Changing the Perception Towards Hansen Disease in Society

Written up recently in the Chosun Ilbo, Franciscan Fr. Yu  has been assisting and comforting those diagnosed with Hansen's disease for the last 31 years. He came to Korea in 1976 from Spain, a country not unlike Korea, both populations having experienced the horrors of war. Now 65-years old, he has made working with the survivors of this horrible disease his mission in life.

After Mass every morning, he makes the rounds of the patients. "Although I can't see and hear, I know it's the priest," says one grandmother, "he's the only one who warmly hugs us."

The facility of 200 patients, once a village with thatched, slate-roofed houses that made up the colony, shunned by society, is now a much different community thanks to Fr. Yu. He says that you can tell by their eyes that they desire to be loved. He serves not only as their chaplain but as the driver for the community; they feel uncomfortable using public transportation, he says, so he takes them where they want to go and does their errands for them. During this time, he has been at the bedside of over 500 who have died; he wants them to know they are not alone at the last moment. He has also prepared the bodies for burial, serving as their undertaker. He was proud of the Hwan Gap party they gave him on his  61st birthday. He considers them as family and hopes to be with them for his 70th and 80th, to give hugs.

The  disease can lead to disfigurement of the outer limbs and facial features. With the introduction in the early 1980s of multi-drug therapy (MDT), the disease has been successfully treated, and those afflicted are no longer carriers of the disease; confinement is no longer necessary.  But the facts of the case have not lessened the fears of many when they see the tell-tale marks of the disease.  Attempts have been made to give these unfairly treated citizens their human rights but ideas change very slowly.

Korea does a good job, however, in taking care of those who have the disease, which has been eradicated in Korea. But unfounded, fearful thinking is not easily eradicated. The word leprosy--named after the infecting bacterium (M. leprae) discovered by a Norwegian physician Gerhard Hansen--is not used now as often, which is a sign of  change. But problems still exist. When a person is known to have someone in the family who had the disease, it becomes difficult to speak about it and prospects of marriage are diminished.

 Fr. Yu is helping to change this thinking in the least confrontational and yet meaningful way possible: doing what many fear to do.

Why is Collaborative Ministry So Difficult?

Off and on over the years there have been attempts within the Church to incorporate within Church ministry different ways to do pastoral work: team ministry,  partnership, collaborative ministry a community vision for the work. The attempts in Korea do not get the publicity they seem to deserve, or maybe they may not have been as successful as contemplated when started.

Looking back at one of the attempts (its web site is no longer operating), one can see that the dream was to work on educational programs for team ministry-- a suggestion that apparently came from the  Synod  of the Seoul Diocese, but the  effort did not achieve the expected results.  Discussion of the topic also took place in our diocese but there was little interest.

Because the work a pastor is asked to do  is usually beyond his capabilities, this vision of working as a team becomes a dream for many. The basic goal of the team ministry (and wherever it's been tried, it follows the same pattern) is to work with others in coming to decisions, in the execution of those decisions, and getting diversified talent to help out.

The priest responsible for the  movement in Seoul expressed it as casting off the one-person approach to the work and working in solidarity in a horizontal manner with others to give life to the community.

He finds models of this approach from the incidents in the life of Moses (Exodus 4:13-16), where Moses was given the mission by God and then shared it with Arron. He mentions Joshua and Caleb and others, and also Jesus, who sent the disciples out by twos.

There are a number of things that have to be remembered, he reminds us:

1) A common vision of Church. All must have similar ideas and  values and be able to come to a consensus, otherwise it will not work.
2) The Church's Canon law has to be followed.
3) Respecting everyone as having  received the call of discipleship.
4) Getting  rid of all discrimination: gender, age, birthplace, education, etc.
5) Conscious of the vocation to the work in the  Church
6) A fair distribution of the work among those with different talents.
7) A mechanism of communication has to be established  and continued.
8) Educational programs for the group have to continue.

This is a big order, and possibly the reason success stories are few. There are also the synergistic  results that can be expected when we are able to sacrifice some of our autonomy; this is difficult, for the ego is not easily subdued. And yet, the Church would seem to be the ideal place for team ministry to thrive.

Changing the Rules for Fighting Between Husband and Wife

Fighting between husband and wife is a common ordeal that all couples have to contend with. Writing in Bible and Life  magazine, a father of eight children tells us what he has learned about fighting in a friendly way.

