korean on boy versus girl choices. Since my time in Korea it seems that the girls are seen to many parents, as a better investment than the boys. They remain closer to the family of origin and in most cases show more affection toward their family. A great deal of this may be the globalization of the culture but also the influence of Christianity.

A visit to Cardinal Kim in the hospital.

Reflection by a Maryknoller visiting Cardinal Kim before his death.



First part of the Reflection.

I got into the hospital room to see Cardinal Kim 2 weeks before he died.
To see his face-well-it wasn't his face.
More like the caved in shattered look of an Egyptian mummy.
He didn't speak beyond a few words-mono-syllables mostly.

I never expected to get in the room,
just brought some paintings to leave for him.

But I was allowed in along with Father Alphonso Kim who had suggested the attempt.
The Cardinal recognized our presence, took our hands to ask a blessing.
We each said our own peace.
He responded with his hands.
Even called us back when we started to leave.
Took our hands again, said, "Thank you," then relaxed and drifted off.
The strongest impression remains how much his face had changed, how little he was able to communicate.

Thinking back on our few minutes with him now,
I tend to put the kind of smiling face we all knew onto that helpless body,
wanting to forget that mask
and my desire to say to him, "Please go! It's time to go!"

That was a Sunday morning. He lived two weeks more.
Dying finally on a Monday evening.

And the country has been full of him since,
four hundred thousand people stood in the cold,
long lines forming far from the cathedral where he lay in state.
From 6 AM to midnight-
Some waiting four hours and more to pay their respects, as the saying goes, for just a few seconds as the crowd had to be hurried along,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

What shall I write?
I sit here looking at my hands
The blue veins beneath, the papery fragility of skin-the hands of an old person,
The one I must admit to being.

The Cardinal was seven years older
The years of his insomnia are over.
It took death to do it.
It plagued him for many year.
Was it the price he paid?

Maybe it was that many around him were trying to fool him-
That's a better way to say it.

He was no fool, chosen very young to lead a clergy with little reputation for docility,
Presiding over years of unprecedented change,
A willing son of Vatican II, open to its freshness,
Calm and strong midst political turmoil,
Holding it all together, lording it over nobody.

To Continue

Closing Out One's Eighth Decade

The Reminiscences of one of us reaching his Eightieth Year

Must we give up everything,
Is there nothing we can take with us?
Chianti? Aristotle? Arcadia?
Memories of phosphorous laden waves
crashing on a moonlit ocean beach,
Jane Dintzel July reciting
Her John C. Siboney routine,
The green of lilac leaves in a bowl
an the white enameled kitchen table?

Sailing in a 16 foot long wooden boat
Made in Skaneateles New York,
Red comet logo on the white mainsail
Above the number 374,
Three brass letters and a number
From a draw in Duryea's hardware store
Nailed on the transom named the craft LCU2.
The boat was Austin Barrets'
He sold it when he went to war in 1943
I sold it to The Hoogh Kirk kids in 1952
When drafted into another war;
You,Frank, already off to sea in a Merchant ship.

More than fifty years gone by since Then,
The end of twenty summers
Of watching moonrise over Robins Island,
Tides rise and fall along the shore
Of Great Peconic Bay
The old song says "They can't take that away for me".
Kitty Carlisle died this year at 96,
She sang "I'll Remember April",
The song The Wasson's porch crowd can't forget.
That was 1944-adolescent heaven,
All the world but us engulfed in war.
Were we blessed or merely over privileged?
None of our class mates at St. Malachy's fared so well.

The Fitzgeralds spent the summer at Centereach.
There wasn't even any water There;
Ralph Salerno got as far as Commack
To help out at his parents' hot dog stand.
Others spent two weeks or a month
In a Catholic camp, 'Molloy' for boys,
'Immaculata' for the girls.
Those years we heard of camps in Europe, too.

Going back to Brooklyn in September
was the price we paid. Wearing shoes
Sitting in a classroom, no longer waking up
To seagulls, waves slapping on the shore.
Not sand and cedar trees but sidewalks,
curbs and streets outside the bedroom window.
I'll remember April. "They can't take that way from me".