A professor at a research center for women in her column in the Peace Weekly wants her readers to reflect on sexual harassment issues that continue to appear in the news. A few years ago, a staff member with the President on a trip to the States was accused of sexual indiscretion with an Embassy intern.
He was removed from his job and returned to Korea. In his interview with the press, his explanation was: he patted the back of the Korean guide. From that time on he has been secluded in his home. Seeing how public opinion was not happy with what was happening the President apologized for the incident.
Since the intern was assigned by the Korean Embassy to help the staff member, the relationship was one of superior and subordinate. The writer sees this as sexual violence. Staff members considered the person a guide and tried to minimize the seriousness of the incident as did others who were dealing with issues involved in the incident.
The government has decreed that in the future public officials on overseas duty will not be dealing with interns. The writer does not believe the authorities realize the problem is a structural one and tries to remedy it with makeshift solutions.
Many, overcome with anger, sent an open letter to the President in which they want what happened seen through the eyes of the young woman; the staff member undergo investigation in the States; and provide provisions that will prevent this from happening again.
1,000 women from Korea have voiced their disapproval of the handling of the case. It is a criminal case. They want the case to be tried before the district public prosecutor's office. Since the staff member has denied any wrong doing this has resulted in harm to the victim's reputation. If we ignore what happened, we are facing a future where politicians will continue this kind of behavior. They want to make clear these actions are violence against women.
Since the statute of limitation ends this year, the staff member is free to express the unfairness(?) of what he experienced. Both the States and Korea are in a fog on how to look upon what happened.
The need to bring up the subject after three years is to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents: inaction and using a cotton bat are no help. Often they blame it on too much drinking or the victim's behavior which takes the concern for the violence off the perpetrator. Without growth in respect for human rights, democracy does not mature, and she hopes that this incident will help promote our understanding of gender and sexuality.
In
a bulletin for priests the writer introduces us to Mo Tzu a Chinese
Philosopher who followed Confucius and was in opposition to his ideas.
At the time he was as influential as Confucius but not as successful in winning people's hearts. Mohism has almost disappeared.
He
uses the book written by a professor who writes about the all embracing
love without discrimination, in Mo Tzu's teaching. According to Mo Tzu that are three things
that bring disorder to our society: the hungry have nothing to eat,
those who are cold have no clothes, and those that work can't rest.
When
we don't have universal love the strong will oppress the weak, the
majority will bully the minority, the rich will despise the poor, the
aristocracy will lord it over the lowly, the smart will deceive the
foolish, and we have chaos.
Mo
Tzu lived around the 390 BC and his times are not much different from
our own times. We have not been able to heal the wounds of war and have
not become any more mature in our love for others. Altruism instead of
growing appears to have decreased. All our attention is on money. We
seem to agree that to live better we need to amass more money. Not only true with the wealthy but with those who sorrow with little, but agree that money will solve all problems.
The
rich want more and are absorbed in its acquisition while those who
sorrow without it want to join the club and are oblivious of those who
are left behind. This is the kind of society that we are in and the
future doesn't look bright.
With
the eyes of faith we see this search for idols as unhealthy, and the teaching of
universal love that the Mohist school professed as the solution.
Apparently the demise of this philosophy was its impracticality, and unrealistic demands. In many ways his way of love is
very similar to Jesus' way and for many also seen as impractical.
The caption for the article is Mo Tzu's expression of his all inclusive love. IF UNDER THE HEAVENS WE HAD LOVE FOR EACH OTHER, A LOVE THAT I HAVE FOR MYSELF, WOULD WE HAVE ANY IMPIETY? Can we imagine what Asia would be today if instead of Confucianism we had Mohism as the mainspring of Asian Culture?
Not only those in leadership positions in the Church but those who trust the Church are concerned with what is happening: seen by some as a crisis within the Church. A seminary professor in his column in the Catholic Times gives his readers a reason to be concerned for the privatization and individualization of our faith life.
Rate of the increase of believers continues to decrease. Increase in the second half of the 1980s was a unique event but to explain the decrease is not easily done. Consequently, the number of those attending Mass on Sundays is noticeably not increasing. There is little difference in the numbers that were attending Mass 10 years ago and today.
Those willing to serve in the different organizations are difficult to find. Convents and seminaries have dropped in the number of vocations. Activity of the young within the church is not what it was, and we have a change to an aged European-like church.
