The Catholic Saving Our Farm Movement

Yesterday we had some Catholics who came for some mountain climbing behind the church. They looked around the property and saw a lot of plant lice on the trees and plants and told me to do some spraying. I told them I was trying to make the area ecologically a garden of Eden. One man overheard the conversation joined and mentioned that tobacco put in water for a period of time makes a good herbicide and is organically permitted. I can see myself going around looking for cigarette butts to prepare the material to spray.

In Korea there are many who have taken up organic farming and the Church in many of the Dioceses have Save Our Farm Movement which is strong and doing well. The third week of July is Farming Sunday in Korea. After the Uruguay Round Agreement the Church thought it necessary to get involved with the farmers and tried to give them hope for the future. It has established its identity as a movement that protects agriculture, farmland and ecology, and its main thrust is organically grown food, normally devoid of pesticides and herbicides.

There are many parishes that have an outlet for food grown on organic farms, selling directly to the consumer. The products grown on these farms are more expensive and that is a big problem in having the movement grow but it is continuing slowly having spread to all the dioceses in Korea.

This movement within the Catholic Church started in 1994 and continues to grow with its blessing. It is also spreading to the livestock farmers who few, are trying to raise the animals entirly on organic feed without any antibiotics. In this present edition of the Catholic Paper there is the example of a sole farmer who is growing pigs completely on organic feed without any antibiotics It is an interesting endeavor and hopefully these farmers will get the necessary coperation of the consumers.

The Friends I met in North Korea

The following are a few vignettes from Fr. Gerard Hammond's recent trip to North Korea.

“The friends I met in North Korea” during a recent visit with humanitarian aid for T.B patients (I have changed the names of the friends I met in the North).

This spring, I met Park Jung Ok, at a Tuberculosis Center in North Korea where I helped deliver medicines. As I remember the joyous look on Park Jung Ok’s face as she hugged the box containing her first six-month supply of TB medication.The woman had a husband and a six-year-old waiting for her at home. I prayed that she would take her medicine faithfully, recover, and return to her family. Each visit brings hope. Providing good, long-term treatment to TB patients in the political context of the North-South divide is not easy. But each time I visit North Korea with my fellow medical missioners, I have hope. That’s because I witness first-hand how love and prayers are touching the hearts of patients who struggle each day against despair.

Kim Min Chul is 37. He had been treated for TB but relapsed and needed follow-up care. “I have made a quick recovery because the staff has treated me like family, and made sure that I took my medicine on time. I promise to continue this “forced march” for another year and make a complete recovery!” Thank God, Min Chul is doing well.

Ri Hyun Suk’s story is sad, but I pray for a good outcome. She developed a resistant form of TB that required special medications, which we were able to provide. Soon her appetite and color returned, but her spirits remain low. “Sometimes I wonder if I can make it,” Hyun Suk told me. “I have a 10–and a 12-year-old at home who are crying to see their mother. You have brought this medicine to help and I’m going to try. But this is such a vicious disease. Do you really think I can get well?”

Dr. Kim Pyong Ho had once complained about the severe cold that winter brought to his medical facility in the North. “We just installed the efficient coal briquette heaters that you brought us,” said Dr. Kim. “Now our patients will be warm and happy. We are thankful that you have solved a big problem for us!” Our generator project is another sign of hope. Because of sporadic electric power supplied to hospitals in the North, diagnostic equipment isn’t always usable, and caregivers can’t depend on continuous electricity, even for emergency surgery.
But conditions are starting to change. Our generator projects, deliver dependable electricity to a handful of hospitals with more to come. Doctors and other caregivers can do their jobs with much more assurance. And patients can return to normal lives.

Since beginning our medical missions. I have visited the people of North Korea many times. I fervently believe that if we can stand with them side-by-side against a terrible disease like TB, then one day we will bring reconciliation between the North and the South. With God’s grace, I hope to be the apostle of peace who did all he could to make this dream come true.

Korean Politics after Death of Roh

On the front page of today's daily paper we have a picture of President Obama walking hand in hand with Nancy Reagan the wife of past President Ronald Reagan. The caption on top: "Their Government and Our Government". This is something they would not ordinarily see in Korea: the present administration and the opposition hand in hand. Many of the Koreans do have a very idealized picture of the kind of government we have in the States.

The scenes they do see on Korean TV are fist fights, emotional outbursts, and the brawling during the sessions. After the death of past President Roh, the feeling of many is that the suicide of Roh was brought about by the unfair dealing with the opposition. This is fueling the antagonism that was there but taking it to another level.

There are many of the opposition who are coming out with statements against the present government's approach to our democracy. Many in the universities are coming together to oppose the way the government is dealing with many of the liberties that the citizens have gained over the years.

There are many in our Korean society who disagree strongly in the way he chose to end his life but sympathize greatly with what he tried to do.There are many Catholic in this number who have been very much for President Roh and felt that he was trying to do something to minimize the gap between the rich and the poor. Fr. Pak the executive officer of the Committee for Life in Seoul said ... "We should respect his desire to make a society that would respect the poor."

The difference between the "conservative" and "liberals" here in Korea on social issues would be very similar to those in the States. For many Roh was the American Obama.

Catholic Teaching on Dying

In a recent decision by the Supreme Court in Korea the doctors treating a comatose woman were told that the life support must be removed as her family requested. This is the first time the court has ruled in favor of a patient's right to die. This decision by the court can be interpreted in many different ways but it did not judge for euthanasia which is the way some are taking it.

The Church in a case where there is no hope of a person in a vegetative state trusts the decision of the medical team who are the specialist to make a conscientious judgment on the continuation of medical treatment.