Most of the time when the fight is over, you have forgotten what you were fighting about. It is usually a trifle but at the time it seemed momentous. For example, his style of dealing with the children, he says, is to let them figure out what to do while the wife finds this  difficult, and was nervous about  having  the children looked after by others. He thought it would be a good idea to leave the children with the grandparents in the country for a month; his wife was adamantly against it. The grandparents, because of the work the couple were faced with, agreed with him, and wanted to have the children stay with them, but she continued to oppose it.

The writer had difficulty accepting his wife's feelings on the matter and, being angry, he became aware of the many critical things he wanted to say to her. When she entered the room, she asked him: "Your angry, aren't you?" He wanted to answer that he was, but instead, surprising himself,  answered:                                                      

"Dear, our parents are getting older and many things have changed. These strong positions we hold now were absent in the past. We will have to change the way we treat our parents." She replied, "What shall we do?" indicating she was open to discussing it.  He was surprised that he was able to answer his wife without anger, even though there had been a strong desire to do so.

The writer feels that he was being helped in keeping calm by remembering the lines from Rom. 8:26, "The Spirit too helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groaning that cannot be expressed in speech."

Before a possible fight, he says he doesn't have time for anything more than the words: "Holy Spirit help!"  Three little words but they helped  change shouting matches and  passionate confrontations into quiet discussions: listening to what his wife was saying, and saying what he had to say in a few words. The new way left him feeling purified, he said, like taking a shower.

He concluded that when they  fought, they were not seeing each others true self but the darkness within. He was mistaking that darkness for his wife.

He recently read that in Korea 9,000 couples marry daily and 3,000 divorce. If only they would take time to say a prayer before the inevitable fight, he believes there would be far fewer divorces. Bringing  Jesus into every discussion before there is a possibility of fighting was the wisdom he has gained from married life.                                                                               
            

Challenges to the Catholic Church in the World of Cyberspace

Writing in the Incheon  bulletin the priest responsible for public relations in a neighboring diocese discusses the world of the Internet. Anybody riding the subway can see the  changes that have come to society--everyone seems to have a phone, some smarter than others. As convenient as this is, not all is positive; though nobody can deny the change it is bringing to society.

First we had the printed media, then the electric-wave media, and now Internet  telecommunications. In this whirlpool of readily available information the Church's mission, as always, is to spread the gospel message.

The church experienced  acutely the importance of the media when Guttenberg's printing press came on the scene. Before the printing press, knowing the written word of scripture was a rare thing; all this changed and the world of the spiritual was never the same.

The printing press enabled Protestantism to spread quickly, as pamphlets and books spread the new ideas; and for the first time, many Christians could read the Bible for themselves.  The Catholic Church also used the medium to defend itself against the 'heretical ideas' of the Protestants. However, the Church was slow in using the new world of print in the way the culture of that time required. It did not fully appreciate the value of the new medium, and, as a result, the Church was severly wounded.

The advances in this area are not only technological but personal, by changing the way we perceive the world; our consciousness of what is real, therefore, tends to be different from that of the  past.  This has to be recognized, the priest says, in presenting  the word of God to a media-savvy world . The Church has to get involved in this new world  and adapt to the world of cyberspace. Precisely because the mission of the Church is to make known the word of God.

Sogang a 21st Century University

Sogang University is the only Jesuit School among the  Catholic colleges in  Korea.  Started in 1960 it has  developed into a first class university, and is looking forward to improving its image in the years ahead.

The Chosun Ilbo had a special spread on the university in a recent issue. The article mentioned that some  critics say the reason it has gained so much respect and is  considered one of the best schools in Korea, is  the tradition of being for the students. There is a good reason to suspect this. The  students reply that you miss five classes, and you flunk the course and during a semester you are assigned seats in the lecture hall. Can we say that this puts the  students at the center? A sure sign that the emphasis is always on how to improve  student performance and not only give the students what they want.

The president of the university, an alumnus with a doctorate in history, recalled that in the early years of the university only half of the students would graduate. The school has the reputation of being like a high school: they do not manipulate grades and the business community respects that, and has come to expect that the students from Sogang will be well-educated. In fact, in the ranking of private colleges in Korea, Sogang is number one in many areas of study.

The DNA of Sogang, the president says, is freedom. Students are free to attend any class, and the school will at times offer courses even when less than ten students have registered for them. They are also free to take two or three majors.

The president goes on to say that the students that come to Sogang are outstanding but at graduation, about to go out into society, they are more so. His vision for the future is to stress the importance of educating the whole person, increase the competence of the teaching staff, work together with the business community, internationlize the relationship with those who are in research, and to find ways the administration can be even more helpful to those they serve.

