South Korean President Moon Jae-In delivers a speech during a ceremony to mark Korean Memorial Day at the National Cemetery in Seoul on June 6. Some older South Korean Catholics say that Moon "is and will be a divisive president." (Photo by Jung Yeon-Je/AFP)
A rare Catholic leader in Asia, South Korea's new President Moon Jae-in is a very faithful man, in a Catholic sense. He even had the country's lavish presidential palace blessed upon taking office.
His Catholicism has impressed many, including Father Stefano Jaebong Chang, a pastoral coordinator for Busan Diocese.
"Moon went on television during the presidential debate saying the thing he cared most about in his life was the rosary his mother gave him. As Catholics that touched us a lot," Father Jaebong told ucanews.com.
But while other Catholic leaders, such as Bishop Yoo Heung-sik of Daejeon, based in one of South Korea's biggest cities, declared their support for the liberal leader, others are not so sure, highlighting the deep left/right divide in the Korean Catholic Church.
When Bishop Yoo contacted the new president to congratulate him, media reports said the two of them talked about the importance of working for the common good. They spoke about putting into practice the principles of the Catholic Church's "social doctrine" — an example of which was their commitment to abolish the death penalty. The bishop said Moon replied: "I am available."
In South Korea, there has been an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment since February 1998 when the late President Kim Dae-jung, the only other Catholic to hold the country's top job, came to power. He himself had been sentenced to the death in 1980 during the dark years of the country's dictatorship but was later pardoned.
But unlike the enthusiasm seen on the streets of Seoul for Moon, where he attracted huge crowds, reactions in Busan where Moon built his career as a lawyer were more muted.
Moon had a tougher election fight in Busan where the second placed candidate was only 6 percentage points adrift: 38 percent for Moon and 32 percent for Hong Joon-pyo, the presidential candidate of the conservative Liberty Korea Party.
For the 2012 election, Moon had 40 percent against former president Park Geun-hye's 60 percent in the city.
Observers thought one of the reasons why Moon struggled in Busan was because that city is more Protestant.
"I don't know much about his past, I voted for him as a revolt against what I saw of the previous administration," said Ji Yeon, a 23-year-old girl who serves in a cafe near Busan station.
Myung Hee, a 35-year-old Protestant from Busan, said he was getting "second hand messages" to vote for Hong Joon-pyo during the election.
"My mom received a message from her pastor saying, 'vote for Hong,'" said Myung. "'He's a dedicated Christian and his wife is active in the church, therefore he should be the next president!' the message said. Then she forwarded it to me as well," said Myung. "I'm not surprised, it is common practice for pastors to tell churchgoers who to vote for. I ignored the message as I'm pro-Moon."
Such comments are typical of young people who overwhelmingly supported Moon. He was seen by many as an agent of change in a country where conglomerates traditionally wield huge influence over politicians.
Soo Jung a 54-year-old hostel manager has a different opinion. "Consider this, most young people don't know that Moon has never criticized the North Korean dictatorship," she claimed.
Concerning national security and North Korea, Moon recently spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping and later to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
"Sanctions against North Korea are also a means to bring the North to the negotiating table with an aim to eliminating its nuclear weapons," Moon told a briefing.
Even though Moon campaigned for renewing dialogue with North Korea, there is still of a lot of scepticism.
"Whatever we say about this new president we must deal with the fact that he is and will be a divisive president," said a priest who doesn't want to be named and who administers a church in a major diocese in the country.
"Look at the man he put as his chief of staff," the priest said. "He's a former student activist, and sympathizer of North Korea."
The new chief of staff is Im Jong-Soek, a 51-year-old former two-term lawmaker with the Democratic Party. He was a prominent student activist in the 1980s and, like Moon, protested military rule. Im has long been referred to as being a North Korea sympathizer after being convicted in 1989 — and serving a jail term — for organizing a rare, high profile trip to Pyongyang to take part in a youth festival.
Opponents brand many South Koreans who preferred a policy of engagement with the North as sympathizers.
Im has declared that he wants to create an "open office," compared to the secrecy that surrounded it under former leader Park Geun-hye who was removed from office as part of the fallout from an influence-peddling scandal. Catholics were among the thousands who took to the streets in protests demanding her removal.
The priest said that it was not just South Korea's more than 5 million laypeople who were divided in their political loyalties.
"In this country," he said, "the clergy are still divided between conservative and progressive."
