Catholic University Hansen Disease Center

Catholic University Hansen Disease Center has for over 50 years worked quietly in treating and working to achieve dignity for the sufferers of  what we use to call leprosy. It is the sole professional research center working since 1956, in the care of those suffering from Hansen's disease. The Peace Weekly  wrote of  the beginnings of the Cura Association in Korea, with its Hansen clinic and laboratory. The first chairman of the Cura Association was a Maryknoll priest Fr. Joseph Sweeney and at his recommendation in 1961,  the  door  for research on  chronic disease began at the medical department of  Holy Spirit University that became the Catholic University Medical School.

Fr. Joseph Sweeny after being expelled from China by the Communists came to Korea. He went to Carville Leprosarium  in Louisiana to study what was the latest  treatment of Hansen's disease patients. He brought back with him the  Marianum antigen  and a vaccine which he gave free to all those that came to the clinic. DDS was the only medicine used for  those suffering  from Hansen's disease and with the discovery of the Marianum  antigen, which had no side effects, Fr. Sweeny  spread its use in Korea.

Fr. Sweeney with a medical team would travel throughout the country helping the sick, and distributing food to the poor. In the year 1968, they treated 18,000 patients in 80 regions of the country. The mobile team would travel with the medical   students to the different village headquarters for treatment. The total number of  sick was considered to be 200,000.

At the start, it was only concern for the treatment of the sick, but they expanded to helping the sick  become independent and to return them to society. Even if the treatment had been successful, and they had recovered, it was almost impossible to send them back into society. Prejudice towards those   recovered remained, and they were often greeted with derogatory names and remarks.

In 2005, the research centered received support from the government for a study of the human rights of those with  Hansen disease. The chief of the Institute for two terms and nearly 20 years said, distressed: "Those with Hansen's disease live with the shock of wanting to deny their own existence. Even if they have been cured, they can't return to their old jobs, they can't become independent. How  can we say they are  cured?"

Furthermore: "In over 40 medical schools the Catholic Medical School is the only one studying Hansen's Disease. It is because of the Catholic desire to have them live as our neighbors." There are 13 working on  the research team,  and  an outpatient clinic  goes out once a week for treatment and education.
 
On the 50th anniversary of the start of the Institute, they had a meeting of those studying the disease in Asia to explain what they have learned over the last 50 years on the treatment and  their educational  programs. As they look forward to the future, they hope to be a help to those throughout the world who are recovering from the disease by providing  funds and  relief services as they continue to work to increase their acceptance in society. There are now about 12,000 recovered Hansen disease patients who are old and have difficulty in rehabilitating.

Dialogue that is Dialogue

In conversations where there is a difference of opinion some irritation, even anger, is usually experienced. This is equally true in the family, in the workplace, and in meetings of all kinds that encourage lively debate. The Peace Weekly recently profiled PET (Parent Effectiveness Training) leader John Kim, who teaches how to avoid contentious conversations by practicing good dialogue guidelines.

John says the reason we lose our temper when we get involved in a serious conversation is that we have already made a judgement about the person we are talking with, having already predisposed ourselves to accept or reject the others views even before anything has been said; obviously, says John, not a wise approach. Even if such a dialogue continues, it will likely turn quarrelsome. This is the reason he stresses the importance of  non-violent dialogue. Non violent dialogue is not just refraining from using violent language, he explains, but is based on heart to heart sharing. It seeks to observe, feel and entreat--qualities which he believes are at the center of good dialogue. There is no attempt to judge the other, only to listen to the other with the openness of a good listener.  When someone says something we don't like, we shouldn't pigeon-hole the person by saying "There he goes again," but rather what was his reason for saying that. That should be our focus.

John, as a vocal representative of those fighting against violence, has been called an advocate for social justice and peace. Much of the violence in the world is bred by injustice, by a failure to listen carefully, heart to heart, to the concerns of others. We should be less concerned about presenting our side of an issue, and more open to listening to the other side if we want more justice and peace in the world.
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One-sided, self-serving arguments are usually based on generalized statements such as "Young people have no manners." This kind of judgement usually provokes criticism and blame, leading to a potentially violent confrontation. A more objective observation, though based on the same thing that is seen and heard, would ask why such a statement was made, thus paving the way for meaningful dialogue. There is, in such an approach, a willingness to understand the other person without first demanding that the other understand what we have to say. 

