Families are the basic unit of society. When families are healthy
society is healthy. The role the family had as producer and consumer has
now been reduced to being where members sleep. The intensity of
competition in our society prevents families from being places of
security and rest; the influence of religion on the family has
weakened. These are the words a university professor, with experience
in the field, uses in his article on the family, in the Kyeongyang
Magazine.
The extended family in the past was able to
respond to our needs, both essential and non-essential. With
the change to the nuclear family this has become difficult. We find not
only the non-essential needs are filled outside the family, but also the
essential ones. Even the nuclear family is beginning to wobble. We have
both husband and wife needing to work, the pressure on children to study, and even the living apart of husband and wife for
the sake of the children's schooling. In the last 25 years we have a fourfold increase in divorces, and two times the number of unmarried
families.
Because of the lack of communication within the family we have the breakdown of family bonds. We do hear:
"Have you eaten? Where are you? Are you home? "Can we call this
communication? According to the mass media the face to face
communication has given way, in many instances, to the use of the smart
phone. Part of the reason is not only the lack of time but the lack of
matter to talk about; not only the generational gap but also the lack
of a common culture: without some commonality in
life we have little to talk about.
So what can we do? He
asks. Most know the present family reality is not conducive to happiness,
and are looking to bring joy back to the family. The professor
does not consider the solution as impossible or difficult: get rid
of competition, and work to build up community. We need an attitude
which sees the value of working together; work
against the coldness of materialism which denigrates our human dignity,
and find the values of community. These are the values that we as
Catholics have stressed and have tried to practice.
These
are not the values of our society so we have to work to change the
foundational system of our society. Egotism and the policy of
development at all costs has to change. The government has to
guarantee the right to a human life for all the citizens. This is not
the reality in our present society.
He concludes the
article by presenting us with the countries of Northern Europe and
their welfare state, as examples to follow. Instead of efficiency and
competition, the emphasis is on equality and care for all the citizens. Once we start looking at where the families live and the process of
education comes under the blanket of public welfare the original
understanding of family community and its function will recover.
Last Christmas, Fr. James Sinnott, died, a
Maryknoll Priest, who helped make known to the world the tragedy
surrounding the legalized murder of eight members of the People's
Revolutionary Party, that never existed. The government of Park
Chung-hee expelled him. He couldn't forget Korea, and with the arrival
of democracy, returned. A diocesan priest from Pusan, writing in the
View from the Ark, in the Catholic Times, reminds his readers of the
gift that Fr. Sinnott gave to our society.
Another
Maryknoller, Fr. Michael Bransfield, also left us quietly. While on the
island of Kang Hoa Fr. Mike in 1968, helped the young workers in a
textile factory on the island, working in difficult conditions, to
unionize. His efforts were strongly opposed, and he suffered much during
this period. This was the occasion for the Bishops of Korea to publish a
statement on the plight of the workers which was the beginning of the Church's formal concern for laborers. The article wants
us to remember the work of these two priests.
Bishop
Ji-Hak-sun, was the person that left us the gift of the priests'
Justice and Peace Committee which continues the work for human rights and
democratization; he did much before his death, to make Catholicism a
religion that has won the respect of many of the citizens.
However,
says the priest, in 1997 at the end of the 20th century with the IMF we
had something we had never experienced before, the beginning of the Neoliberalism period.
During the last part of the 20th century it was a fight for democracy,
in the 21st century a fight for distributive justice.
We
have those who have left us a gift with their mission and zeal in 20th
century but what are we in the 21st century going to leave behind for
our world and our descendants? Magnificent buildings that we are
leaving behind is not the answer. The problem with having enough to eat
is an issue with which we need to respond, and not something we can dismiss. Social justice and economic justice are two wheels of the same
cart,
Let us look
at the Scriptures with new eyes. We have a new way of looking upon our
society. We have to see our society in the way God looks on the society.
We have to have a different theology, a new spirituality. Are we not called to accept freely a life
of detachment--poverty- that will be the key to meeting the heartless
and selfish capitalism that we see around us? This is the key to
prevent our human existence from being trampled.
He concludes, they are working to incorporate a new type of spirituality in their Theology Research Center, and in the lay organizations in the diocese. Spirituality is not for the exclusive use of the religious and
clerics but for all. This, he says, will be our gift to those who follow
us.
In many of the interviews for employment one of the questions asked: "
What is it that you absolutely don't want to do? On the opinion page of
the Peace Weekly the writer mentions some of the answers: "I have no
problems." "Nothing special." She doesn't know if these answers are coming from the heart; and mentions her own response to the question in
an interview for a job some 4 years before. She remembers exactly how
she responded: "I hate to be forced to do something which I think is
wrong."
We spend a great deal of time in the workplace.
When the system to which we belong is going in a direction we don't
like, it is difficult to be content. Our whole body will revolt. When a
monk doesn't like the temple he has two choices: to change the temple
or leave. He has to choose the way that benefits him. If he decides to
leave, he has to realize that he will not have a chance to eat the tasty food of the temple again. Life is short, and to live doing
something you don't want to do is asking a great deal.
