Korean Independence and the Catholic Church

In 1945, on August 15th, with the defeat of the Japanese, Korea received independence. At a recent symposium the topic of Independence and the Catholic Church was examined, celebrating 70 years of freedom. It was not all happiness, for the country was divided under the Russian and American military rule. Both Catholic papers had articles on the place the Church had in preparing for a self-governing Korea.

Three years after the Japanese defeat on August 15, 1948, the self-governing  Republic of Korea was established. In 1910 they signed the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty which took away the freedom of the country and made it a colony of Japan. Over 40 years later independence returned to the nation. 

One of the participants in the symposium mentions how before and after liberation the Korean Catholic  missionaries had a role in setting up the Republic of Korea. At the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the Maryknoll missioners in Korea who were deported had written a manifesto which she brought to the attention of those present. When they were deported because of Japanese imperialism they made known in magazines, and in the mass media the persecution of Koreans under Japanese rule, and the importance of the missionary work in the country. Even after liberation the Maryknoll Society continued to form groups to push for the self-government and editorials on the issue. They continued to work for the independence and self-government after the end of the war.

Bishop Byrne, a Maryknoller, who returned to Korea in 1947, as the Apostolic Visitor of the Holy See was made the first Apostolic Delegate to Korea in 1949.  He did much to help the new government and showed the interest of the Church in Korea's struggles. She mentions that the expulsion of the western missioners  made the Catholic history of Korea, and the aspirations of the Church known internationally.

Bishop Byrne did a great deal in his position as Apostolic Delegate, to have the Korean National Government recognized internationally, with his diplomatic contacts. Bishop No Ki-nam the bishop of Seoul did much also to help with his contacts and in getting the Vatican's blessing. Another participant mentioned that the recognition had to come from the general meeting of the United Nations. Some countries  were opposed but many national groups  were on the side of Korea.

Another participant mentioned that the military government did prefer Catholics and Protestants over the Buddhists and Confucianism. This  helped the growth of Christianity in Korea. However, during the occupation of Korea at the hands of the Japanese irregularities were overlooked, and those who were pro-Japanese remains a problem in society. Without the  punishment of those who cooperated with evil and overlooking this period, will only lead to the same in the future, was a comment by a participant.

Another participant mentioned the Church and the  North Korean Christians. The Church was not quick to detect what was happening and responded to the circumstances as they arose. They were not conscious of the change in society, had no plans to counter the movement against religion, and no systemic response to the North's treatment of religion. 


A bishop, in conclusion, encouraged the participants in his talk. Korea has had many ups and downs but to have reached the present level of development means many have sacrificed much, and asks all present to continue to agonize on how the Church can be a light and salt in society.

Dilemma Faced by the Church

Money gives power; it can give life and take it away:  dangerous, but there are few who dislike its possession; we give our full attention to its search. In a capitalistic society, this is easy to understand. 

These are the introductory remarks in an article in the Peace Weekly about money. Without money, life can be shabby and uncomfortable. In a capitalistic society, poverty is looked upon as a sin but money can end up being the master and we its slave.

In the church, money is also important. There are all kinds of reasons  we give money to the church. Many are the names we use for the different offerings: asking for blessings, in thanksgiving for blessings received. Since the Christian community is composed of  human beings, there is a need for money. Not only the need for running and maintenance of facilities but also planning for the future. Money is needed for many reasons, a natural outcome of a community's need to help others. How it is raised is  important.

Many dioceses, religious orders, and groups need money to  continue  their apostolic works. Many of their programs also bring in money. They are a means of income: schools, hospitals, and welfare works. Many others do  the same work as the church in society, but the  church has a different value system, and has to be careful not to imitate what we have in society.  

To prevent this from  happening the church has to be alert to the dangers we have in following the methods of the capitalistic system. We need to  follow our principles, and our traditional attitudes  must be clear. In hospital work the need is to help the sick. We do have simple hospital facilities that are only concerned for the sick and poor, but they are few.

Many of our hospitals are large, and the numbers continue to grow. They are getting larger, and the columnist wonders whether they are mirroring the Catholic method of what care for the sick should mean. There are many reasons for the problem, and one of them is the need for money to exist. The competition among the hospitals is intense, and the fear of  falling  behind is present, but here the columnist has a problem: why the fear?

Since the way of the world is to make money  the  church should especially be conscious of this reality and operate differently. People have to come first before  the money, and to keep  in mind the gospel message. This is not always an easy task but one  that is required by the calling we have received.

"Wonderful, Happy, Thankful"

In a column in the Peace Weekly, the writer introduces us to a study that was made in 1932 of 180 nuns who wrote about their spiritual life. 70 years later, psychologists went through the written autobiographies and examined them to see how many times the words: wonderful, happy, moving, joyous, thankful, and the  like were used.

Those who were in the top 20 percent  in the use of these words, 90% of them lived over the age of 85. The lower 20% who had the least use of these  words only 34% lived over 85. There are other issues that are involved  in such a study but for those who made the study, it was indicative that  positive thinking  has an influence on longevity.

