Practical Theology for the Parish

The Peace Weekly gives us  an account of  a practical theology forum, sponsored by a Korean Catholic research institute, made up of youths, religious and clergy. The article starts with the need  according to the participants to change the patriarchal clericalism  of parish life to more of a networking culture.

Two of the participants, both from Europe, pointed out that new ideas are difficult to introduce into the present parochial system, which needs to be more open, to listen to others, to emphasize the scriptures, and to get involved in society.

Another foreign priest, an authority in ecological theology, said 80 percent of  Catholics live in the Southern Hemisphere and cultural differences have to be kept in mind, also emphasizing that 99 percent are laity and that clerical members have to remember this fact.

In attendance at the forum were theologians from some ten foreign countries discussing prospects for peace in Asia, a new understanding of Church, globalization, present labor issues, spirituality, and justice and peace issues. 

A Korean seminary professor mentioned that Korea has not been equal to the task of developing small Christian communities with the help of the rest of the world.  For the movement to be rooted, he said, it's necessary--if we want to see real change--that those with middle class income not be the  ones that continue as leaders in the movement.

He lists a number of steps necessary for achieving the common good:  to have the teaching of the social gospel affect the way we deal with our society; to change our vision from the Church to society, and to have  a Gospel spirituality.

A Japanese bishop  spoke of the disputes that are bound to occur between nations when they rely on their military power. This reliance on armaments to solve problems has to change, he said, to a culture that sees the importance of wisdom in settling these disputes

If we could do without the military, he said, we would be able to solve the problems of education and the environment, and be open to working toward the welfare of all countries. True peace will come with the spread of movements against armaments and violence, and it is our work to have this spread throughout the world. 

Knowing You are Crazy and Yet...

A sister working at an immigration center in the diocese heard someone calling, "Sister." She turned around and a woman whose face she remembered abruptly gave her a hug. The sister hadn't seen her for some time and asked: "How is it that you are here at the center?" "I have gone crazy," she answered. "What is that all about? sister responded.

The sister recounts the full story in a recent issue of the Bible & Life  magazine. The woman, Duit, a Vietnamese immigrant, now a Korean citizen and married with a child, had just returned from the court house where she had petitioned for a divorce. Her husband also was there, standing at a distance, shoulders dropping, averting his eyes from what was going on. A woman relation, very much upset, stood by his side.

The husband was envied, said the sister, for his kindness by many of the women who came to the immigration center to learn Korean. He had bought a house for the wife's family and took  care of the expenses of schooling for her brother. Sister could not understand what was going on, and was determined to find out.

She discovered that while learning Korean at the center, Duit had found a job in a factory, where she met a Vietnamese man and fell in love. More surprising to her was that the man had a family in Vietnam. Since Duit was now a Korean citizen, sister felt there was a possibility that Duit was being used by the man, and tried to dissuade her from proceeding with the divorce. She replied that she was present when the man had called his wife in Vietnam, asking for a divorce. Hearing this additional news, sister was even more convinced that both had lost their senses. As Duit had said, it felt as if she had gone crazy, believing what the man was saying and nothing else made any difference. In her desire to follow her feelings, the hurt she was inflicting on the husband was enormous. The consequences of this behavior, sister was convinced, would be far from smooth.

Sister called the husband shortly after and was told the wife had left the house and had put everything in the hands of a lawyer. The husband said he would now concentrate on being a good father for their child. He was calm about all that had happened and never mentioned what he had done for the family or complained. Sister felt bad for what happened to the husband; his hope that his wife would return made it all the harder to accept. Sister was also concerned on the influence this would have on the other women of the center. 

Seeing what happened to Duit, who knew what she was doing was crazy, divorcing a husband who seemed ideal in so many ways, leaving her husband and child for a perilous future, was beyond her understanding, the sister said. She was consoled, however, by the thought that many of these foreign-born women, though mistreated by their husbands, often work through the difficulties in their married life to become good wives and mothers.

Non-Relational Society

The number of people in Japan who are dying alone, cremated without funeral rites, is so staggering, according to a recent article in View from the Ark in the Catholic Times, that it was a topic of one of their TV programs. And businesses have formed to take the place of family at death. Other enterprises will dispose of personal belongings when directed to do so by the dying person, who gives the  details in a notebook the company provides. 

What is happening in Japanese society, says the columnist, is a blueprint for what will happen in Korean society. We are well on our way toward making a relation-free society, the columnist says. A society in which our next-door neighbor can die and no one knows. A society in which one meets another on the road without any sign of recognition.