Last
May she heard about a friend who refused to go into the military. She
asked her friends about the young man, and was told that he wanted to
work against violence, and made his choice, and was imprisoned. This is
not something that happens rarely. In Korea we have over 850 who are now
in prison because of the draft, and a great majority are
Jehovah's Witnesses. Worldwide, 90 percent of those who are in prison
because of the draft are in Korea.
She doesn't want to
get involved with the arguments pro or con on the military; she doesn't
know what she would do if she were in her friend's shoes but she thinks
that there should be an alternative to prison for those who refuse the
military. Korea refuses the right of conscientious objection and does
not provide any alternative civilian service. Korea continues to violate the international agreement to respect this human right of conscientious objection; and insists their situation is different because of security.
On a train trip she noticed all the advertizing for academies for children: called so and so military academies.
Parents seem to have no problem with this, and go along with the
situation. The writer reflects how natural the military situation of
Korea is accepted by so many, and she sympathizes with those who are
poking us to wake up to this reality. We have conscientious objectors
who when released from prison will be call ex-convicts when they are not
convicts. There should be a way, she says, for those who do not want to bear arms to do so.
Society continues to demand qualifications for certain positions; education, licenses and examinations are needed, and one of the most
important positions in society is that of a parent, and no special
training is necessary. One needs a license to drive a car, but the
danger that follows on having children without necessary knowledge is
more dangerous.
A woman specialist in the field
writes in the Kyeongyang Magazine about parents need for knowledge in raising children. She mentions the many parents who see the problems
that come with children in their teens; the parents remember little
of what they experienced, and pass it off as a rite of passage.
There
is the axiom: When small the baby cries because of the parents, when
the child grows the parents cry because of the child. She gives us some
possible reasons for the crying.
1) Did the parents raise the child with their own personal inflexibility?
"When I was a child I did it this way you do it this way."
2) Was the child raised to be praised by others?
We have children without a mature personality and lack spontaneity.
3) Was there constant worry for the child?
This makes for a sensitive and highly nervous temperament.
4) Was the child in all instants under their thumb?
A child being treated like a 7 year older as a teenager will be irritable.
5) Was everything spoken an admonition?
This make for a child who doesn't know how to converse, and a child who has two faces.
What are some of the steps necessary in the education of the parents?
1) Some basic knowledge of the stages of growth.
2) Observe the child and know what to do.
3) Knowledge of what to do in certain periods.
We say that a habit acquired at the age of three lasts a lifetime. Great care should be taken during those early years. Teenagers
have reached another stage and have to be treated differently.
4) Place of family in the education.
The child is always learning in the way the family members are relating with one another.
5) Prevent problems, and methods of education.
The child needs to
feel secure. Admonitions and nagging is not what is needed, but words
that make sense and given positively and gently followed with the
example of the parents.
As with the maxim when one plants
black beans you get black, when you plant red beans you get red ones.
The personality of the child will depend on the attitude of the parents
and the way the child was reared.
Parents
have to learn how to be parents, and to work to improve their own
moral and spiritual qualities, they have to confer on themselves the
qualifications for raising a family.
Many things are handed down to us by our parents. One
is their belief system--their religion. Often considered of little value and discarded, but there are those that consider the practice of faith their most valued possession, or better
said, what possesses them.
Bible & Life in a
special section of the magazine has articles on the gift of faith
received from parents. A Salesian Sister recalls her life as a Catholic
and her earliest recollection was of the Easter Midnight Mass. She and her younger sister not able to overcome the
drowsiness fell asleep, using her mother's clothes as bedding, both
would sleep on the wooden floor.The mother would wake them at the
Gloria when the bells, both in and outside the church would ring, and
again at the end of Mass when the Eucharist would be put in the tabernacle. Here she was told Jesus arose from the dead. Now when she sees the
tabernacle light it is a sign of the resurrection.
The
church was just a few minutes walk from her house and they used the
church yard as their park. She would go to the church to study and even
nap. In the evening as the sun was setting her mother would ask her to
call her father for supper, and she would go up to the roof top to call him, he would be saying the rosary in the church yard.
Hearing his daughter's call he would go to statue of the Blessed
Mother, and she knew that the message had been delivered.
Her
family had not been Catholics for long, and the occasion was the
sickness of her older brother. The mother was preparing her offering of rice to give to the female shaman, and was told by the woman who was to be her godmother to give the offering to the bigger shaman at the
church. This was the godmother's way of introducing the mother to the
church. The brother was cured and the reason the mother entered the church and
the two girls were baptized. The grandfather and husband were adamantly
opposed but she went ahead, and the two girls became attached to the
church from an early age.
The father later on also was baptized,
and became a regular worker for the church; he even said if he came back to this world after death he would want to be a monk, this was not
received well by the mother who retorted she
introduced him to the church.
It was thanks to her
families example that she became a nun. In her middle years she was
afflicted with insomnia; during this time she ran across a passage in
Revelations: "Think how far you have fallen! Turn from your sins and do
what you did at first" (Rev. 2:5). When did she fall and need to
repent? She realized that she was not thankful for the many gifts that
she received, and was only concerned for what she didn't have and wanted.