The interviewer asked the president what would he have to say to those making a choice of a college in the year 2012. "Sogang is not the first or second when it comes to bigness, judging by the campus or the number of teachers or students. The strength of Sogang is in scholastic matters. We are  routinely strict in the running of the school. You are free to take any class and more than one major, giving you a chance to develop your interest in many areas. For those who want  a school that will develop their unlimited potential, then Sogang is their school.  Sogang," he says with confidence, "is truly a great  college."

Dating the Persecution of Korean Catholics

A novelist writing for the Bible and Life magazine comments on a problem that he feels has bothered many Koreans for a long time. For Catholics the problem appears in the way we name the persecutions the Church suffered when she entered Korea. We still follow the Chinese sexagenary cycle in dating the persecutions.

This  cycle, which is made up of 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches, makes 60 combinations. The present cycle began in 1984 and will end in 2044. This year is the year of the rabbit, but it's a special kind of rabbit year, the Sin myo. The first year starts with the first heavenly stem added to  the first earthly branch. Since there are only 10 stems for 12 branches, the cycle begins again (after adding the tenth stem to the twelve branch) by adding the first stem to the 11th  branch, and the 2nd stem to the 12th branch; it continues in this fashion until 60 combinations have been reached. The names for the earthly branches are: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey,chicken, dog and pig. For the heavenly stems: gap, eul (wood), byeong, jeong (fire), mu, gi (earth), gyeong, sin (metal), im, gye (water).
   
There are four persecutions mentioned in Church history; the first one, in 1801, is called the  Shin-Yu; the second in 1839, the Gi-Hae; the third in 1846, the Byeong-O; the fourth in 1866, the Byeong-In. The writer would simplify this by dating the first persecution to the time when the first Chinese priest was martyred with many lay people; dating the persecution of 1839 with the martyrdom of the French foreign missionaries, along with many lay persons; dating the Byeong persecution with the martyrdom of St. Andrew Kim, along with many lay persons; and dating the last persecution, the Byeong-In in 1866, with more French foreign Missionaries dying, along with many lay persons. In all, about 10,000 died during this period; besides the many lay martyrs, there were 14 priests: one Chinese, twelve French and one Korean. 

The use of the Chinese sexagenery cycle  to date events in history is coming to an end but we still use the dates according to the old dating system because of its long tradition.  

Remnants of this system are found in the divisions of the day, in directions of the compass and, most of all, in fortune telling. There are lucky and unlucky days, days to  marry and days to avoid when planning any important event. The system is used in other ways we would also consider superstitious. Although this dating system has a long history and is used in many countries of the East, the writer believes that nothing is gained, especially by Christians, by continuing to use the sexagenary cycle for dating purposes. When applied to events in the history of the Church in Korea, like the four persecutions, there can be, he points out, confusion for Christians who try to match their understanding of the stems and branches to what occurred during the persecutions.

Underground Churches A Future Possibility

The price of land in Korea is expensive but when the land is in Seoul City, dreaming of finding land on which to built a new parish seems an impossible dream--not like in the past. When a new parish is proposed, especially in areas where land values are high, the community is put to the test. The Peace Weekly reports what a parish community decided to do with a very small piece of land in Seoul City.

The new parish will have half the  space of the ordinary parish-- 240 pyong.  The community decided to build two floors below ground and 6 above. The church will be below ground, which makes it unusual; it was accepted by the community but not without difficulty: concerns about dampness and lack of natural lighting were the main complaints.

The sunken-engineering method was selected to complement the short-comings of having a church underground. This method allowed the underground space to be connected with the above-ground structure in a way that natural lighting and ventilation were harmoniously combined  so that the Church has the cozy, warm feeling of a typical church.  During the day there is no need for lights, no feeling that you are below ground, and no need for a heating system during the winter.

In most churches the catechetical rooms are in the basement; in this church they are on the  3rd and 4th floors.  Since most congregations have more women than men, this was taken into account when space was allotted for toilets--over 10 for the women so there will be no waiting before or after Mass. There is also a place to rest and to take care of  cosmetic needs, open not only to Christians but to anybody who cares to use the facilities. It's equipped with a system that uses rainwater so no one has to worry about the water bill. On the 4th floor is a place set aside for the elderly, which can also be used for prayer or conversation.  And a kitchen is open for all to use, Catholics and non-Catholics.

The pastor advises other priests, " When you're going to build a new church it helps to get rid of  fixed ideas of what a church should be--and be open to seeing other possibilities.  Even with a small piece of land it's always possible to think big and accomplish much."