According to an article in the Catholic paper this week the Church is now concerned with the different words that are being used with different meanings by many in our Korean society. The Catechism of the Church says:“Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of “over-zealous” treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted.”

The problem comes when the words that are used have different meanings. “Death with dignity” , “Prolonging life”, “Life with no meaning”,” Passive Euthanasia”, These are words that do not mean the same to everybody. We have a problem with terminology. The Church’s thinking in this area goes back 500 years it is surprising how even within the Church there is not always the same understanding of the terms.

"If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value. It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for its sake. (Catechism)

In Catholic Teaching it is very clear that no one is required to continue medical treatment that has no prospects of improving ones health.

Korean TV and the Family

Korean T.V. is still very healthy comparing it to the west; however, it is not what it was. This has been treated in the press rather frequently in recent months. In the Chosunilbo for May 18, front page big headline: “TV Destroying Family”; a very strong statement and probably not completely without foundation. There are times that you see adult programs in the morning when the children would be watching. The dramas frequently have adultery as one of their themes. Sex is more and more a part of the fare. Sex is part of life and a beautiful part of what God had in mind for human kind and there is no reason it should not be prominent. When this part however, is vulgarized or shown in a prurient way it cheapens its value. This is not helpful to any of us.

We have had a number of sensationalized incidents of adultery that have been a cause for divorce proceedings. Korea is still one of the few countries outside of the Muslim world that still criminalizes adultery. That this is the proper way of handling the issue- is a question for debate. The act is wrong and we should try to do everything to eradicate it, for the good of families and the society as a whole. Whether to penalize it by law is another question.

The media can do a great deal to cheapen a great deal of what we have considered sacred and necessary for the good of society. Here we have the dilemma of what to do when the public wants something and “Natural Law” or our consciences says something else. What to do when the rest of the world is going one way and Korea is dragging its feet. Obviously we do not need the government to get involved in these problems to the extent that they begin to legislate what is required for the good life. The different groups in our society should lobby for what they think is correct. That is what a democracy is and the Catholic Church is one of the groups that should be heard but this should be a cooperative effort and all who feel that there is a great deal of wisdom in the way we have lived should try to convince the public by all the means at hand. There are those who see things differently and they should have their say; that is why the debate is important and in numbers there will be strength.

Korean Geomancy (풍수지리)

Some years ago some of the Catholics seeing the position of my bed which was facing North-South recommended that I change the position. Having the head of the bed facing north was not propitious. I have forgotten what they answered when I asked, "Why?"

There are many off handed remarks that one hears over the years and some of them register and some do not, but the interest that many of the Koreans have with grave sites is something which one hears too often not to take serious.

In Korea there is “Wind Rain Earth Theory” (풍수지리) which in English is often translated as Geomancy. It was and probably is a way of divining but for many it is a way of selecting a site for a house or a place for a grave. If the sites are not pick appropriately then the fear of misfortune for the family is not an uncommon concern of many.

In our times when ecology is a very important part of our interest the Koreans' interest in the relationship that the natural surrounding have on us was always an important part of there thinking. "If you have a mountain range facing you with gentle rolling hills than those who live in that ambient will be gentle and meek those who live in the proximity of steep and pointed mountains will be quick of temperament and lack smoothness." There are areas of this thinking that for me are superstitious and for a Christian of no help for a follower of Christ. Much of the thinking that follows from the relationship that we have with nature is healthy but the fear that it sometimes begets, and has no basis in reason, is not healthy for either the body or spirit. However, how much of the tradition is based on just good common sense is an area that might be interesting to study.

The Korean Comfort Women Issue

Received this letter in the mail this morning telling me about an article in the Korean Times.

“In the Sunday edition of the Korean Times for May 24, i.e. the Saturday-Sunday combined edition, there was an interesting article on comfort woman and their history of fighting exploitation. This mirrors very much an article in “Mission in the South”…. Check it out here

The Maryknoll Sisters were always active in the plight of these women. The reference is “Sharing House”, their abode since the 1990’s is what I reported in the book."

The following is a paraphrasing of the article from the Book, Mission in the South by Rev. Robert Martin Lilly,M.M. on the comfort woman.

Solidarity with former Comfort Women

The term “comfort woman” is a euphemism for the Asian women who were forced to become sex slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army. Battlefront brothels were common in China and Southeast Asia in the 1930s and throughout the Pacific War areas in the 1940s. In April 1988, the issue surfaced in Korea when a Protestant group called Church women United denounced the current “sex tourism” phenomena saying it was a modern equivalent of “comfort women”.

In 1990 an elderly Filipina went public with her story. In 1991 women from Korea came forth when as young girls they were forced to serve as sexual objects for Japanese soldiers. Since then the movement for support has gained momentum. Maryknoll Sisters were instrumental in helping the Association of Major Superiors realize that sisters as churchwomen would do well to support the “comfort women”- which they did.

.A number of organizations Christian and non-Christian are involved in the overall effort. Programs have included an international gathering in Seoul in 1999 and the movie, “Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women”, produced by a Korean –American.

The ninety-minute film traced the abuse and maltreatment the women suffered upon their return home, surprisingly not from Japanese perpetrators but at the hands of their own family, local community and government. It also points up the nonchalance for the the issue on the part of scholars. It was shown in Korea and on PBS in the US in May 2000. This was the first time anything dealing with it appeared on nationwide TV.

In the fall of 2000 there was an international tribunal in Tokyo on the issue.As always the key point was the demand for an official apology from the Japanese Government with financial recompense.