Even among the devout, many are not following the teachings. The numbers going to confession have dropped. Members of the Legion of Mary who are visiting the sick, and the poor have decreased. Sacrifice and detachment among the members are not easily found. Human nature wants to avoid the difficult, but love, and our faith should overcome this tendency, but we don't easily see it, although he knows it exists.
Many are attending prayer meetings, but individualistic religious life is not abandoned. Pope Francis calls this:"a spiritual consumerism tailored to one’s own unhealthy individualism."
"Many try to escape from others and take refuge in the comfort of their privacy or in a small circle of close friends, renouncing the realism of the social aspect of the Gospel. For just as some people want a purely spiritual Christ, without flesh and without the cross, they also want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems, which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy, which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness" (Joy of the Gospel #88).
Development in individualistic spirituality within the church may seem a spiritual maturity, but the professor sees this as a serious corruption and a great danger. We as Christians and as Church are to be the salt of the earth. We need to continually purify our vision and desires. We are in need of reform and renewal, our answer to the call of the Gospel to be salt of the earth.
Presently in the Korean Church, we have twenty out of one hundred who are coming to Mass on Sundays. Those who have left the community are called tepid, and reasons for leaving are many. They are listed in surveys and questionnaires that have been made over the years.
We have those who no longer believe and those who need to work or study. Some find confession and the sacramental life difficult. Liturgy has no meaning, and boring. Scars from relating to others in community never heal, fester, and they leave. Money for the building fund, Sunday collections and donations are a burden. Sermons have little meaning. Christian life brings stress. They are disappointed by the behavior and words of priests and religious. These are some of the personal reasons, but a lay theologian in Here and Now Web Site gives us what he feels are the structural reasons for leaving.
First, he sees a lack of preparation in the catechumenate. It is a period of at least six months to a year, but this is not always followed. He gives the example in the military where he has seen that less than one hour of study prepared a person for baptism. Those who are baptized lack the motivation and enter the community for reasons other than a Christian faith life.
Secondly, he sees communities that are made up of core parishioners and the ordinary parishioners. We have those who have been active in church work from an early age who have been hurt and have left. Why should this be the case? Communities should be a place with equality, but we have those who because of merit or wealth become leaders in the community.
There are many who work in the community in many ways of service but are looked upon by the core group as tools, which leaves this group with a feeling of emptiness and lack of belonging.
We have those who enter the community which was not that apparent in the past, mostly not for a desire for a spiritual life but to find and enjoy recognition. They have had high positions in society and enjoyed wealth and seek to enhance their place in society by entering the community. They can offer services to the community that the ordinary Christians can't. They join the core group which further alienates the ordinary parishioners who feel an emptiness.
He mentions the third structural problem is the need to work on Sundays. Many in the community find it difficult to understand why they don't make the effort to attend Mass. This is a lack of understanding of those who need to work on the weekends to support their families, and the church should be concerned with this group for they are not turned off on the church.
Article concludes with a need for more than prayer for these who no longer belong to the community. Prayer can be an excuse for action needed to change our community way of life. We have grown greatly as a community, but we need to concern ourselves with the quality of life in community and not only a core group in the community.
Same sex sexual relations have been a taboo subject in much of the Korean press up until recent years. Recently we had a Queer Festival with an estimated 50,000 lesbians, gay males, bisexual and transgendered people, and supporters who gathered at Seoul Plaza to demonstrate their fight against homophobia.
In the peace column of the Peace Weekly the writer gives us his ideas on understanding the meaning for Catholics of the homosexual revolution appearing in Korea.
'Queer' the English word is used: strange, out of the ordinary, to describe a sexual minority whose sexual orientation is not for the opposite sex and expressed by the word homosexuality. Included in this term are those who are transgendered and bisexual. Accepting the word queer is not surprising.
They are binding together as a group and openly want to have their sexual orientation accepted by the public.This year was the 17th Queer Festival which was the largest in their history. Many of the supporters are fearful of the spread of hatred for this sexual minority and want society to accept them. At the same time, groups of Protestants were demonstrating in opposition to the Festival.
Catholicism is very clear in seeing the same sex acts as sinful but the orientation is not seen in the same way. Scriptures are understood to be opposed to same sex acts but at the same time the Church is adamant in demanding respect for each person's dignity.
"The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition" #2358 Catechism of the Church.
Let's suppose, he concludes his column, that one of the members of your family was thus inclined what would you do? This was the results of seeing the news about the queer festival in Seoul, and leaves the reader with his disturbing question.