Positive thinking is a healthy way of living, needs little help from science, for most have an intuitive feeling of its wisdom. She mentions very few are able to keep a strong disposition in a long illness, but words can help someone bear up under the difficulties.

The columnist mentions that we are called Homo Narrans. Over and beyond our thinking, we have the ability to store in our heads and express in story form narratives that are welcomed by others and that  fosters communication, a quality society esteems highly. We feel that if we do our best and even keep silent we will have a meeting of hearts, which is not the case. If we don't express ourselves, sincerity will not be conveyed.

No matter, what the past was we should pick out some positive words and express them. However, she mentions that if we are too excessively attached to that positive mind, we will fall into the trap of having a  people pleaser complex. When not authentic our attempts to be charitable backfire, for words that do not come from the heart are often empty.

She goes on to show that  this is noticed in her radio work where you hear only words; insincerity is quickly noticed and you lose listeners.

We often hear about the glass-is-half-full person and the half-empty person. There is something that  is being expressed by these words, and it may be the wise person who sees the entire glass but is not elated or depressed by either half, and accepts it as reality and gives thanks. This is also being positive when we choose to see reality as is and make the most of it.

Internet Games and Children

Parents over 40, in raising children what did they fear the most? Is it the years of puberty or the times children  refused to talk and locked themselves in their rooms? Also, few are the parents who don't worry about the use of games.

The number of children overcome with lethargy, and are lost in their own world and refuse to grow are larger than we think. With these questions an educator, in the Kyeongyang magazine, writes about the place of internet games in our society.

There are many children who listen to lectures on the internet, but she asks parents, do they ever look at the monitor? Very often they will be playing some game. To prevent this from happening parents will do many things such as removing the bolt on the door.

Movements within society are trying to stop the use of games from midnight to early morning and the children are not happy. Some  mothers when they see the child using the computer, their blood pressure increases. Even when the child has done all the homework,  some parents are not happy and want them to return to the books.

Many things have changed, but for most  parents of children, one thing that has not changed is when the children are playing computer games they are considered addicted. 

We are all attracted to games. Recently the Dragon Flight game  was spreading like wildfire. Have you heard about it? She reminds us that about 25 % of the world population enjoys playing  games. She asks the parents how long will they be tied to an obsolete way of thinking? She gives us the Korean proverb that you don't give up making some food because of the fear you may find a worm.

We have programs for game literacy for parents by the education ministry.The fact is that most children are attracted to games. Rather than say they are addicted and seeing it all negatively, try to  make good use of the games for educational purposes.

In fact, excessive use of games does foster obesity, depression, digital dementia (overuse of digital technology is resulting in the breakdown of cognitive abilities) and games that use violence do promote violent actions. However, she maintains, using the games properly can help a person to succeed in life.

One of the best results is when persons are absorbed in some pursuit which they enjoy, dopamine is released in the brain, and you feel elated, and memory is enhanced. They also present a challenge to the  person on how to accomplish the task at hand.

However the question remains that we don't  want the children to just play games. She agrees, but she wants the parents to know why a child gets addicted to games. A child with a low estimation of self can  find satisfaction in getting recognized by the results of his gaming. Children who have difficulty in relating with others also can identify with the characters of the virtual world they have entered. Children with stress find the release of stress life giving.

She tells the parents to get to know the strong points of their children and help them to find release in other ways. We should be more concerned  for the place gaming has in our culture than the danger of addiction to games.  Today without  knowledge of gaming one will not be at home in our culture. She concludes, one can not be just opposed to gaming for it has become a skill of our times.

Marriage and the Family on Chuseok

According to the lunar calendar,  today is the Mid-Autumn Festival Day, celebrated in many of the Asian Countries. In Korea, it is called the Harvest Festival (Chuseok),  and Great Middle of Autumn Festival (Hangawi). Celebrated on the 15th day of the lunar calendar. We have three red-letter  days, which gives many families a chance to spend time with their extended  family. Both Korean Catholic Weeklies gave space to the holiday.
 
Today families remember the past. In the morning, they will have the rites in the home, in which they remember the dead ancestors. The Catholic Church at one time  opposed the rites because of the mixture of superstitious elements within the rites, but with the passage of time and the education level  of the people changing, the rites were recognized as a civil practice, and encouraged by the Church. 

Most citizens  continue this practice, but most  Protestants do not. The remembrance of the dead is a beautiful practice which Catholicism has incorporated into the liturgy on Chuseok with a short version of the office of the dead during the Mass. Koreans would also go to the graves to cut the grass and beautify the burial sites, during the days preceding or shortly after.

During this time of the year cities will be empty for families will return to their hometowns for family reunions, enjoy their time together, and perform the family rites. Thanksgiving for the new harvest and the bonds of family make it the Asian Thanksgiving Day. 

