On the spirituality page of the Catholic Times the columnist writes about the heart of a young person. A quality that most of us find very attractive especially as we get old.
The columnist met a follow priest at the cathedral parish who was there to get some Mass wine. They hadn't seen each other for some time so they went to a coffee
shop for quiet time. His friend mentioned they started a
catechism class in the parish and one of the new catechumens was an
unique individual.
What do you mean by unique? asked the
columnist. His friend mentioned the man was in his 50s and a person who was successful in life. The reason he gave for wanting to come
into the Church was the example of the pope in his visit to Korea. The
man followed very closely what the pope was doing on TV, and was greatly
impressed with what he saw.
The appearance of the pope
was that of a young person, said the man. He wanted to have that same
kind of heart and joined our catechism class. Hearing his story the
friend was embarrassed in comparison, for he was doing it all without any religious belief.
Although he was the president of a company that
was successful he did his own driving, and his clothes were very simple
as was his life style. From the profits of the company he was putting some of it back into the society to help the poor, and was personally involved
in helping others. The only person that knows about his service to
others was his fiance
The columnist was surprised to
hear that he was in his fifties and not married. His friend was not able
to give him any information on his home life for he hadn't questioned
him yet, but his whole manner was one of humility and simplicity, said
the friend.
Persons young of heart may not be a quality
that is easily recognizable but it has an irresistible power to
attract. We are all searching for peace, security, happiness, and in the
whirlpool in which we live these qualities of life are not easily possessed. The man in his fifties was attracted to an old man, the pope,
who showed the spirit of youth. This was his motive for entering the Church. This is a rare motive but one that should be more common. St. Paul did tells us that the body grows
old but there is no reason why the heart (spirit) has to grow old. In
Jesus, we will find that the dreams and youthfulness that should be a
part of our life even as we near death, can be found in him.
"We can count on many lay persons, although still not nearly enough, who
have a deeply-rooted sense of community and great fidelity to the tasks
of charity, catechesis and the celebration of the faith. At the same
time, a clear awareness of this responsibility of the laity,
grounded in their baptism and confirmation, does not appear in the same
way in all places. In some cases, it is because lay persons have not
been given the formation needed to take on important responsibilities.
In others, it is because in their particular Churches room has not been
made for them to speak and to act, due to an excessive clericalism which
keeps them away from decision-making" (#102). And again,"I readily acknowledge that many women share pastoral responsibilities
with priests, helping to guide people, families and groups and offering
new contributions to theological reflection. But we need to create still
broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the
Church" (#103). Words of Pope Francis in the Exhortation: Joy of the Gospel.
The
issue of women in the Church is ongoing, and the Korean Church
has been concerned with the lack of satisfaction on the part of many
women for a long time. Pope Francis has shown his interest in expanding
the role of women within the Church and the Korean Church continues to
work to implement what has been the direction, but there are
roadblocks along the way.
The Bishops' Subcommittee For
Women was begun with a need to empower the women in the Church. The
recent seminar of the Subcommittee discussed women's work in the present and future. Both Catholic papers had articles on the seminar
and mentioned a presenter who very clearly expressed the opinion that we
have heard often that the clergy have to change their way of thinking
and attitude towards women if we want to see change.
The
first presenter at the seminar, a seminary professor, who expressed the
above opinion also expanded to say in the Korean Church women's role
has been a supporting one, and discrimination is readily seen. In the
questionnaires and surveys taken among the women we continue to see a
desire for a smoother way of communicating between priests and women, a desire to see a change in the patriarchal mind caste, and to be in
the decision making in parishes. All realize without the participation
of the women with their special gifts, sacrifices and capabilities we
would not be able to maintain the parishes.
Two women
who are now presidents of the parish council gave
talks at the seminar. One stressed the need for educational programs for women. The first women to have the position as parish council
president in her parish mentioned how difficult it was: physically,
internally and externally. The atmosphere in the parish was cold but
with her efforts in being the first to greet the parishioners, and going out of her way to be of service to the community the gaze of the
parishioners soften, and she began to get people encouraging her.
One
of the men mentioned that a woman president gives the women confidence,
and inspires them and we have a mellower way of being a leader but we
are not able to sit down for drinks and relate easily with the women. In
our traditional society to be in that position is cause for uneasiness
for many.
The time away from the family is a
problem for a woman, and the misunderstanding that may arise in the
family. One of the men mentioned the need for the woman, if she is a
homemaker, to make good use of her time and not to hear from the family
that she is spending too much time at the Church.