Relationship is a word that no longer seems to have the importance it once did. Two brief examples were given in the article. The columnist tells us how memories of the past, left in a box, were discarded without a thought by a man whose mother left behind a picture of her son as a baby on the back of his mother. In another case piles of newspapers were outside the front door of a house and nobody seemed to give the sight a second look. When  someone did enter the house, the TV was on, bread was in the toaster, and in the air the smell of death.

Koreans, about 30-40 years ago, at the  beginning of the economic boom, left the relational society of the country for the anonymity of big city life. They left the extended family for the nuclear family, leaving the elders behind. The result was that  people lived alone, died alone and lonely, the natural results of the change in the mores of society. The internet, of course, has made the solitary life easier. But the increase of  irregular workers and the increase of the young opting for the single life will mean we will have more people dying alone and in loneliness.
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The individualism from the West has inundated our society; the digital culture has taken over and the young people who have not experienced  the relational society of the past will very quickly forget what community life is all about. Young people have forgotten the traditional customs concerning marriage and look upon whether to marry or not as a purely personal choice.

The columnist asks what kind of society do we want? Many answer that they want to have intimate relationships with others and to enjoy freedom, but this is not easy to achieve. In the  non-relational society, you are lonely but have freedom. In a relational society, you have intimacy but sacrifice is necessary. What is a fact is that we are moving from a relational society into a non-relational society. This is not something we need fear even though it is becoming our reality. The last moment of death, after all, is something we all have to undergo alone--it is a personal encounter.

All religions, seeing death as an important stage in life and by its nature private, give us positive teachings on how to deal with our last days. For a Christian, death is not the end, but a going on to God  and the resurrection. Effort is made to do away with the fear that can accompany death. Dying alone does not fit well with  the teachings of the Church.

For a Christian, it is our duty to decrease, as much as possible, the numbers of those  who are dying alone. After death, paradise is important but Jesus told us that we are in his kingdom while here on earth. Reciting prayers for the dead is a wonderful gesture. But more important is spending time with those living alone and being with them in their last hours.

Death Penalty

In Korea the Church continues to encourage Catholics to work for the eradication of capital punishment. Several organizations met recently, putting aside their religious beliefs and ideologies, to discuss the inhumanity of capital punishment and the  justification for its abrogation.

Ending the death penalty is equivalent to promoting the dignity and protection of life. The Church has continually worked toward this end and, along with many others, raised its voice against the practice. Recently, 175 members of the 17th National Assembly were ready to vote for the abrogation but time and problems prevented the success of the attempt.

The editorial in the Catholic Times noted that popular feeling at present would probably be against abrogating the punishment because of a horrible murder recently publicized, upsetting many and no doubt convincing them that the death penalty is a necessary deterrent to such crimes.

As Christians we base the way we see capital punishment, not on any news story, but on the Gospel teaching. In addition, it has been long known that according to many studies the death penalty does not diminish the number of these crimes.

During the seminar, it was mentioned that fewer countries are using the death penalty than in the past. In 2011, among 198 countries, only 20 continue to use the death penalty.  We are likely to see this trend to end capital punishment continue into the future.

Getting rid of the death penalty does not mean, of course, the end of penalties for crimes. Isolating the criminal from  society is still accomplished by serving time in prison, and for serious crimes, sentencing for life behind bars. The concern of the editorial was to explain clearly the life issues that are involved when a country legalizes the taking of a human life, and why we need to support the efforts to bring an end to this inhuman practice.
                                                                                                        

The alleviation of pain and disease is the task of the medical profession but obviously there is much that still has to be accomplished. This is especially true, writes a medical school professor, with genetic diseases; the pain of parents of children suffering genetic defects would be hard to imagine.

He mentions a woman who came to his office  for a prenatal exam because her second child was born with an immune-deficiency disease. The child spent half of the first four years of life in a hospital, with  pneumonia, diarrhea, meningitis, and liver problems, finally dying at the age of four. The results of the exam were the same as they were for the second child. Seeing the woman leave the office, the doctor was sick at heart and knew that little could be done to help the woman medically. In these cases, most  mothers opt for abortion.

The mother, devastated by the thought that she was responsible for the child's birth defects, carried a great deal of guilt. The financial burdens on the family are also enormous.

In Korea, abortion is allowed, which of course is contrary to Catholic teaching; only in cases that threaten the life of the mother is the indirect death of the fetus allowed. Efforts are continually made to understand all that is involved in these cases of genetic abnormalities. The doctor mentions that in the past what would have been a death from natural causes, ruling out abortion right from the start, recent medical advances prolonging the life of the defective fetus, paradoxically, have brought more problems for the family.