Jesus has shown us the spirituality of non-violent dialogue. We need only look at his example in the scriptures to know how we should be relating with others. We know the way he treated the tax collector Zaccheaus, how he dealt with those who were crucifying him, the way he treated the woman caught in adultery. He saw them all with merciful eyes.

John Kim says we cannot live suppressing all that is inside us. It's necessary to express ourselves but in non-violent ways. If we continually remember the way Jesus related with others, we will avoid self-serving, provocative talk with its potential for inciting violence. Understanding what good dialogue is, according to John, would also make a difference in what we hear and see in cyberspace. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Satisfied with an Audience of One

On a trip to Jeju Island, the Culture of Life columnist for the Peace Weekly confesses that she found the aroma of the wormwood plant so fragrant she decided to take home some seeds of the plant. Two weeks after planting, with no sign of life sprouting from the pot, she felt the urge to dig into the soil to see what the problem could be, but she resisted, remembering Mencius' parable of the overanxious farmer.

The farmer had returned home from the field one evening dead tired, and told the family he had spent the whole day helping the plants grow. The son, wanting to see what his father had done, went to the field and saw that all the seedlings were strewn on the ground, dried-up and dead. Puzzled by what he had seen, he asked his father why he had pulled up all the plants. The father said that after seeing his neighbor's seedlings doing much better than his own, he was so overcome by the desire to help the seedlings grow faster he gave each one of them a little tug.

What the farmer did is all too common, says the columnist, in the lives of many of us. We tend to ignore the simple fact that there is a time for everything: When we are hungry for rice, we first have to boil the water. No matter how cold we are in the winter, the winter has to pass before we can greet the spring. If we lack the patience to wait for the natural maturation of things, we will be acting like Mencius' farmer and doing harm. The farmer only destroyed a field crop, but if we are ignorant of the natural flow of life, interfering by forcing the flow to move according to our desires, we can, she says, destroy a life.

She compares us to flowers that have an innate time to bloom. If, for instance, fall flowers considered spring flowers, in all their glorious blooming, their competitors, the fall flowers would be stressed, she says, and not able to receive the necessary nutrients to blossom as they should. In fact, she says, fall flowers have more depth and dignity than spring flowers. Unhealthy competition is not good for any plant or any human. We should do the best we can, she advises. Competition, if it's present, should be with ourselves.

It's foolish to compare the beauty of one flower with that of another. Each flower, she points out, has its own particular beauty. What is sad is to arrive at the season to flower and we don't. This often happens in a competitive society when we compare ourselves with others. Those younger than ourselves, working within the same corporation, she says, who may have advanced organizationally beyond us should not bother us in any way. To increase the vitality of our own lives, she suggests that we believe in ourselves, refrain from comparing ourselves with others, and be content to be who we are and do what we do. As Christians we should be content to have an audience of one.

A Sad Tale of Two Brothers

A tale of two brothers and their families and the animosity that threatened to destroy their village recently appeared in the Catholic Time's View From the Window. The priest relates that the brothers, during their poverty-filled early years, were very close, but at the death of their parents began to fight over the inheritance, each brother gathering support for their cause from the villagers, the feud soon spreading into the neighboring villages. Insults and threats followed, setting villager against villager.

At the beginning of the feud, the economic conditions of the two families were similar. However, the younger brother invested in a business in the village that failed, and everything was lost. He began to drink and raise havoc, which turned many villagers against him and his family.  The older brother's efforts and good luck, however, enabled him to do well, Seeing the deteriorating condition of his brother's family, he tried to help and restore the loving relationship with his brother, but the scars from the past were too many. Over the years, meetings were held and some help was given. It seemed the attempts for a reconciliation were bearing fruit, but the family of the older brother interfered. Unwilling to forgive the harm suffered in the past, they criticized him for helping his brother. The situation had become so bad, it was even difficult to bring up the subject.

However, a few women relatives of the older brother secretly continued to help. Knowing the difficulties the younger brother's family was having, they kept talking about the need for reconciliation, which prompted members of their own family to attacked them. "Whose side are you on?" they would ask the women. "Have you forgotten what they did to us? Are they more important than your own family?" Treated like traitors, they no longer had the courage to speak out.

