The Werther Effect gets its name from the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther,
by Goethe. The Culture of Life column in the Peace Weekly visits again
the high suicide rate in Korea and relates it to the Werther Effect. The
hero of the novel, infatuated with a woman who is engaged to another,
could not stand the internal pressures that were unleashed and killed
himself with a pistol. The novel was a best-seller, and the columnist
mentions that because of copycat suicides that followed--over 2000--the
selling of the book in certain parts of Europe was discontinued. The
Werther Effect has become the name used to describe copycat suicides
that follow the publicity given to suicides in the mass media.
Looking at the continuing material prosperity of Korea, the reasons for the continuing increase of suicides
can't be related only to financial problems but to other factors
in society: the breakdown of families, the increase of divorce, our change of values, and the like.
The rate of male suicides was almost 3 times that of women but this has
continued to decrease, and when focusing on the women in their twenties
it is practically the same or even higher. The reason is the society safety net is no longer operative for this group.
Among
the young especially, this copycat contagion of suicides is often
noticed. Surprisingly, we are mostly unconscious of the influence of the
mass
media on our behavior. The spread of cyberspace technology has also
increased the volume and variety of what we see and hear, bringing rapid
and questionable changes in behavior, such as suicides.
Although
suicide is an individual act, it can no longer be seen as an isolated
phenomenon independent of the mores of society. We are being formed to
succeed and exceed; consequently, the failure in achievements will bring
frustration and sadness. The analogies from the track and field events
are apropos: number one is happy with achievement; number two sees the
one ahead and feels disappointment, and the third is happy to have made
the third position, seeing all those behind. This narrow view of what
life is all about is not helpful in living the happy life. The low
happiness index of our citizens is not unrelated to the number of
suicides.
The
columnist mentions the success that Hungary had in decreasing the high
rate of suicides to half of what it was from 1970-80. Korea has recently
also decided to face head-on our problem with an emphasis on respect
for life. To search for the ideal in life is noble but when this
precludes happiness, something is wrong. To live in peace with our
neighbors is also a beautiful ideal. Even when there is both a lack of
money and a lack of respect, living happily is a sufficient goal when it
is accompanied by the love and blessing of those around us.
Not all we do is done with the best of motives, and acknowledging this
is healthy. Feelings of superiority are common and can prevent us
from being childlike and enjoying a great deal of what comes our way. A
dance teacher reveals her struggle to overcome these feelings that were
eating away at the opportunity of enjoying a new experience.
The
column "Daily Life and Faith Life" tells us how a professional dancer
was asked to help out in a performance of modern dance. She was a
teacher of traditional Korean dance and accepted the invitation to
practice
with a choreographer who was preparing for a dance recital and needing
to recruit members. The columnist, seeing her during practice, gave her
high marks for her
openness to a new dance category.
On one occasion, he was
invited to eat with the modern dance company and had the opportunity
to talk to the Korean dance professional. After the meal, while
they were both drinking beer, he asked her if it was difficult for a
teacher of traditional dance to learn the movements of modern dance.
The
beer she was drinking helped her to speak honestly, she said. She
accepted the invitation to work out with the modern dance company
because of her desire to learn something about a new kind of dance but
she admitted to feeling anxious about it; would she be able to follow
the younger dancers? she wondered. Returning home, however, she
continued to practice.
She doesn't
remember when it happened, but she began to regret that she said yes,
and felt the uneasiness returning. She was even thinking of telling the
choreographer that she would have to give up the practice.
Even
though she was entertaining these thoughts, she enjoyed the dancing. She
always found the movements of the body invigorating and a joy. Why was
she feeling this way? she asked herself. Her whole body was telling her
that before dancing, she had to take over control of her body; she had to
grow up.
This voice to grow up was not because she was learning a
new type of dance but because of her feelings of superiority. Whenever
the young dance choreographer was giving her instructions, her inner voice
was telling her that she was a professional dancer. When she began to
look deeply into her feelings, the
obstacles to participating disappeared, and she began enjoying the
workouts.
The columnist wonders how many have given up their
work of service in the parishes precisely because of a superiority
complex. We have to make sure when we are helping others that we are doing
it for the right motive. It's possible that we are servicing others to
be acknowledged for our goodness, our ability, and not doing it out of
love. If this is the case, the columnist concludes, the body will give
up on us.
How does God work in his creation? This is a question that not only
Christians but the general public directs to the Church. This is the
question at the center of Theology. Many Christians have heard that
evolution is not a problem for Catholic theology but few understand
why this is the case.
The Catholic Times' interview
with Fr. Oh Kyeong-hwan introduces us to the recent book he translated
into Korean, How God Acts: Creation, Redemption and Special Divine
Action, by Prof. Denis Edwards. In the Korean Church there are few who
are studying the relationship of Science and Religion, Fr. Oh laments.
He spends a great deal of time acquainting us with the compatibility of
science and religion with his website, research team, and lectures.
Fr.
Oh spent over a year working on translating the book by Prof Denis
Edwards, a senior lecturer in systematic theology in the School of
Theology of Flinders University, South Australia. He made efforts to put
the words into Korean that the ordinary readers would have little
difficulty understanding. The book shows us the way God is working in his
creation.
