Remembering Chernobyl

In the Eyes of the Clergy column of the Catholic Peace Weekly, we are given some of the facts behind a few items in today's world news.

Alla Yarosinskaya, a former member of the Supreme Soviet of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, used a 600-page report on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident that the Soviet Union had thoroughly concealed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The report described how the Soviet Union fabricated and concealed the truth about the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine. Yarosinskaya, who obtained the report, exposes the truth of Chernobyl in a book titled "Chernobyl, The Hidden Truth" (Crime Without Punishment) long after the nuclear accident.
 
According to Yarosinskaya, at the time of the Chernobyl accident, the Soviet authorities knew the damage was serious, but thoroughly concealed it. The standard values were manipulated to reduce the number of radiation exposure victims and changed to deaths from natural causes. With the state's lies, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion looked like a small accident, but the people suffered greatly. Diseases such as cancer and leukemia have led to a great increase in premature deaths and numerous birth defects. Alla Yarosinskaya, who faced the truth long after the nuclear accident, confesses: "The most dangerous material from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is neither cesium nor plutonium, it is a lie."
 
The discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan has entered a countdown. Tokyo Electric Power Company has virtually finished the construction of the water tunnel from the nuclear power plant to the sea and has begun sending seawater into the water tunnel. Experts expect that Japan will begin discharging the water after the final investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency this month. Currently, 1.33 million tons of contaminated water are stored in the tank, and once discharged, the contaminated water will flow into the sea continuously for the next 28 years. Ahead of Japan's discharge of contaminated water, we repeat Yarosinskaya's point. It is the lie of the state.
 
The former prime minister, himself was a pro-nuclear power plant proponent who pushed for nuclear power, but after he learned the truth about nuclear power, he confesses that he has now become an anti-nuclear activist. Despite numerous Japanese declarations of conscience, including the former prime minister, we do not fully know the truth about the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
 

Buddhist monks visited the Japanese embassy to condemn Japan's discharge of contaminated water, and Catholic nuns visited the Japanese embassy to urge an official apology for the comfort women issue. On the spot, the monks and nuns who are working with truth prayed together. The nation marched together to tell us not to lie and to tell the truth and apologize if we did not. I don't know if it's because the nuns read the lies of the state that covered the truth, from comfort women, and the monks from the victims of Fukushima and Chernobyl.
 
Therefore, the discharge of contaminated water is an ethical issue. Our judgment on whether the state is lying or not is important. We must look at the discharge of contaminated water in Fukushima with reverence for the life given by the Creator. The writer wonders if the people who have improved their environmental knowledge with RE100 should be the ecological ethics experts in our society. [RE100 is the global corporate renewable energy initiative bringing together hundreds of businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity]
 

Hikikomori: A Social Problem

 

On March 29, the issue of this present blog was visited and will continue to be a problem for the individual and society for many years to come. The Catholic Times visited the problem in a recent featured article.

The son, who never disobeyed his mother and studied well, did not come out of his room during the summer vacation of his third year in high school. When she knocked on his door the only reason he gave for not going to school was because he was sick. His mother, who had to work hard to earn money to keep her home, felt it was her fault for not being able to take care of her young son, and it broke her heart. A week, a month, a year, the son who had not come out of the house was now in his mid-30s. The pain of a child who was cut off from the world due to unspeakable wounds and locked the door becomes the pain of parents and of society. How can the church accompany the pain of families who are going through a time of suffering in so many unknown places?
 
'Reclusive loners' is a collective term for people who have not communicated with anyone other than their family members for six months or more, have refused any social relationships, and rarely leave their rooms or homes.
 
In Japan, this phenomenon had already emerged as a social problem in the 1970s. Students who were tired of the competition for entrance examinations refused to go to school, and by the 1990s, teenagers and young adults who did not leave the house were called "hikikomori", which means "locked in at home". A Japanese psychiatrist who first coined the term “hikikomori,” defined hikikomori as "a case of not participating in society which lasts for more than six months, but it is difficult to think of it as a mental disorder.  He pointed out that the hermit-type loner phenomenon is not a problem of individual psychopathology, but of social structure.
 