The
efforts of the Church to bring the women into the decision making of the
parish life continues, since most of the workers in a parish are women,
we will see an improvement with the conscientization we have had over the years.
For the past two weeks our diocesan bulletin has treated the subject of Neoliberalism. The writer is a priest who is responsible for the formation of the young. He finds it more of a problem than Postmodernism. Neoliberalism is also known as the 'age of the market' or 'age of competition'. From the 1980s it began taking hold in our society, and today it is deeply imbedded.
Competition has found a home in the society because it is believed to improve the goods and services. The underside that follows will make our young people pay the price in the years to come.
Neoliberalism breaks down the solidarity of our society and secondly drains us of our natural resources. He uses the sociologist Richard Sennett's words which acknowledges the positive aspects of Neoliberalism but also the evils that followed: loss of freedom and self respect, fear, and a resignation to the present reality giving birth to passivity.
The children try to better their classmates in getting good grades, and to attain these grades they come home from the academies late in the evening. The young people are preparing their list of specifications, for their personal history, to find work. Those who have a job in their thirties fear losing them. Those in their forties are thinking of going to an academy to learn English to make sure they will have a job as the young people enter the labor force.
The writer gives us some suggestions and alternatives the society needs to make. Excessive competition needs to be controlled. Maintain the good elements and decrease the bad and work for a change in the way we do politics to improve the situation. Work for a better welfare system, and say farewell to the supremacy of competition and materialism. We need to do away with the egotistical society we have made and form a new culture.
He finishes his article with two proposals: help the weak in society to have a new start. Secondly, we need a deep study of the cultural of Neoliberalism and what it is doing to the society.
Pope Francis' management style has received a great deal of analysis.
In the Peace column of the Peace Weekly the writer introduces us to
a recent book published by the American Management Association, Lead with Humility:12 leadership Lessons from Pope Francis. The author, Jeffrey A. Krames, is Jewish, he also wrote the book about the management style of Jack Welch of General Electric.
The
contents of the book shows that a good leader is one who mixes with
those with whom he works, leaves his office, cuts down on exorbitant
meals, and other excessive expenses, and dispenses with many of the
privileges of his office. He encourages his priests and laity to widen
their experience and being an example of what to do by doing it. The
pope goes outside of the borders of the Church trying to bring all
closer to God. Humility is the virtue that he exemplifies in his life.
Even
if we are not interested in the way Krames expresses the management
style of the pope, we understand his actions from our common faith
life. As soon as he became pope he visited the island of Lampedusa. He wanted to be with the refugees who were looking for work. On his
birthday he invited the homeless to be with him at table.
We
need not go to the news for information on the pope's informality for
we saw it on his visit to Korea this past August. He refused a chair,
and stood with the handicapped for an hour. We no longer see this as
something exceptional but see it as who he is.
The word 'audience' used with the pope clashes with what he
has shown us. In
the Korean dictionary the word audience is defined: "to visit someone
you respect, a formal meeting with one in a higher position." The word
in the past was used in meeting the king or the pope. The process was
complicated. In Korea on the visit to the Qing dynasty emperor the Qianlong Emperor (Chien-lung) of China a Korean history book mentions
the long kneeling, bowing, raising the buttocks and crawling for the
audience. In the West an audience with the emperor in the third century
required the kissing of his feet before the audience.
The
columnist reminds us in the status society of the past to look a person
in the eyes was not permissible, for those in a supposedly lower level
in society. With the pope we have selfies taken with smartphones. No
longer is he living in the apostolic palace but in the house for
pilgrims. Does the word 'audience' fit with Pope Francis when we see
what was meant in the past?
The pope's meeting with
those who are alienated from society and his warm greetings to all, the word 'audience'.... No matter how much the columnist tries, the word does not fit.
Today is Human Rights Sunday and we have a week in which to become
familiar with the Social Gospel of the Church. All those who are
interested only need to put: 'Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the
Church' in your search engine and click. We have at our finger tips a good preparation for Christmas.
In Korea, the second Sunday of Advent, is Human Rights Day, and the bishops want
each parish to devote a whole week to bringing our Christians to a
better understanding of the Social Gospel. Articles and the editorials
in the Catholic Times and Peace Weekly discussed the Social Gospel and its role
in the life of the Church. Many of
our Catholics have a personal appreciation of their call as disciples, however,
forgetting its social dimensions, they are separating their faith life
from their daily life.
Many are the ways we can summarize the principles of the Social
Gospel and the following would be some you would see: human
dignity, made for community, participating in building society, option
for the poor, solidarity, stewardship, subsidiarity, human equality, working for the common good.
