There is a shortage of priests in many parts of the world and what seems to happen in such a situation is that the morale weakens and makeshift programs begin to appear. Emergency treatment is required.

Looking over the Korean situation in recruitment is a lesson in organization that has been operative for many years. Here in the Incheon Diocese those who show an interest in the priesthood meet in each of the deaneries. Once a month those interested in the life of the priest or sister, meet on the second Sunday of the month in the Catholic High School in Incheon for a program on religious education and growth in virtue.

Every third Tuesday of the month at the Cathedral Parish there is a Mass for those aiding the seminary and seminarians. There are frequent visits to the different parishes to spend time with the officers of the parish vocation association. They also have twice each year a retreat for all the benefactors and officers of the different associations in the different parishes.

This program was started back in 1981 and has 98 parishes involved and 19,415 members. There is also a person in charge full time for the work.

The Koreans are very good at organizing and in putting persons in charge who do a good job in stimulating the members of the different groups. You get a feeling that there is a great deal of life and growth. Success breeds success and in Korea even though there seems to be a decrease in vocations I do not think you would say this of the diocese of Incheon.

The Bible and the Catholic New Year

Today is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, next week begins Advent and 'C' year. From today until the start of Advent, we are in Bible Week. This is an effort on the part of the Catholic Church of Korea to make the Scriptures part of life for the Christians.

The Catholic Church has learned a great deal from the Protestants in their love for the Scriptures. The Protestants have energized the Catholics who know that the Scriptures belong to the Church and the Protestants have made it their book. Catholics are not there yet but there is a thirst and hunger for the Scriptures; the attempts of the Church in Korea have been successful in renewing the familiarity with the Bible and making it part of daily life.

The message for this Bible Week was: "We have to empty ourselves of our egos and fill our inner life with the words of Jesus . If we do that we become one with the word and able to live the life of Jesus' priesthood." Priests have to make the effort to use Scripture in preaching. The sermon of the priest should help the Christians satisfy their hunger and thirst for the spiritual . "We all partake of the priesthood of Jesus and reading , prayer and studying the Scriptures will form us so that we will have a strong vision of what our mission in life is."

In some parishes we have the custom of copying the Scriptures in a notebook and presenting it for some type of reward. There have been many who copy the whole of the Old and New Testament. You have web sites where a book of the Scriptures is selected and the parishioners access the web site to add to the last section that they see on the monitor. This continues until they finish and start another book. I do not know if this is a good way of familiarizing oneself with the Scriptures but it does show one type of effort that is made to make the Bible part of Christian daily life.

We have magazines on the Scriptures, all kinds of programs, seminars, retreats. The Catholics are bombarded with efforts to have them live with the Scriptures and it has worked. Eph. (6:17) "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, the word of God." James (1:22) "Act on the word . If all you do is listen to it, you are deceiving yourselves." These two quotes are contained in the message from the Bishops' Committee, a prod for the Christians not only for Bible Week but for their lives.

Founding of a Mission Station

Looking over the Peace Weekly for the week of Nov. 8th I saw an article on two brothers who donated a million dollars to the Catholic University in Seoul. Reading the whole article I realized that the father of these two men was the founder of our mission station here in Gyodong back in 1951 to 1954. He was the first catechist and in his house we had the first Masses said by a priest from Seoul Fr. Youn. The article mentioned that the younger brother is now a priest in the States.

This was right after the Korean War started and the father and the family fled from Hwanghae Do, North Korea. He landed here in Gyodong and lived for a period of 3 years in which he took charge of the mission station. It was the oldest son who paid us a visit a few years ago and left a monetary gift.

The article mentioned the difficult life they had leaving North Korea, they were poor and not having enough to eat was a constant problem. This was the driving force of their concern for others.

One brother went to the States in 1966 and the other in 1979 and both are now presidents of their own companies. It has not always been easy for them but they remember their past and continue to be of help to those less fortunate. They feel this is the reason they have prospered in the States.