In conclusion
she thanks Bible & Life for the opportunity to write about her
gift of faith. In writing the article she became conscious of all the gifts she received from God, family, her religious community, and all those she has been working
with, and is filled with gratitude.
"Whatever is received is received in the manner of the receiver" is
an aphorism from the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. We can change this
somewhat to say that whatever is given is given in the manner of the one
giving, especially when we are dealing with the mass media. We know how
much the media weighs the facts with the thumb on the scale. Not surprising, and expected, but does require wisdom when going to the media for information and
knowledge. Some media conveys more truth than others.
With Bible,
has an interview with a professor in the Press and Broadcasting Studies at the Anglican University. He was asked how does he see
the present situation in Korea with the mass media. He recalls the
days in 1985 and the purge of those in the media who were critical of
the government. When freedom of the press was returned in 1987
there was growth. The atmosphere was there for a segment of the press
to say what they thought was right. However, after 2008 many of those
who were connected with the government were in management positions
within the mass media, and spoke for the government. Certain aspects are
different but the professor says we have gone back in many ways to the
pre-democratic days.
In 2009 we had a change in the
law governing the press. In a democratic society the media to protect
its diversity, the press and broadcasting companies were forbidden to
have other business involvement. The Media Law of 2009 broke this
understanding, and we have collusion with big business which are now
able to own shares in the media. Alternative media is
fighting this, but they are small and the citizenry is not supporting
them, so their influence is small.
How do we
distinguish what is true and false? We have the responsibility and the
right to search out what is the truth in the media. It is difficult to
make this decision when it is only a one way transmitting of the news,
and the most influential media does the distorting. There is
criticism, however, and the need for the public to compare news reports with one or
two other reports, and support the news that is objective.
We
have to be actively concerned with what is important. Each person in
a democratic society should be able to enjoy their human existence.
We have to go beyond the idea of merely helping and protecting the
poor and have a new vision. The professor gives us the example from a
documentary (Barefooted Doctors) 2007, on the Cuban doctors who went to
East Timor.
Most of the doctors who had gone to
East Timor, left for their home country after a few months but
doctors from Cuba did not leave. "You came to serve, why don't you
leave like the other doctors?" They all, without hesitation answered:
"We did not come to serve. We are just doing our work the "East Timorese"
have a right to enjoy life." The idea of helping those who
are not as well off, was not part of their thinking. This,
the professor explains, is the way they were trained to become
doctors. They train those who are going to be doctors at government
expense. All is free. They work not as much for money but to realize
their potential as human beings, and to build a happy society.
The
professor shows us by his example the way the news is easily slanted by
the news media because of their ideological positions and collusion with
big business. The question he received was about free lunches in
schools and the way some of the media attacked with: "Are we going to
feed the rich with free lunches?" The press can use words and tone to
sway the readers with the way they choose to see the world. Objectivity
is not as important as pushing their agenda, and the professor gives us
the example of doctors from a poor country, who have one of the best
medical systems in the world and the way they see the world in which
they live. Being objective and conveying the truth is difficult, but deliberately, when
the media tries to protect their interests, and not the public interest, truth is sacrificed.
On the opinion page of the Catholic Times a Salesian recalls
the days as a young priest when he saw the harm students faced, because of ferocious competition. Many of them
to forget the scars, shame, frustration and sense of inferiority,
resorted to inhaling of glue and gas.
No matter how
much effort was made to make clear the harm to health, it did
not change behavior. He laments that society doesn't do more to keep
intoxicants out of the hands of children as they do with alcohol and
tobacco.
He also has problems with the mixed martial
arts matches we have in Korea. They are the kick boxing type of matches, that bring out the worse in those who are in the ring. It is not uncommon for the loser to be taken to the hospital after
one of the matches. One of the reasons some use to justify the matches
is the primitive instinct towards violence that some have, is neutralized by
watching the matches. Christians do not see it this way. One member of National Assembly, because of his interest and
activities, enabled the dropping of the matches from public television.
Money
is what energizes the culture of death and the two examples the writer
gives us are an infinitesimal part of the problem. Thanks to Pope
John Paul II in his encyclical Gospel of Life, we hear about the culture
of life and the culture of death. Without realizing what is
happening, there are many things we countenance as normal that are destructive to life.
Each
human life has value from its beginning to natural death. As Christians
we should be firmly and unconditionally on the side of life. Like the
priming water that was used in the pumps of the past to bring water up,
we should bring out the good from others by our words and actions that promote life. What we mean
by the culture of death is not difficult to surmise, if we allow our
natural feelings to control our thoughts and see reality as it is
without any rationalizations and pretexts.
He concludes
his article by reminding us that our indiscriminate desire for development feeds the culture of death. We devalue life. Pope Francis
mentioned while in Korea, "We need to fight against the culture of death
that profanes the dignity of our humanity." The writer wants us to boycott all
that is not on the side of life.