The term was first introduced in Korea about 20 years ago. At the 12th World Psychiatric Association held in Yokohama, Japan in 2002, the Samsung Social Mental Health Research Institute reported that a hermit-type loner phenomenon had occurred in Korea. It was known to the academic world 20 years ago, but there has never been a nationwide fact-finding survey at the government level. The perception that people who spend time in their rooms playing games instead of going to school or work has caused people to regard reclusive loners as a personal problem
 
The issue of seclusion and loneliness was difficult to recognize because the person concerned was not appearing in society and awareness of the issue was missing; consequently, the problem that our society should contemplate together as it was linked to crime was slow in coming.
 
At a seminar held in August 2020, it was mentioned that the period of first starting seclusion was 16-18 years old (39.8%), followed by those 19-24 years old. They left society because they were unable to bear the weight given to them at important times in their lives, such as college entrance and employment.
 
The most common reason for being secluded was "mental difficulties such as depression" (43.4%). Others stopped coming out of the house because of ‘not getting a job’ (31.0%) and ‘because of human relationships’ (25.3%). ‘Study interruption and college entrance failure’ (7.2%) were also cited as the cause.
 
In Japan, where hikikomori spread in the 1990s, those who were young at the time were unable to come out into society and entered their 40s and 50s. The "80-50 problem", in which the number of middle-aged hikikomori dependent on their parents in their 70s and 80s is increasing, and emerging as a serious social problem in Japan along with young hikikomori.
 
Institutes that study reclusive loners estimate that there are more than 300,000 reclusive loners in Korea. Experts diagnosed that complex factors make adolescents and young adults secluded. It is an analysis that the overprotection and over-expectation of children that appeared along with the nuclear family made the child helpless and unable to develop the strength to overcome trials. Also, teenagers who were exposed to fierce competition or experienced school violence could not adapt to school life and hid in their rooms. In the case of young people, experiencing frequent failures in the process of finding a job, they lose their motivation and cut off relationships with their surroundings, becoming a hermit-type loner.
 
One of the parents a CEO of the Korea Reclusive Parents Association, founded the Korea Reclusive Parents Association to save her son, who had cut off social ties for over 10 years, said that "parent education" is the first priority to solve the problem of reclusive ones.  "First of all, the children have to come out to receive counseling or support, but the biggest problem is that they cannot even start because it is difficult to access the person concerned. When children open their minds through parents, conditions can be created for agencies or counselors to intervene."
 
The CEO who struggled to raise her son alone after divorcing her husband, said: "If I knew how to take care of my son emotionally, my son might not have lived in isolation for so long." She did not know that those times would leave scars on her son. She has created an association and is working hard to educate parents in the hope that other parents will not suffer the same pain as she did. Her son, who has been studying youth counseling since a few years ago, said: "If I had at least one adult who took an interest in me and said 'it's okay' when I was having a hard time, I would have been able to come out to the world sooner."   
 
Through the words of the two mothers, we can find out what role the church can play. It is to convey the value of love. A priest working with these young people said: "Parent education, which is already being done by the church, is one of the church’s roles necessary in our society where the family is disintegrating." He also added: "Finding the essence of the church through constant catechesis can eventually be the key to solving the problems that plague our society."
 

What Division of the Country Does?

The Vice Chairman of the National Reconciliation Committee of the Seoul Archdiocese gives the readers of the Catholic Peace Weekly Diagnosis of the Times Column some thoughts on the divided situation of Korea in its 70th year.

On May 31st, citizens in the Seoul area started their morning by hearing loud noises. Since North Korea's reconnaissance satellite was launched on the morning of the same day, the Seoul Metropolitan Government issued an alert at 6:41am. The contents of the emergency disaster text were quite frightening. It was a message to be prepared to evacuate as a warning has been issued in the Seoul area and to allow children and the elderly to evacuate first. There was no guidance on what had happened and where to evacuate, but the message that came early in the morning accompanied by sirens echoing through the apartment complex made many people nervous.
 
Many people thought that something really serious had happened when even the portal site went down due to people flocking to search for news. Some wondered whether they should return home while driving in the middle of Olympic Boulevard, and at home, they were at a loss as to whether they should wake up their sleeping children, and if so, what and how to prepare. Of course, there were people who passed this situation indifferently, but loud sirens and emergency text messages also affected Memorial Day, June 6, a week later. The siren that sounded that morning was a signal of silence for the patriotic martyrs, and even told them not to be surprised this time.
 