Fr. Edwards shows that God does not
interfere in his creation with arbitrary acts contrary to the laws of
nature. To create, he follows the self-regulatory laws of creation, of evolution, chance and order. Fr. Oh explains that Fr.
Edwards emphasizes that God does not break these laws of nature with
miracles. Although there are no miracles that break these laws, there are
many incidents that we are not able to understand with the knowledge
that we have presently of the laws of nature. We can not use our beliefs
to disregard the discoveries of science. As Pope John Paul II said, "Science can purify religion from error
and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false
absolutes."
Fr. Oh hopes that we will have many more
who will try to explain the place of science in our lives and to see the
relationship between science and religion.The conflict is certainly
present but it is the conflict between some of the scientists and some
of the religious people but not between science and religion. Truth is
one. There are different ways of arriving at truth and different
concerns of those seeking the truth but truth does not contradict
itself. A well-known cardinal said many hundreds of years ago, "Religion
teaches us the way to go to heaven and not how the heavens go."
Catholic education in many parts
of the world means little; for the Catholic element is seen as
peripheral to the educational process. This is not the case in Korea.
Pope Benedict said in regard to education: "Are we ready to commit our
entire self--intellect and will, mind and heart--to God? Do we accept
the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and
schools? Is it given fervent expression liturgically, sacramentally,
through prayer, acts of charity, a concern for justice, and respect for
God's creation? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the
meaning of who we are and what we uphold." These words and similar words
addressed to educators by the Church are taken seriously in Korea.
Both
Catholic papers introduce us to the new president of Sangji, a two and
four year technical school in the Andong Diocese. One of the first
Catholic
technical schools in Korea, it was founded by three Luxembourgian nuns
of the order Soeurs de la Doctrine Chrétienne.
The
purpose of the school is to educate students for an occupation. This
choice will help them find happiness in the life which will soon be
known, some believe, as 'Homo-Hundred'. Until 1990, there was no country
where the average lifespan exceeded 80 years. Since then, six nations,
including Japan, Italy and Australia, have exceeded this average
lifespan, and in 2020 it will be over 30, including Korea.
The
president of Sangji says the school will
be 'teaching for happiness'. Striving to be number one is not what the
school is all about, he said, but to form students who will be happy in
life. Those that
find the present emphasis on competition foreign to their way of
thinking, he recommends their going to the Sangji Technical School. They
will find there, he said, a different kind of competition. Too many
students, in the usual school environment, have to deal with
stress and Sangji is forming students for a different goal.
They
present their students with small goals which, when achieved
systematically, will give them the courage and the ability to dream and
go on for loftier goals.
All
students during a semester have to spend 40 hours in service to
others. Mass is offered daily at the school, and 30 religious sisters
are there to guide the students, giving the school a Catholic
atmosphere. Technical knowledge is imparted but combined with the
holistic formation of the person.
Over
80 percent of their graduates
have found work after graduation, and the school is aiming still
higher.This
emphasis on something else besides marks and success is a welcomed
relief. Parents should be thankful that such schools as Sangji exist,
providing them with the opportunity to send their children to a school
where educating the whole person is the top priority.
"Living is spirituality," words difficult to understand and requiring many more words to get the point. The columnist of the Catholic Times recounts how he was able to come to an understanding and used these words as the title of his column.
The columnist recalls attending the funeral of a religious hermit. After the funeral service and while drinking tea with a follow priest, a classmate of the deceased approached them and asked how they knew the deceased. He introduced himself as a classmate of the deceased.
He received them with great joy and after the columnist heard that the classmate was a counselor on spirituality the writer asked him what does he understand spirituality to be. The answer was brief and puzzling: "living is spirituality." The writer was expecting something quite different which he showed by the expression on his face. "Father, that is not all there is to say on spirituality,is it? What are your real thoughts on spirituality? Realizing that the columnist wanted more he explained what he meant to say.
He reiterated what he said that spirituality for him was life, and he explained. The reason he expressed it in the way he did was because we can tell what a person's spirituality is by the way one lives. And the quality of our life will often tell us whether there's a relationship with God, which will also tell us, he added, about their relationship with the world.
Ultimately, spirituality appears in the way a person lives, and is the reason, the counselor said, for making the statement that puzzled the columnist.The way life is lived is a sign of the spirituality we possess and a healthy spirituality will show harmony and balance in life. God has put this image of himself in us and when this become activated we have harmony and balance in life.
Hearing the explanation, the columnist realized there was no need to be puzzled, now understanding the counselor's cryptic statement was saying that doing all that we can do in life to the best of our ability is spirituality, doing the right thing with all the energy we can muster, and avoiding evil with all our strength. Micah expressed it somewhat differently but with the same meaning:"Only do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.(Micah 6:8).
On returning to his own monastery the columnist resolved to live with this admonition as his goal, and sang the hymn that the deceased enjoyed reciting: God, you have given us an abundance of mercy; we return this in life with joy and happiness."