This mission station actually did very well in the beginning years but all the efforts were not successful. The intention of the early Maryknollers was to help the poor . They started a pig coop but in pig raising as with many other farm attempts not every thing goes well. The manager collected money from the members of the Coop to buy the pigs and feed but the problems that they had were too much for the coop; the raising of pigs was not succesful and the debt was too much. The manager threw in the towel and left for parts unknown. Many who lost money decided the Church was not to be trusted and many left. Over the years the memory of the pig coop has faded from the memory of many but we never had the numbers they had way back in the beginning. Possibly that was providential in that we had a purification of motives, unwanted but not all unfortunate.

Public Opinion and Truth

The Daily paper yesterday reported on a survey of public opinion made by a Protestant Group on the 'good feeling' that Koreans have toward Protestantism. There was a slight increase in the numbers from 18.4% to 19.1% from the past survey. On the numbers that have a 'bad feeling' towards Protestantism the numbers dropped from 48.3% to 33.5%. Part of the lack of good feeling towards Protestantism was the hostage situation in Afghanistan back in 2007 which got a lot of bad publicity.

These surveys do serve a purpose- vox popoli, if truly a reflective voice of the people, have a lot to tell us, but in most cases determined by the situation in the country and the way incidents are played up in the media. Many years ago in our mission station the Church's attempt to help the poor did not work; the failure did inflict pain on those involved and the Church was scarred for many years to come.

In Korea one of the aspects of the Catholic Church that many hear, either in their Churches or by word of mouth, is that the Catholic Church is Mary's Church. We have statues of Mary in homes, in front and in Churches. The media shows grotto's with the Statue of the Blessed Mother and people praying, and even on this site there is the Statue of Mary the Mother of Maryknoll. It is not difficult to go from what they see to make the Catholic Church the Marian Church and the Protestant Church, Jesus' Church.

We can state the obvious that we do not worship Mary; respect her for being close to Jesus and desire her help to know Him better. She is the disciple par excellence, given to us as mother from the cross; we desire to imitate her way of following our Lord. To every one of the reasons for respecting Mary there is always an easy rebuttal. The discussion gets no where. And yet it is possible to know what the Catholic Church teaches about Mary.

It is surprising with all the word of mouth negativity that the Catholic Church gets in Korea as Mary's Church the results are not all that bad. Public opinion is what sways most of us but it is not an objective criterion of truth. The politicians, the financiers, business people, and even the medical establishment often act determined by polls, surveys, and public opinions, but if that is the only standard used to arrive at truth we have serious reasons to be pitied.

"The Happiest Mother in the World"

There is a very heart warming story of a family of two twins who both had developmental problems in the recent front page of the Peace Weekly. The mother told God " to cure her two sons if not let her remain until they get married."

In 1998 she was diagnosed with colon cancer and given 6 months to live. This came to the mother like lighting from the blue. Her twins were 16 years old. They operated and with chemotherapy three years ago was told there is no trace of cancer.

The twins have grown to be robust young men. One of them showed genius talent in music and studied the piano and is now in graduate school studying musical composition. The other showed extreme talent in mathematics and is now an assistant driver for the school from which he graduated.

They are both very faithful in their religious life. Even more so than the parents if that can be said. The mother tells how at the second birthday they still couldn't say any words. She brought them to the doctor who told her to see a psychiatrist. She was told that they were autistic but she had no idea what that meant and thought that if treated they would be cured.

She took the children to special schools and since they lived in a one room and the husband was a taxi driver, did not have much to live on. Up until the age of 5 they could not speak and did not react with others. She notice they had musical talent and bought a piano into their one room house. She also gave them woodwinds to study and got them to study composition and harmony. They attended competitive contests for the handicapped and received big prizes on a number of occasions.

They both attend morning Mass and one twin is a Legion of Mary member and the other plays the organ for the young peoples' choir. They are very busy young men. At the end of the interview one of the twins ran to his mother laughing- "Mom,I told you not to worry." At that moment , the interviewer tells us "she was the happiest mother in the world."

The Collaborators with the Japanese?

It is the victors that write the histories that we read, much of it doctored by those who write it, sometimes knowingly and sometimes not. The way the Japanese write about Korea is quite different from Korean understanding of itself.