Regardless of whether Seoul overreacted to North Korea's previously announced satellite launch or responded appropriately to the crisis situation, the emergency disaster message on the last day of May did not only come into our ordinary morning routine. It reminded us of the fact that we are now divided, and that division is still present in our daily lives.
 
In fact, the confrontation between the two Koreas is not something surprising. Even though hundreds of thousands of soldiers and weapons systems with tremendous firepower are concentrated around the Military Demarcation Line, our daily lives are oblivious to the situation. We worry about rising electricity bills and are sensitive to the reduced quantity and number of basic side dishes at regular restaurants, but issues of inter-Korean conflict or peace on the Korean Peninsula are far from our daily lives.
 
Parents who have to send their children to the military or visit border areas such as Paju or Goseong remember that our country is still at war. However, despite this insensitivity, the reality of division is part of our daily lives. The culture of taking sides in a company or community where you constantly want to question whether the other person is on your side or not is one of the signs of our culture of division.
 
For more than 70 years, we have been taught to doubt whether the people around us are friends or enemies, and doubt creates boundaries, and boundaries create differences. And taking sides has brought about a rigid dichotomy in which one must belong to one side. It is not possible to respect various choices and tastes and be comfortable when opinions are unified, stances are unified, and even menus are unified. Diverse thoughts and positions make the community complicated and dizzy and feel diversity is uncomfortable. However, a rigid society represented by the logic of taking sides and dichotomies takes away our composure and blocks inclusiveness and hospitality.
 
The siren should sound a little longer. Not the air-raid siren, but the siren that informs us that the culture of division is making our hearts sick. Peace can be achieved by uncovering the culture of division hidden in everyday life and finding ways to overcome it. We need to awaken our senses to why our society is rigid and why we find it difficult to accept our neighbors and respect their thoughts.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the ceasefire in the Korean War. Peace on the Korean Peninsula will cease to be a slogan only when we wake up to the division that operates hidden in our daily lives. Only those who are uncomfortable with conflict will walk the journey to create peace for they realize how serious the harm of division is.

Vatican News Site

 

The Former President of  the Catholic Journalists Association  in the Eyes of the Believers column  of the Catholic Times gives the readers information on Vatican News in Korean.

He has a special Kakao Talk group chat room. He has 11 conversation partners, and a notification pops up around 10 p.m. every night except on Saturdays or the day before holidays. About three article URLs come up with names. [Articles uploaded on certain days  in June]. In the URL link, the names  'Lee  and Kim'          are attached. The person in question gives only a short response, saying:“I understand”. There is no separate doorplate for each room. At this point, readers may not be able to contain their curiosity. ‘What is the true identity of this place?

 

This is the story of the people who create the Korean page for the Vatican News. Vatican News, the official news outlet published by the Holy See's Ministry of Public Relations, is a digital portal serving the mission of evangelization. Currently, news services are provided in 40 languages, including Italian, English, and French, and Korean.  In addition, the news is classified into 4 divisions— the Pope, the Vatican, the Church, and the world, and goes out to the  Catholics around the world.

 

Let's find out more about the 'Vatican News' Korean page. In 2014, on the occasion of Pope Francis' visit to Korea, a business agreement was signed between the government and the Vatican for the Korean language addition project. After the government project ended in 2017, the Public Relations Committee of the Seoul Archdiocese took over the operation of the Korean language service. The Korean page is the only case run by a local church outside of Rome.

 

 My gaze goes to the aforementioned group chat room routinely around 10:00 p.m. every Thursday night. This is because in Rome, Italy, the responsible priest distributes Italian and English articles to translators. The Korean page currently has 2 reviewers, 2 editors, and 6 translators.

 

He started translating English news into Korean from the beginning of the year, and half a year has passed before he knew it. After checking the news to be translated, sharing the original text on Google Drive, he works on translating until late at night. He wakes up early the next day, checks the words, and works to refine the article. This is because he personally has to finish the translation early before he goes to his classes in theology. Although his body and mind are busy, he is  grateful he can use some of his small talents for the church.