There seemed only one remaining hope for peace between the two families: the children. But after constantly hearing their parent's warnings such as "Don't play with them, don't talk with them," they developed the same prejudices as their parents-- and the vicious circle continued. The children of the young brother, because of their impoverished lifestyle, were ridiculed by the older brother's children. And the older brother's prominent status in the village, compared with that of their father's, caused the children of the younger brother to seek revenge: scrawling graffiti on walls, throwing stones and breaking windows. The disapproving elders would simply take care of the mess and punish the children, but this did nothing to change the feelings of the two families.
 
Despite the respect the older brother received from the villagers, the blemish on the family of the younger brother's behavior made them feel uncomfortable. The young brother seemed not to remember or preferred not to think of the help he and his family had received, or to remember the wrongs he had done, but thought it was all his brother's fault. Becoming more arrogant and erratic, he began to move his family from place to place. getting the attention of everyone. The sympathy many villagers once had for the family quickly disappeared, and disdain was all that was left.

Although, occasionally, small sums of money would be given to the younger brother in the hope that he would turn his life around, it was not to be. He began carrying a knife, threatening to kill and to set fire to the village, frightening everybody. 

How does their mother from heaven look upon her sons now? the priest wonders. Is the current situation the only one possible? Is there no way out of this mess?  Sometimes, all we can do, the priest says, as he ends this sad tale, is to offer up our prayers for them. 

Morally Dubious Experiments

In 2008 the Vatican published a list of new social sins that at the time gave the media something to talk about and a reason to laugh. The sins listed were bio-ethical violations, such as birth control; morally dubious experiments, such as stem cell research; drug abuse; environmental pollution; contributing to widening the divide between rich and poor; excessive wealth; and creating conditions for poverty. The  Kyeongyang magazine has taken a close look at each of these offenses, separately and in detail. This month a professor at the Catholic University of Daegu discusses "morally dubious experiments."

These experiments, he says, are like thorns on a rose bush, a two-edged sword, which under the guise of scientific experiments causes a lot of trouble. The human medical experiments run by Unit 731 of the Japanese army in China on Koreans and the Chinese are well-known. They  injected prisoners of war with anthrax bacteria and small pox germs to follow the progress of the contamination. There were other experiments but far too many to mention and the barbarity of what was done even difficult to speak about.

The professor also mentions the gruesome experiments performed by the Nazis on their Jewish prisoners. Also mentioned were the experiments, in1932, on Southern Blacks, by the U.S. Public Health Service, to determine the progress of syphilis, and even though medicine for the disease was available, it was not given to the patients. A similar experiment by the U. S. was conducted on prisoners and the mentally sick in Guatemala; here they were infected with syphilis to determine how useful penicillin would be in curing the disease. There were also the experiments by the CIA, until 1973, during which the government experimented on how to control behavior by drugs, electric shock, radiation, supersonic waves, and the like.

Denunciation of these immoral human experiments had good results. Those that participated in these experiments during the Second World War were given serious punishment. In 1947 a set of guidelines, called the Nuremberg Principles, was proclaimed by the United Nations, detailing what is permissible in medical experiments. In1964, the Declaration of Helsinki was a means of governing international research, providing guidelines for biomedical research involving human subjects. Korea has also established, he says, what is allowed in clinical trials, as well as setting up other regulations in medical matters.

Even though there are international regulations governing these matters, because of the sovereignty of each nation, unethical experiments are still occurring, such as nuclear testing. From 1945 to 1998, there have been 1,851 nuclear experiments. In 1963, because of the radioactive nuclear fallout, Russia and the U. S. agreed to stop the atmospheric experiments and to limit the experiments to the underground.

The amount of plutonium in our atmosphere because of nuclear testing, the professor surmises, is about 3.5 tons and its lethal effects will take thousands of years to dissipate. Another likely destructive scenario, but potentially more immanently catastrophic for humanity, the professor believes, will be the nuclear fallout from our energy generating nuclear plants, similar to what happened at Fukushima, Japan. The possible destruction of nature and human life are not being considered as we continue to experiment with nuclear energy. The professor would like to see a Maginot Line put in place that would block any more experiments of this type. If we don't heed the calls for stopping these experiments, he's convinced that the future will be a perilous time for both humanity and the planet.  