Expressing our spirituality can be done in many ways, and the simpler the better. For a Christian, our spirituality is primarily God working within us; we cooperate by saying yes. The life we live will show the results of God's work in our lives.
What is a Catholic world view? Simply put: A comprehensive view of life
that provides us with a way of living guided by the teachings
of Jesus, with God as the source of true joy. "Whatever brings us true
joy,
whether the small joys of each day or the greatest joys in life, has its
source in God, even if this does not seem immediately obvious" were the
words addressed this year to the young people on Youth Sunday. Joy is a
sign
of a life lived according to the teachings of Jesus; sadly this is
not always understood. Overwhelmed by so many other teachings, we
sometimes forget why the other teachings are there.
Our young
people are no longer attending our community functions as in the past,
most dioceses acknowledging this fact as the most serious problem now
facing the
Church. How to deal with this problem is certainly not a one-time
effort, but
an ongoing pastoral concern. The Christian values given to the young
have not been able to withstand the pressures to conform to the secular
values of society and the pervasive materialistic concerns of the
present age, particularly as it manifests in our educational system and
in the media.
That the Catholic world view was not able to withstand the assault was
not the problem of the world view but its absence, the failure to
successfully evangelize this core message of the faith.
The Year
of Faith is an attempt to focus our energies on improving this
evangelization process, especially with regard to our youth. Picking up
on this important issue, two editorials in the Catholic Times have
recently discussed the youth problem as a manifestation of systemic
problems both in society and in the Church. The first concern discussed
was the need to
show a more pastoral interest in young people, and a willingness to use our finances to promote the work with the young. The second concern was the
large number of suicides in Korean society
and the widespread discontent of the younger generation. Among developed
countries, Korea leads
in both of these categories, with suicides among the young the
number-one reason for deaths in this age group.
One editorial
mentions that many of the dioceses are taking great interest
in the pastoral care of the young precisely because of the lack of
values, pluralism, the ever-present secularization and relativism of
society. The need for a new mentoring system was suggested as a possible
help for young people in finding their rightful place in the present
and future future society.
Putting these thoughts together with the large numbers
of youthful suicides, we can see a connection. Society has improved
economically, doubling where it stood in 2000, and yet the rate of suicides
continues to climb, more than doubling where it was in 2000. The increase of material prosperity has
not increased the happiness quotient of Koreans. According to the OECD,
Korea ranks 31st of 32 countries surveyed in the happiness index.
The
number of suicides
is a good indication of the health of a society. With Korea's high rate
of
suicides, it is difficult to say we are a developed country. The
government should of course not hinder but help its citizens to find
happiness, and the Catholic Church also needs to determine how much of
the unhappiness in
society is due to the cultural climate we have created.
It
should be remembered that the fullness of a Christian life will
overcome all the difficulties of life, even a toxic culture, and give us
a joy that nothing can
take away. In an attempt to make this reality more available to all,
parishes are looking for ways to be more welcoming to their members.
Fellowship and a family atmosphere are often missing in the typical
parish, resulting in more Catholics leaving the faith, and less success
in attracting more converts. We can go a long way toward changing this
troubling scenario by combining our Catholic worldview with a warm
loving atmosphere whenever we gather together. This will help put
Jesus and the joy he came to give us back into our lives.
In big business we see a mentoring system which works well. We have the older worker mentoring the young. The mentees are given the knowledge that their seniors in the work force have gained over the years. There is a relationship built up between the mentor and the mentee that is good for the individuals and for the company. This mentoring system is part of the strategy of the work place where the seniors help the juniors become competent in their work.
Within the Church an almost perfect mentoring system was handed down from ancient times. A priest, writing in the Catholic Times, laments what we have lost, and reminds us what it was.
The family would be responsible for teaching the newly added member of the family the Christian way of life. Baptism would incorporate the new member into a larger family of the faith and the parents would begin teaching the child. The family would feel a need for outside help and there you have the godparents to help in the raising of the child. And besides, when baptized you gave a child the name of saint whose example would always be there to spur the person on to imitate them in the way they imitated Jesus.
This system looked at objectively seems ideal and yet the reality we have is quite different. Those that follow the intentions of the mentoring system are few and what we have in the books has become a formality and without meaning, there are little results to show. No matter how wise certain programs are when they are done without meaning and perfunctorily the results are easily seen.
Tertullian said in the ancient Church that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the faith. In 1984 Pope John Paul canonized 103 martyrs. How many of our Catholics know and are familiar with the lives of these martyrs? He asks. We have another 125 that have been researched and are waiting for approval from Rome for beatification and canonization. These are all worthy examples to help us to be more serious followers of Jesus. And yet the writer feels that we show little concern for these elders in the faith.
This month is the month of the martyrs and we will begin the year of Faith next month. We need a new mentoring system. The Protestants have a one on one approach. The Catholic Church has recommended that we have a spiritual director but this is no easy step for many to make. We need help to travel the journey that we have been given and to do it with joy requires companions in the faith. He hopes that with the beginning of the 'Year of Faith' we will see some results in the new evangelization with a mentoring system that fits our present reality.