 

There is a famous saying “translation is treason”. It is observed that the translation does not properly preserve the intention and accuracy of the original text due to the intervention of the translator. While accepting the reasonableness of this view, it is difficult to respond perfectly due to differences in language and culture. In fact, there are many cases where it is awkward to directly translate a foreign language. So, some paraphrase and explain that does not damage the  original text.  Most of the translators of Vatican News translate Italian articles into Korean, but only the author and one other person are in charge of English news. Anyway, he  turns on his laptop and works with his  butt on the chair. It reminds him of a elder's encouragement that translation is a work of perseverance. Looking forward to the next work, taking advantage of the saying “translators are creators of culture”

 

There are not many believers who know the ‘Vatican News’ and its Korean language pages. This is because of the lack of publicity. Shouldn't good things be spread through word of mouth and shared? The Catholic news media thirsts for our love and attention. Let's bookmark it now and surf whenever we can.  

 

Just install the Vatican News app on your phone. On the web, click the Korean page address (https://www.vaticannews.va/ko.html). You can also access it through Facebook or Kakao Page. Let's not miss the many spiritual treasures, such as the Pope's sermons, along with the latest news from the universal and local churches. The biblical phrase: “Only taste and see” (Psalm 34:9) sounds like the words of the Lord to inform us of ‘Vatican News’

 

Speaking Heart to Heart

Synodality is the word we hear a lot and will continue to do so until next year. It is the encounter with the other: communion, participation and mission. It is the desire of the church for all the people of God to walk together, listening to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

We hear a great deal about the lack of dialogue within society. The advances in technology have been tremendous they have brought  us closer together in many ways but as with most of our reality we have both the positive and negative which depends on the way used and our values.

Our encounters have multiplied  but have  they increased our interactions on a deeper level or a superficial one? Has our personal communication become deeper? The Pope has in recent years in his Communication Day Messages addressed these issues. Last year it was listening with the heart and this year speaking with the heart "The truth in love" Eph. (4:15). "Among the five senses, the one favored by God seems to be hearing, perhaps because it is less invasive, more discreet than sight, and therefore leaves the human being more free."

In this years message he quotes St. Francis de Sales in one of his most famous statements: 'Cor ad cor loquitur', heart speaks to heart. St. John Henry Newman, chose this as his motto. One of his convictions was: "In order to speak well, it is enough to love well". It shows that for him communication should never be reduced to something artificial, to a marketing strategy, as we might say nowadays, but is rather a reflection of the soul, the visible surface of a nucleus of love that is invisible to the eye. For Saint Francis de Sales, precisely "in the heart and through the heart, there comes about a subtle, intense and unifying process in which we come to know God".

"It is from this 'criterion of love' that, through his writings and witness of life, the saintly Bishop of Geneva reminds us that 'we are what we communicate'. This goes against the grain today, at a time when — as we experience especially on social media — communication is often exploited so that the world may see us as we would like to be and not as we are. Saint Francis de Sales disseminated many copies of his writings among the Geneva community. This 'journalistic' intuition earned him a reputation that quickly went beyond the confines of his diocese and still endures to this day". 

Today we hear often that conversation, the art of relating with others face to face with words is diminishing. Personal interaction is  no longer what it use to be. We have all experienced this in many different ways, all one has to do is ride on a subway for an hour it will  be obvious. Many people are becoming isolated due to the lack of personal interaction and consequently the lack of conversation.

We have all seen picture of family members at the kitchen table with their hand phones in hand while eating. The hand phone is a great blessing but it comes with a cost and the need to discern how it is to be used so that it doesn't stand in the way of our personal  encounters with others in the here and now. St. James exhorts us  in his epistle:The most important task in pastoral activity is the "apostolate of the ear" – to listen before speaking, as the Apostle James exhorts: "Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak" (1:19). Freely giving some of our own time to listen to people is the first act of charity.

#heart

 

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Lord, Open My Eyes

 

 

Lord Open My Eyes. In the Catholic Times, a parish priest in the Eyes of the Believers Column gives the readers something to dwell on, finally coming out of the long tunnel of Corona 19.