Catholic Digest has an article about a priest's experience in the United States doing pastoral work for a Korean community. Most of the children don't understand Korean, so he had to prepare sermons for the young people in English. He used this time to work on his English, but he felt a need for outside help.
A young girl Eun Mi, a college student fluent in Korean, helped him. Her parents had immigrated to the States some 30 years before, and undergoing many difficulties, married. Eun Mi was the first child, born in the States. They started a grocery store,that enabled them to live comfortably.
During vacation time, Eun Mi started working part-time in a clothing store run by Americans. She wanted to take care of her own expenses and told the priest about her feelings. The work was difficult for her. She had to stand up all day dealing with the customers. After the first day her back hurt, the calves of her legs were swollen,and that night, she found herself groaning.
The next morning she was so sick that she had no desire to go to work and was about to telephone the store to tell them that she would not continue. As she picked up the telephone her parent's 30 years of working everyday doing just what she was groaning about came to mind. She put down the telephone,and with new determination went to work.
Although born in the United States she experienced discrimination because of her yellow skin. She can only surmise the discrimination that her parents felt since they spoke English poorly. While she was saying this, the priest saw tears come to her eyes.
Recently,migrant is a word often heard. In Korea, we have those who come to Korea for a better life. Many are here to support their families back in their homeland. We have the refugees from North Korea and those who are wives of Korean men, mostly in the farming areas. Korea is becoming a multicultural society, slowly; they are working to overcome discrimination which for a society that has been homogeneous is not easy.
Children who come to Korea with their mothers because of divorce and remarriage to a Korean and refugees who come from the North find it difficult to find work and assimilate. Often the difficulty is the way they speak Korean. They may be fluent, but their accents give them away and often that's all that's needed to keep them from finding work. Efforts are made to rid themselves of the accent, but the need is for the society to accept the refugees from the North and foreigners and assimilate them.
Korean
priests in active service now exceed 5,000, and although we see a drop
from the recent past, Korea is doing well. Foreign priests according to
Catholic Bishops' Conference still active in Korea stood at 138, which
decreased by 20 from the previous year. From the time of the first
Korean priest St. Andrew Kim, more than 6,000 were ordained; 536 have
died, and 427 have left the priesthood to return to secular life.
How
many Koreans in the Diaspora who have immigrated and have become
priests in their new homelands is difficult to ascertain, but the two
Catholic Weeklies had articles about Christopher Eung jin
Bae, who was ordained for the priesthood in the Boston Archdiocese in
May of this year. He will be the fourth Korean priest for the
archdiocese. He is assigned as the assistant priest at St. Mary's
Church, Franklin. On his visit to Korea, he was interviewed by the two
weeklies.
The
article mentions he was born in Korea; after graduating from middle
school the family emigrated to the States. He went on to realize his
dream. He went to the University of California at Los Angeles, and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduated and got a good-paying
job working as an analyst at Accenture, Boston. However, he didn't find
the joy he expected, and wanted to know why.
He
mentioned he dreamed of marriage and of owning a Lamborghini but with
the priesthood, he had to give up this dream. With a group of young
people from his Korean parish, he went to Haiti in 2010 to help the
poor and sick for 10 days. He was looking for the meaning of life. The
trip filled his head with thoughts he never had before. He considered
money the requisite for happiness. Here he was with 9 out of ten of what
he thought was necessary for happiness, searching for the tenth, and
unsatisfied. The people he was working with had barely one and were thankful and happy.
Returning
to Boston and speaking to the pastor the topic of a vocation to the
priesthood was mentioned. Three months later, he entered the seminary
and took a leave of absence from his work for a year, just in case....
He
was filled with doubt and uneasiness, but all was reversed. He found
great joy, the meaning of life and went on to the priesthood. His
favorite scriptural phrase--Psalm 86:12, which he took for his
ordination maxim: "I will give thanks to you, O Lord my God with all my
heart, and I will glorify your name forever."
His road to the priesthood was not just adulation,
for his mother continually would tell him to think over well what he
was doing. Even at his ordination his mother cried uncontrollably from
the sadness she felt. It was this opposition on his mother's part that
gave him confidence that his choice was the right one, and believes his
mother will one day agree.
In
his own life, he felt like a chipmunk on an exercise wheel and wants
to help others to find meaning in life, which will depend on his
keeping the joy and happiness in life he has found.