Meditating on the Martyrs

Once a month a group of Christians goes on pilgrimage to a martyr's shrine, after having selected a topic which the shrine will help to elucidate. The columnist writing on spirituality for the Catholic Times, a member of the group, mentions that he contacted a professor of history familiar with the lives of the martyrs to gather background on the martyrs which would help him participate more fully in the discussion they were going to have at the shrine.

During the conversation with the professor, he asked--what he later described as a foolish question--if she found the study of the martyrs interesting. She said that translating the letters of the foreign missioners, during and after the persecution, brought tears to her eyes. Reading about the cruel persecution of those days and the deaths of the missioners, however, did bring solace and peace into her daily life.  The exchange of letters among the missioners, accomplished under the most trying circumstances imaginable, showed their love for God and for the people which is impossible to express with words. To answer his question more directly, she said that the study of the martyrs was like being near a warm stove during a cold winter's night; it inspired her to love more. Rather than teaching just the history of the martyrs, she explained that focusing on the details of their lives helps us to live with more enthusiasm and joy. She told him it was no exaggeration to say that she has fallen in love with the martyrs.

On the way home on the bus, the columnist found himself musing that now, close to 200 years since the persecution, would be a good time to return to God. The day at the shrine, he said, had been sunny, with a gentle breeze, just like the days, according to historical records, during which the martyrs met their death.

That breeze entered his own being, the columnist said, and seemed to invite him to pattern his life after the lives of the martyrs. The professor mentioned her unrequited but steadfast love for the martyrs. Like the professor's love he hopes that his feeling is not some passing sentiment but a permanent attitude that will be with him as he relates with everyone he meets, and that it will last until he is called by God.     
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Loving but not in Our Way

Can there be a more tormenting experience for a mother than to hear that her child has attempted or committed suicide? Recently a mother received such news: a phone call from a hospital doctor informing her that "the crisis was over," but that her son will continue to need hospital care. When she was allowed to see him later that day, the face of her child, a 2nd-year middle school student, was pale but peaceful. In his farewell note to his parents and younger sibling, he said he was sorry for not having been any help to them.

The Sogang University professor who discusses the incident in her column in the Peace Weekly mentions that the boy often did  cause trouble. Frequently impetuous and unable to accept being unfairly treated, he would quickly resort to using his fists to settle an argument. The mother, who regularly attended parent-teacher meetings, would apologize for her son's unruly behavior, and on one occasion, when he had ruptured the ear drum of a classmate, she kneeled  before the student, and asked him to forgive her son.

Her son's school marks would fluctuate from very good to very bad, usually dependent on his emotional life, provoking anger from his father, who would then ask him if he knows how difficult it is for him to support the family. And does he know how much it costs to send him to the academy. And if this is the best he can do, why not give up.
 
The mother's more benign responses usually focused on urging her son to study more, which she did frequently. When he said he didn't want to go to the academy, she would ask how was he going to make a living as an adult. There was no conversation with the child to find out what he wanted; it was always about what the parents wanted for him. He would at times kick the walls of his room and bang his head against the wall, which she passed off as prompted by the onset of puberty. She doesn't remember that she ever had a heart-to-heart talk with him.

In the dark hospital room where her son was recovering she shed many tears. Thinking of the role she played in causing his rebellious behavior and attempted suicide, her attitude toward him changed completely. She finally came to the conclusion that his life was the thing she cared most about in her own life.

No longer taking the initiative but determined to support her son, she changed into a person whose new relationship with her son could be described as "being a step behind and no longer out in front." The boy soon began to make judgements and decisions on his own.

The professor mentioned in her column three ways for parents to support their children. One way is "to be out in front of the child," leading the child according to what the parents want for their child, which means the child has no life of his own. The second way is "to walk together with the child," sharing the child's experiences. The problem with this second way is that the child learns to depend upon the parents for everything. The third way is "to be behind the child," putting everything into the child's hands. This is a slower way, using the trial and error method, but the child learns self-reliance and creativity with this third way.

The professor sums up her account by saying the mother realized that by dying to herself, the son could live more authentically, more as his own person. She learned that by ridding herself of her methods of loving and taking a step back to watch, and when necessary stepping in to help, was a wiser way to love. Our society is a difficult place for our youngsters to find their way, the professor says. But not because there is a lack of love. It's because we demand that love be expressed in our own personal way.