Christianity and Market Principles

In continuation of yesterday's blog the writer mentions that humanity has two desires: one for material goods and the other for health. In the world in which we live money is the yardstick by which we measure everything. Our position in life is governed by money; we can, after a fashion, buy health and extend life with money. All we do, even our faces are determined by our efforts to attain material goods. This is all very natural, but to what degree do we have to acquiesce to it?

Humanity is in search of material things for happiness. Not only for food, clothes and shelter but for better food, better clothes and a better house in which to live. We seek to satisfy our desires; to make a profit we try to maximize everything we do; the virtues of this enterprise are competition, efficiency and rationality-- words fitting the economic man.

The Christian is one who is diametrically opposed to this way of looking at life. It is not the amassing of goods but ridding oneself of goods that brings happiness and prosperity. Christians believe true prosperity does not come from our strength, but is a gift of grace.


There is no other people like Koreans that work so hard for development and growth. We live in a society in which financial value and financial growth is the greatest earthly virtue.

The Church does stress that quality of life is important; working for the common good and not the free market is what is important. Spiritual growth will bring us happiness is the constant message of the Church. However, in the jungle in which we live, does this have any drawing power for those that hear the message? Is the Church's job only to make this message known; or to live the very life that it preaches?

Secularists said religion would disappear, but what has happened is that it has thrived and is growing. The churches have picked up the capitalistic know-how, and have used it to advance the cause of religion. To draw people to the churches they are using efficient and very competitive means. The churches are imitating the business world. Religious people are polishing their products to fit the wants of the consumers. They are emphasising a spiritual product but selling it in a material way. Christianity has become a big business--Christianity Incorporated.

We are told that what is small does not last long. Only what is big will last. More than the values of the Gospel are we trying to increase the numbers at the expense of the Gospel? Has our own Catholic Church been assimilated into using the principles of the market? Is the Catholic Church using these principles of the market to compete with the other churches and trying to be more efficient in raising the numbers of our Christians? It isn't that we are only interested in the increase of numbers is it?

Christian Examination of World Economics

"Some would like to see Christianity devote all its energy to spiritual matters and stay out of the economic picture entirely." In a recent issue of the Kyunghyang Magazine, a Korea Catholic priest, with a doctorate in economics, presents a number of reasons why the Church should take an interest in world economics: Finances manipulate the world and all of our lives; economics and its power moves the world, buying a good education, assuring better health care; getting respect and the envy of others. In short, many doors to wealth, honors and a good life are often dependent on how successful we have become in manipulating money." (Second segment treated tomorrow.)


The priest lists four ways in which the Scriptures regard money: 1) Poverty is a challenge to the believer; 2) money is a problem for the community; 3) God is asking for justice; 4) the power of money blinds us to the plight of the poor-- the ever present danger of making money our idol.

There are three different theological approaches dealing with economics:

The first viewpoint considers morality as the starting point for economics. The development of economics from the earliest days was based on virtue. "The separation of morality from economics is the problem in our day;" are the words of a Nobel prize winning economist.

The second approach is to expose the the fallacy of those that are approaching economics from an ideological basis, and to show that economics is not a value neutral science. There is a hidden theology as the basis of many economic theories. A Korean theologian in Brazil says in some economic theory there is a borrowing and a distortion of the Christian message: the reason for sin is poverty and the eradication of poverty will bring heaven here on earth.

The third group, which includes Pope Benedict, want to see a small scale networked economy.
"...not only that traditional principles of social ethics like transparency, honesty and responsibility cannot be ignored or attenuated, but also that in commercial relationships the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity can and must find their place within normal economic activity. This is a human demand at the present time, but it is also demanded by economic logic. It is a demand both of charity and of truth."(Caritas in Veritate #36)

In Korea we see the effects of a mismanaged economic system, evident also in other parts of the world: not able to find work, forced retirement, gap between rich and poor getting larger, factories going overseas, more people making money with money, discouragement of farmers etc.. This will get many thinking of a better way to manage the world of economics.

Pornography Destroying All That Is Sacred

Pornography is a part of the world in which we live, the price you pay for living in an advanced country, and by some not considered something bad. True. Eradication of the scourge is not possible, but there is little doubt that it is a cause of great harm to all societies; Korea is no exception.

Koreans have a basic feel that pornography is bad. Their traditional views on sex, their respect for motherhood, and all that it means, however, are not strong enough to keep them from pornography. The most populated country with the largest tie up with the Internet , Korean cybersex is readily available and rampant.

It is no longer necessary to be embarrassed or make much effort to see pornography; all that is necessary is to sit before your Internet screen. Those who frequent this world of cybersex are not only men but women, young and old; breaking away from porn, once habituated, is more difficult than giving up drugs.