The
bishop head of the Justice and Peace Committee of the Korean bishops
wants the Christians to be protectors of human rights of all the
citizens. The Korean Catholics have with other groups been working to
abolish the death penalty in Korea. One of the articles mentions the campaign that was launched by the bishops to gather signatures and sadly
reports not a few of the parishes threw the petitions in the waste
basket. Many still do not see any connection with concern for the
weakest members in society and our faith life.
Jesus
asks us to love our neighbor as ourselves which means our neighbor's
human rights are as important as our own. One lawyer is quoted: "To work
for the common good is of the essence
of our faith life and our duty. This is not only true of those who are
working within the movement; human rights is just another word used
for loving our neighbor and our faith life. Human Rights is an
universal value for
all Christians, and one with which we need to be involved. We should not
politicize it with terms like liberal and conservative. "
Words are merely words and we need them to express what we need to say; human rights is another way of saying we need to love our neighbor, and especially those who are the weakest in society. They are the ones who need our help the most, for they have no one to speak for them.
"Each morning when I get up, Sister has my meal ready, and each
evening I have a nice warm place to sleep, it brings me back to the time
I was a child. It's wonderful." The religious sister in her column
gives us the words of a young woman who ran away from an entertainment place, and is now in the care of the sisters.
Another woman mentions how her mother taught her how to play the piano and compose even
after a divorce. "Do you know why I kept practicing the piano during all the hard times? My mother is in the piano. When I am at the piano I
can feel the love of my mother."
The common element of
these young women is they overcame the difficulties of life by the
remembrance of the love they received as a child. Where is the mother
that doesn't provide meals for her child? It is not the meals provided,
but the mother's loving presence she remembers. Let us suppose that the mother was busy with a thousand different things, and the child was busy with her smartphone, do you think she would
remember those days with such a loving memory, and be satisfied with her
ordinary life? If they had both been in their own world, do you think they would remember what happened in childhood?
In
today's world it is difficult to be focused on one object. There are
too many things that are vying for our interest, we are busy
hearing, seeing, thinking and being moved: connected to everybody and
everything. We have become proficient in being disconnected from
time and place. We are losing contact with our present. Happiness comes
from the way we relate to our now.
The
digital equipment we have in our hands dissociates ourselves from the here and now. The more information in our hands the busier we are, and the more we enjoy it, the more time we invest.
In our society the parents are doing much for their children but being with
their children is not that prevalent. When we are not present to the here and
now we can be lost in our dream world. When we are with the family we
can be lost in this world with our digital equipment, and be satisfied
with the pleasant feeling it brings. When we are not relating with
those we love we are not developing our interior life.
She concludes the column asking us to remember that the memories children receive, give them the strength to face the world
they will meet as adults. Parents have to give the children these
warm experiences that will continue: the times they
spent praying together as a family, the time they spent at table
harmoniously talking to each other, the time they enjoyed each others company. These memories are the most important treasures
you can pass on to your children, a legacy that can't be lost.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" are words we often hear.
Statistics can be made to say pretty much what we want. 'Events of the
Day Column in the Peace Weekly gives us an example of how this is
done.
The
article looks into the crime rate of Korea. The statistics show a very
high rate for crime and he looks into the number of murders reported. In
news reports under the term murder was the number 966 which included
attempted murder, aiding and abetting of murder, murder conspiracy and
others. The rate is given per 100,000 of the population and Korea's
rate is 0.69 which is the lowest except for Japan. The United States
has 5 and Western Europe has 2 per one hundred thousand. The way you
use the statistics can make Korea one of the safest countries in the world or one
of the most dangerous.
The way the crimes are reported are all with the same qualifications: attempted, abetting, conspiracy etc.. The columnist doesn't want to discount the harm and hurt that even one murder causes, but he wants to make clear what the statistics mean. Sadly, he laments, there are other deaths that we tend to overlook.
The
Sewol tragedy is considered a homicide and not an accident. Last year
3,233 where killed in auto-accidents and there were 14,427 suicides. The
number of suicides are 40 times the number of the murdered. This comes to 40 a day.
The
power that a country possesses is great. They have the power over life
and death. And yet the money that is set aside in preventing accidents
and suicides is very little. Korea spends about two million and Japan
spends about 300 million for suicide prevention, and Japan has less of a problem.
The
writer deplores the fact that we can spend so much money for the safety of our citizens with a large military, police force, and justice department,
demanding an enormous amount of money; and be so abstemious when it comes to protecting the lives of citizens from accidents and suicides.