Legalizing abortion in Korea has not lessened the difficulty for Catholics in making the right decision when told that a child has been born with birth defects. The doctor confesses that although he knows the sacredness of life and the right to life of these fetuses, he finds it difficult to dissuade the parent from having an abortion.

He concludes his article by urging the Church not only to speak against abortion but to find ways of supporting families who make a decision to have the child.

These cases certainly try the hearts of all those involved. The easiest way out of the difficulty is to have the abortion, avoiding the pain, expense and stress of raising a severely handicapped child. Refusing to take the easy way out, because of faith and respect for the sacredness of life, calls for the heart of a martyr. Our belief that something good will come from the sacrifice may ultimately reveal to us dimensions of life not ordinarily perceived.  
           

My Last Will and Testament

Writing in her weekly column in the Catholic Times, the columnist mentions a talk she gave on death before a parish women's club. November is the  month dedicated to the souls in purgatory, and the columnist tells us the women's group was well informed about what the liturgical month of November meant, but many said they had not thought of death. Daily life is like being on a roller coaster, she conceded, with little time to think of what is not directly in front of us. Death, she said, in the minds of these women was always connected with parents, older relations and friends, but was of little concern to them.

After finishing her talk with the group, she distributed a blank sheet of paper and asked them to write what they would like to see engraved on their tomb stone. On the reverse side of the paper they were to write the names of their family members, and what they would want to leave their family in their will. Judging by the expressions on their faces, she saw that they were mostly confused by her instructions. But they began to write.

After a while, she heard some sobbing from the group, as the thoughts coming to mind were difficult to keep under control as they proceeded to write. The thoughts surprised them; the women had never had the time before to entertain such thoughts because of their busy lives.

She mentioned the epitaph that was left us by George Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish play writer, who lived to be 94. On his tombstone is his light-hearted thought for all to consider when the thought of death seems difficult to accept. "I knew if I stayed around long enough, something like this would happen."

In the past death was seen as a part of life and all would stop to reflect on the death of a loved one. Rites would be at the home. The culture still sets aside days for the remembrance of the dead: New Years Day, the Autumn Festival, and the 105th day after the winter solstice, when families go to the grave sites to eat cold food and conduct the rites for the dead. During these days of festivity the ancestors are in the thoughts of family members, employing rites that bring the ancestors more easily to mind. The Church has very wisely promoted these rites, which continue to mean a great deal to the Koreans.

The columnist reminds us that thinking of death will help us make this Year of Faith more meaningful, especially if we write our last will and testament as a reminder to ourselves of how precious is the gift of life we have been given.

           

Women in the Church

Confucian society, without delving into subtleties, is both patriarchal and hierarchical. Simply put, the men are in command. In contrast, Catholicism, even though influenced during its short history in Korea by Confucianism, acknowledges that women have an extremely important role to play in the Church, but that they have not received the support one would expect. And yet the ones who are keeping the parishes functioning as loving communities of service are the women.

The Church has appointed women chancellors in dioceses around the world. They are experts at synods and world-wide meetings, professors of theology in universities, and papal-appointed theologians serving on International Theological Commissions. Because women are different from men, having complimentary natures, this diversity should be reflected in their roles within the Church. However, the teaching is also clear that women's rights and equal dignity with men have to be defended.
 
In the Korean Church, women have been given positions of authority over many areas of community and parish life. They are parish council members, even presidents of these councils, as well as leaders of other organized groups. The Peace Weekly introduces us to Cho Cecilia, the woman who is the parish council president of the Myeongdong Cathedral parish of Seoul, the face of Korean Catholicism.

Cecilia, the 22nd president of the cathedral, says: "I  will work with my feminine qualities to find those alienated in the different sectors of the parish and work to enable better communication and fellowship within the community."
 
58.5 percent of the Catholics in the diocese are women. Although there are more women than men in the diocese, only five parishes of the 220 parishes in Seoul have a woman president. Seeing the determination and resolve of Cecilia, the journalist interviewing the new president said we have another model of what can be accomplished by women, following the example of the first parish president, Kang Columba (1761-1801), who died a martyr.
 
"Women from 40-50 years of age are the majority of those working within the community," Cecilia said. "Although the women are the workers there are few who are members of the parish council. Their numbers have to increase. There had been talk of a woman parish council head for over ten years; that I finally became the president was the resolve of one pastor who worked to bring it about."

The selection as the parish council head is decided by the past presidents of the council who make up the advisory board. They present the names of qualified candidates for the position to the parish priest, who makes the final decision. Having been a parish council member for the last 15 years, also serving as its vice president, she has a good grasp of what is needed and how to achieve stated goals.Her intention is to have more cultural events and to help make the community more vibrant and attractive to the young and the many foreigners who come to the cathedral.