For many in Korea, they are facing an economic slump which will bring a chillness to the festivities of the holidays. This Sunday is also the last one for the month of the martyrs.

Shortly after the holidays we will have the bishops'  synod on the family, and the examination of the  problems families face. The extreme individualism and materialism continue to inundate society with deleterious results on the family: not something new but a challenge to the Church.  

Korea has one of the highest divorce rates of the member countries in OECD. From an agrarian society where the family bonds were important, we have moved to a society in which the  young people have accepted the individualism from the West. The  editorial wonders what the Autumn festival will look like in the future when the young become the corner stone of society. 

No matter how much society changes family needs to remain at the center. At this time of the year, we need to remind ourselves of this reality. God is with us, and we have to do what is necessary to make the bonds of family stronger in the years ahead.

Democracy and the Common Good

We hear many words about democracy, begins the column in the Catholic Times, by a priest working in the labor apostolate. For some democracy is too much talk, and only brings division, some see it as a return to a dictatorship, and some find it as no big deal. All living in the same county and with the same system of government, and yet we have this difference of opinion on the same subject.
 
There are few  words that have such a difference of opinion. The way we understand democracy is going to determine very clearly  the degree of maturity and level of implementation. Our standard of democracy is going to be different in Germany than in Korea. Generally speaking, we  say a democracy is one vote per person, at regular times, for parties that discuss and debate among  themselves and the opposition looking for the best way to govern a country, and citizens  voting for the party and candidates they prefer. With  this understanding of democracy than Korea is a democracy, but this is why we hear the citizens' lives are not improved by this system of government.

Tocqueville the French political thinker, and philosopher  said it was not the voting  procedure that was important but the conditions in society. The means of voting is not central to a democracy but rather the intelligence, virtue, and culture in which the voting is done. For this reason, the democracy of Germany and the European countries would be different from Korea. 

Catholic teaching as found in the compendium of the Social Gospel would say the same. "An authentic democracy is not merely the result of a formal observation of a set of rules but is the fruit of a convinced acceptance of the values that inspire democratic procedures: the dignity of every human person, the respect of human rights, commitment to the common good as the purpose and guiding criterion for political life. If there is no consensus  on these values, the deepest meaning of democracy is lost and its stability is compromised" (#407). 

Democracy goes beyond the system and procedures and considers the dignity of the person, human rights, and efforts made for the common good. The Second Vatican Council stressed the reason for the existence of a country was for the common good, and we can evaluate  the  degree in which this is accomplished by the concern for the common people.
 
Looking at the 10 biggest conglomerates for the last ten years we see that the money in their possession has increased over twofold, and yet the number of the poor that are able to leave their poverty continues to decrease. No matter how hard they work they find it difficult to make ends meet. Korea in the polarization between the 'haves' and 'have nots' is comparable to Mexico, and the number in poverty would be similar to Turkey.

These statistics show  that the common good has not always been considered in  governing  the country. A sign, the columnist concludes, that democracy has not been effective. 

We Freely Become Slaves

Temptations are a part of life. A seminary professor in the Kyeongyang magazine introduces us to fetishism: excessive attention or attachment to some object, and for him this makes you a slave of that object. He very astutely uses the word slave in Korean which is made up of two syllables 'No' and 'Yeh' (noyeh). A slave, according to the professor,  is one who when he should say no says yes.

In this case, you are acknowledging the control over oneself of something outside, external to oneself,  which makes you a slave. He mentions three reasons for the slavery: attachment to material goods, sexuality and greed and the antidotes are the evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity and obedience. God is the ultimate  meaning of the counsels.  According to the columnist, the strongest of these is our attraction to the material, and when this is the object of our worship, it becomes our fetish.

When Israel left Egypt and were in the desert, they were fed up with the manna they were receiving daily, and wanted to return to slavery and a decent meal. They also wanted something that was more material to express their worship, and made the image of a calf: another throwback to what they possessed when slaves in Egypt.

We have evolved in our day.  We camouflage our thinking:  living well is another way of saying we have money. Excessive  accumulation of material goods is something that we envy and consuming becomes a virtue. Instead of paying attention to the words of Jesus and the apostles we go to the early years of the Scripture where we see the blessings of material goods and possessions, and forget that  "Jesus had  no place to lay his head."

Even tithing is often considered a way of getting more blessings instead of a way of sharing and becomes an investment in future blessings. We see this method of thinking in the story of St. Nicholas in his sharing, and  St.Nicholas (Santa Claus) becomes an idol to promote consumption.

"One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols" #55 of Pope Francis in Joy of the Gospel.

From the beginning of Christianity, there has been no time where wealth has been exalted like the present. We have become slaves of money. We forget persons are what are important, and that politics, economy, society and culture all exist in our environment. Doing harm to the environment is not benefiting us in the long run and will come back to harm us in the future. Creation is God's gift to us, and we need to care for it. When material goods do harm to our environment we  need to learn how to say "No"  when  a "No" is our only answer if we want to be free and caretakers of creation.