This is because the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially declared that it will lift the COVID-19 quarantine system, which has shocked people all over the world over the past three years and four months, and the Korean government has also announced that it will follow the measures from June. This means that most of the quarantine measures and obligations that were compulsorily applied to the public after the COVID-19 pandemic will disappear and we will return to normal life.

 

In the COVID-19 situation, many lived with their eyes open yet were spiritually blind, and not a few lived as if they were physically blind but with their spiritual eyes wide open. Those who were healed physically and spiritually by their firm faith in Jesus, the "light of the world" (John 9:5) appear throughout the New Testament. 

 

 "As Jesus was leaving Jericho, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus son of Timaeus was sitting by the roadside, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ … Jesus asked: "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said, "Teacher, let me see again." Jesus said to him: "Go. Your faith has saved you. And immediately he saw again" (Mk 10:46-52).

 

Those who suffered from a disability at birth or who suffered from a disability due to their own fault, or the fault of others or some external influence, need, above all, the devoted sacrifice and help of their families and neighbors, and the absolute and unlimited support of the State that wants everyone's welfare. "Lord, open our eyes" (Matthew 20:33).

 

Song Francis lost his eyesight in a grenade explosion accident when he was a private in the army, and Lee Lucia, a life partner always stood by her husband and became his eyes, ears, and cane even when she was sick and uncomfortable! As the world's first disabled person to complete the world's four extreme marathons: the Sahara, Gobi, Atacama, and Antarctica, he is an iron man who achieved a grand slam. And gave hope to many. Perhaps that is why, when the priest wakes up in the morning, steps outside the door with a cane, looks at the statue of the Virgin Mary, and makes the sign of the cross with a grateful heart.

 

Every time the pastor brings them the Eucharist twice a month, the couple radiates the joy of receiving the body of the Lord. A brother who lives with an uncomfortable body but has always lived a spiritually fulfilled life, and a sister who silently sacrifices and serves her husband a true examples of a holy family. 

 

He is reminded of the essay 「Three Days to See」 by Helen Keller, an American disabled person who could not see, or hear but did learn to speak. She said that if she had only one wish it would be to open her eyes and see for ‘only three days’ before she dies.  

 

'Being eyes to the blind and legs to the lame' (Job 29:15). In today's individualistic and concerned-with-self world, do we live faithfully as believers who serve as eyes and bridges for people with disabilities?

 

Justice Versus Ideological Bias

The Catholic Times gives the readers some pros and cons  on the National Catholic Priests' Association for the Realization of Justice  which has been  holding Prayer Meetings for the restoration  of democracy and peace in society.

When it is judged there is political or social confusion or a serious problem in society, intellectuals, such as professors and religious figures gather at a designated place at the same time to express concern about the current issues and urge a solutions.

 

Members of the  religious world continue to bring news to society of the state of affairs one after another. The National Catholic Priests' Association for the Realization of Justice is offering weekly Masses.

  

The priests’ association explained the reason for the prayer meetings in a statement released recently: "I pray to you at the time of desperation." The priests' association pointed recent government proposals with which they didn't agree that they thought violated the Constitution. 

 

Depending on the location, hundreds to 2,000 people participate in the priests' prayer meetings. However, the eyes of the believers who look at the prayer meetings are largely divided into two categories. We have those who see priests reading the signs of the times and speaking out ‘bitterly’ about the current situation, and the negative position that the priesthood, which shows a biased political ideology, and see the clergy involved in politics. 

 

A believer in Inchon, who requested anonymity, said: "Rather than alleviating the pain of farmers and workers, the current regime intimidates the people by rejecting the Grain Law and announcing the suppression of protests against the government by force, and in particular, threatens the country’s existence with faulty diplomacy. The priests are properly rebuking the current regime with the eyes of the gospel and that the government should listen to the voice of the priests."

 

However, a priest from another diocese said: "The priests did not say a word about the government's incompetence or the situation that took place during the the past administration, but only exposes the situation of the present government"  He also pointed out:  "Clergy should participate in politics as members of society, but in order to 'realize justice', the priests must first be righteous."

 There is also an opinion that the terms "prosecutor’s dictatorship" and “regime resignation" used by the priests were objectionable. A lay leader in Seoul said: "It is understandable that the priests congregate to offer a Mass for the state of affairs and point out the government's realities, but they need to choose  language that the believers can relate to."