The press has not waged war against this enemy of the family nor has the Catholic Church of Korea made it an important part of its interests, but it is a big part of the culture of death. A recent article in the Peace Weekly sees this as an area the Church has to enter, for this disease not only infects us, our families, our children's lives, but also destroys the life of the Church.

In one diocese in the States, mentioned in the paper, 10% of those who faithfully attend Mass are addicted to pornography. This disease will cause us to always look for another level of intensity to satisfy our sexual desire. Pornography is a reason for the number of sexual crimes, the breaking up of families, the problems with elementary school children, and the cheapening, and destroying the beauty of married love: sex, seen only as a tool to satisfy one's sexual desire, disregards the essential component of sexuality.

The Peace Weekly tells us that when we have the urge to see pornography let us remember that the woman involved is some one's daughter and possibly one of our sisters. Let us remember the love that we must have for all those involved in this world of pornography. This motivation, in itself, should be reason enough to say no to this horrible scourge in our societies.

Korea Prepares to Help the Foreign Needy

How many Catholic bishops' conferences would have a symposium to discuss giving aid to needy countries? In preparation for today's Foreign Aid Sunday, (a collection for the foreign poor was taken up in all the parishes), the bishops sponsored a symposium to deal with the present situation of aid, and determined directions for the future.

The Catholic Church intends not only in doing something meritorious but in developing a network to help in the eradication of world poverty.
Only recently has she become a giving Church. The amount given is small, for the number of Christians, but this is beginning to change. Not only is the Church interested in the giving of money, but in how and to whom to give.

Some of the problems seen in the symposium was the competition among the different groups: How much has been raised? How many countries have been helped? How many different works sponsored? Although this is to be expected-- the same problems have been seen within the Church; efforts are being made to remedy the situation.

Catholic have given only about 2 dollars a piece in aid to the foreign poor and it was suggested that the reason for this was a lack of transparency in the reports; no people specified, lack of continuity and no results returned to the Christians. The Church has not always been clear in the use of funds as some of the other Non-Governmental Organization have done.

One of the representatives of the Official Development Assistance Watch had a few suggestions for the Church. The Church should be an example of giving aid. The receiving country should not be dependent on aid but should be helped to help themselves. The society being helped should work with those who are trying to rid the country of corruption: Develop their need for democratization, equality of the sexes, and to guarantee that the poor and alienated in the society receive benefits. It is possible to give aid in a bad way, you can subordinate the one receiving to the aid given. You can remove them from the democratic process, and if aid is standardized and given as the West has traditionally given, you can destroy the diversity in the culture.

Aid given in a bad way can strengthen the authority of men at the expense of women. The help can separate the different peoples and different tribes in a country. Aid not given well can help not the poor and the alienated but the wealthy, those with power and the small privileged groups in the society.

In the future, countries joining the world-wide effort to help the needy in other countries may find it useful to learn how this is best done by emulating the current efforts of a country and Church that have in a very short time moved from receiving aid to giving aid. The bishop sponsored symposium has focused attention on doing more in this are of world-wide need and may be a heartening sign of the times. It seems that we can be optimistic that wealthier nations of the world will be more aggressive in giving to the poorer nations in the coming years, and very likely Korea and the Korean Church will be prominent in these efforts.

How To Make Sense Out Of Absurdity

How does one convey the Christian message to the people of our time? The old way of dealing with the message falls on deaf ears, the message was heard and discarded, it is understood to be a bunch of dos and don'ts and the response-- not interested. Disinterest is more evident today. The youth are bored by religion. They are searching but it is unending.This vacuum in lives is seen and experienced and some moved to do something.

In the twentieth century we have had a number Catholic movements started by lay people who felt this emptiness in life, Mr. Francisco (Kiko) Argüello is one of these. He started the Neocatechumenal Way in the slums of Spain in 1964 with Ms Carmen Hernandez.

In Kiko's own life he felt a profound existential crisis and accepted the philosophy of Sartre: the world is absurd all is absurd. He dedicated himself to art and although he was successful it all meant nothing. "It meant absolutely nothing, to live for what? To paint. And why paint? To make money. What for, If nothing satisfies me? I knew that sooner or later I'd shoot myself, I'd kill myself."

At the height of the crisis he read another philosopher, Bergson, "who says that intuition is a... way..., deeper than reason itself, of arriving at truth. And surprised, I found that, deep inside, my artist's intuition did not accept the absurdity of existence; I was aware of the beauty of a tree, of the beauty of things; there is something there that can't be absurd. Then if the absurd is not the truth, if there is a reason for being... the next step was: then somebody created us.... At that moment... something in me told me that God existed... that God loved me... that I was a son of God. And with great surprise I found...that this God that appeared in my heart, in my deepest soul, was Jesus Christ, the Jesus Christ of the Catholic Church."