During the years 1910 to 1945 of the Japanese occupation 4,389 Koreans, are listed as collaborators in a new Encyclopedia that was printed. In the words of the publishers: " they inflicted physical, material and mental damage on Koreans."

In the list were 7 Catholics, one bishop, 4 priests and 2 layman. The bishop was the first bishop of Seoul, (Paul) Ro Ki-nam , (John) Chang Myon was prime minister from 1960-1961 a Catholic lay leader. The publishers mentioned that a major consideration of listing the collaborators was how much they actively, voluntarily and consistently cooperated with Japan.

Working in the country I remember hearing about members of the parish who worked as policemen under the Japanese. They were often leaders in the community but there was always some one to tell me of their past. It is important that we look for the truth and make this known. Autopsies are unpleasant but at times necessary, but as with all things it is the prejudice of the truth tellers that often colors what is said and often the reason for dismisal of what is 'uncovered'.

It is important for a country to be honest about its past but it is human nature to hide what is embarrassing to the country and speak loud and clear about what is its glory. This is true of all groups be they family , church, societies or countries.

In parish work I can remember stories of those who sympathized with North Korea and how many of them suffered at the hands of those in the South. Communism was the devil and this was so much part of the thinking that many atrocities were committed in the name of anti- Communism. This was after the defeat of the Japanese and the division of the country into North and South. Many of these were independence fighters against the Japanese with strong sympathy for the North.

As Catholics it is always a problem on how to balance forgiveness with truth. Knowing all the truth makes it easier to be merciful but most of the time we only know partial truth. We have been taught to forgive and when wrong doing is acknowledged, this is not difficult. Some of those who are listed in the book of collaborators can't say anything to defend themselves and how many of them would in a court of law be acquitted is anybody's guess. It is part of our Korean history and there is much more of that history that we are still not prepared to face. The time is still not ripe.

Schooling for the Returnees to the Farm

Years ago while working in the country, a family moved into the parish- a college graduate who came to live on a farm. It was a strange sight for many were moving to the city to find work and here was a college educated person who wanted to live and work on a farm. He was different in many ways, very creative and surprising many of us in the way he wanted to live.

The Peace Weekly had an article on the 4th farmer's school in which 36 received certificates of graduation. The program covered:

1) The value of living close to the earth.
2) Our farms, the situation of farm life, and returning to the farms.
3) Eating in the country, and taking care of health.
4) Listening to lectures on different facets of farm life.

The farmer's school is sponsored by 'Save the Farm Program' of the Seoul Diocese. It is an attempt to show the value of farm life. One of the leaders of the movement who is also a poet said: "We who are Catholic at least should not indiscriminately handle food or throw food away, it is dealing with life and it is like treating God in that fashion who has given us life."

The program is to show that we have come from the earth and will return to the earth: giving us a new appreciation of the earth, soil, water and air, and the totality of God's creation. There have been 142 graduates and some have already returned to the country.

The farmers in Korea have always had the respect of the populace. They were important members of society and up until the industrialization composed about two-thirds of the population.

Korean farms are very small in comparison to other countries and with the imports it is difficult for them to make a living without the government subsidies. Most are in debt and have low morale because of what they hear of the future, many have opted for the city.

The farms will be left for those who want to leave the competitive life style of city life. It will probably be people who have lived in the city and after retirement want to return to the country. In this small island I have heard it said that over half the land is owned by those who do not live on the island. The city dwellers have bought much of the land and in the future many will return to live the gentleman farmers' life.

In Korea we have people who have what they call weekend farms. They rent a piece of property and over the weekend come with the family to farm it. They see the beauty of living close to the land; this taste for beauty and God's creation will take hold of many who in the later years will return to the country, be content with the little income, but good working conditions.

The movement towards organic farming is growing strong. It is non-polluting, good for health and preparing for the future. The government is there to help. Daewoo, a Korean conglomerate tried to lease half the arable land in Madagascar but it was cancelled by the new government. This is another sign that it will only be the big players who will win in this 'one world'. It will be those who don't accept this way of thinking that will be attracted to the small farms in the years to come.