As time past this teaching was embodied in a catechetical syntheses, founded on what is called the tripod: Word of God- Liturgy- Community that seeks to lead people to fraternal communion and mature faith. It is a message of Joy and given for free to anyone who opens his heart to receive it.

The priests of the Incheon Diocese this past week had a five day retreat conducted by a priest of the Neocatechumenal Way. It was the old story told in a way that made it clear to all that Christianity is not a teaching of morality or dogma but accepting Jesus into our lives. He came to divinize us. To make us like Him. He made us to be happy in the only way that true joy can be found, living in and with Him.

Reading Habits of Korean Catholics

In Korea the Church started and grew when books about the Church came in from China. Reading not only nourishes our souls as food nourishes our bodies, it can also help nourish the Church, as it did in the early years of the Korean Catholic Church. In the late 1800s, the first book from China to awaken the Catholic spirit in Korea was Matteo Ricci's "The True Doctrine of the Lord of Heaven."A few years later, Yi Seung-hun, baptized by a Chinese priest, brought back books and articles on Christian doctrine that were distributed to Korean scholars, who subsequently dared to preach the Faith openly, converting many people.

At the present time, the Church in Korea is promoting the spread of reading programs to foster a deeper understanding of the Faith and a broader commitment to personal growth that will eventually benefit all of society. There is, however, a major obstacle that must be overcome if these goals are to be realized: Catholics are, for the most part, not interested in reading. But the fault lies,according to an editorial in one of our Catholic papers, not with Catholics as readers or non-readers, but with a climate within the Church that is not conducive to reading. A climate that one could trace back hundreds of years to the time when the only translation of the Bible was in Latin, a language only understood by the educated few.

A graphic and disturbing picture of this wide-spread disinterest in books can be seen by going over a few figures from a survey made in 2007. The survey showed that 58.6% of Catholics during the year do not read anything having to do with Church matters. Only 4.9% have read more than 6 books. However, 44.8% of Protestants have read at least one spiritual book during the year. They are setting an example we need to follow.

Just as in the early days of Catholicism in Korea in the late 1800s, when "the word" was carried from China to Korea, we need once again to renew our efforts to bring the message of Christ to those who are willing to hear. Jesus is the word of God and can be found in the words of the Church and in the lives of the saints but, first and foremost, this word is found in the Scriptures. It is the hope of the Bishops that a renewed interest in scripture study (their immediate goal) will encourage the spread of reading programs throughout the country. If these reading programs succeed in turning a large number of our Catholics into readers of "the word," we may witness a return to the proselytizing spirit of those early years, when books were the means by which the Church began to grow, and might now bring that growth to new heights.

Sorok Island-- One of the Few Colonies Left

A newly assigned Korean priest, commenting on his experiences on Sorok Island with patients having Hansen's disease(non-infectious), was surprised by many things he saw on the island. Every day, about an hour before Mass starts, they come for prayers and the recitation of the rosary. Their bodies and faces are disfigured but their voices are better than one usually hears in the average congregation. And the man at the organ has not only Hansen's disease, he is blind. But he has the whole of the hymn book memorized and plays from memory.

The priest remembered when he was in the States taking care of a Korean Parish; he attended a Mass that really moved him. A woman sitting with a seeing-eye dog beside her got up, at the time of the reading of the Epistle, to go to the lectern. Being the lector, she was accompanied by one of the ushers. She read from the Scriptures using a braille book and returned to her seat with her dog leading the way. It was another moving experience for the priest who admitted to many others, preparing him for his life on Sorok Island.


He recounted one of those experiences in some detail. From his rectory he could see the tides coming in and out so decided to take up fishing. He bought some cheap bait and on his way to the water's edge met one of the Catholics, Anthony, who if seen walking the streets would have been taken for a vagabond. He invited the man to go with him for some fishing, which was very good that day. Happy with their catch and being in high spirits, they went to eat and very much enjoyed the meal. All in all, a very satisfying day for both of them.

In the time-honored Korean tradition of relaxing with friends in one of the many Jimjilpangs that dot the typical Korean city, they went to one close by and relaxed in the soothing atmosphere of a hot air room, where Anthony had his hair cut and the priest massaged his back in the Korean style. Anthony said he felt like a new man. One cannot doubt that the physical pampering helped him feel this way, but I suspect that the more important reason for this change in attitude came about because someone looked past his outward appearance and treated him as a human being.

Sorok Island is one of the few leper colonies left in the world. The disease can be cured; it is an infectious disease not easily contracted and not inherited. To lessen the hurt that is felt when the word leprosy is heard by those with the disease, Hansen is used--discoverer of the bacterium-- The feeling towards those with Hansen's disease is still such that those who are cured have difficulty joining society: prejudice is still the way society looks at the disease.