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The undying spirit of South Korea's Catholics

In recent decades, the church has been active in all signal movements for change in the country
The undying spirit of South Korea's Catholics

South Korean President Moon Jae-in (right) shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un at the Military Demarcation Line that divides their countries ahead of their previous summit at the truce village of Panmunjeom in this April 27, 2018 file photo. They are slated to meet for a third time in September in Pyongyang. (Photo by AFP)

Published: August 17, 2018 04:04 AM GMT
Updated: August 17, 2018 04:20 AM GMT

South Korea has been a bit of an outlier in Catholic Asia for decades both in terms of the size of its Catholic demographic — bested only in Asia by the Philippines and Timor-Leste — and the political influence they wield.

Remarkably, three out of seven of the country's presidents have been Catholic since it began democratically electing its leaders in 1981.

Now President Moon Jae-in, a practicing Catholic, is planning another historic inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in September in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Under Moon's stewardship, the Korean Church appears better placed than at any point since the 1950-53 Korean War to shape future social and political events.

An astonishing 32 percent of the nation's lawmakers identify as Catholic. While they are still outnumbered by Protestants, Buddhists and non-believers, this means Catholic representation in government is now proportionally higher than what we can see at a grassroots level, as just 7 to 11 percent of the population is Catholic.

In broader strokes, roughly an equal share of South Koreans identify as Christians and Buddhists, but take a look at the cityscape in Seoul at night and it is neon-lit crosses that light the tops of buildings.

In contrast, communist-run North Korea across the border remains officially atheist. It still subscribes to its ruling dynasty's "juche" philosophy of self-reliance despite recent moves to engage with South Korea and, more broadly, the U.S. and the international community.

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon (center) leaves for the border truce village of Panmunjeom, from a government building in Seoul on Aug. 13, to hold high-level inter-Korean talks. The meeting was aimed at paving the way for a third summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the North's leader Kim Jong-un amid a diplomatic thaw on the peninsula. (Photo by Yonhap/AFP)

 

Yet in this new chapter of opening-up lie opportunities for the church to help mend bridges, many believe, especially given South Korea's history of religiously inclined leaders and its current president.

Former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who passed away in 2003, was a practicing Catholic who left behind a legacy of engagement with the North due to his so-called "Sunshine Policy."

He was succeeded by ex-human rights lawyer Roh Moo-hyun, a lapsed Catholic from Gimhae near the southern coastal city of Busan who served for five years until 2008. He met with an untimely death by leaping from a cliff near his home in May 2009.

He was succeeded by former Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bak, a businessman with an eye for huge infrastructure projects who adopted a more hard-line approach to Pyongyang.

Inter-Korean relations continued in a similarly hostile vein under the rule of Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former South Korean strongman Park Chung-hee.

She appeared more inclined to witchcraft or shamanism than religion and was impeached in December 2016 after news broke that she had leaked state secrets to her longtime confidant, Choi Soon-sil.

Medallions commemorating the historic inter-Korean summit between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un are displayed during an unveiling ceremony at a sales company in Seoul on July 16. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je/AFP)

 

Now South Korea has a new Catholic leader in the form of Moon, who was elected in May after Park was impeached and who is making headway in terms of forging a detente with the nuclear-armed North.

The two nations have spent the last 65 years eyeing each other with suspicion from either side of the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone that bifurcates the peninsula, but there are signs that this protracted "Cold War" could be drawing to a close.

North and South announced on Aug. 13 that the fifth-ever inter-Korean summit would be held in Pyongyang the following month. This would be the third time Moon and Kim have come face to face.

They last met on the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom, near the DMZ, on April 27, shortly before Kim's historic meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on June 12.

With Moon's announcement that he would be following in the footsteps of his former boss Roh Moo-hyun and mentor Kim Dae-jung to become only the third South Korean president to visit North Korea, change seems to be in the air.

This all underscores a growing sense of political activism by an Asian Catholic minority that has a long and celebrated history of being persecuted and martyred.

Historians say this has embedded in the South Korean Church a particular distrust of the authorities and a collective determination to fight oppression and injustice. Their eyes are now turning to the North.

U.S. President Donald Trump met North Korean leader KiM Jong-un in Singapore on June 12. (Photo by AFP)

 

In 1984, Pope St. John Paul II canonized 103 Korean martyrs, the first canonization ever held outside Rome.

In his homily in a Mass celebration of the country's newly named saints, he remarked: "The splendid flowering of the church in Korea today is indeed the fruit of the heroic witness of the martyrs. Even today, their undying spirit sustains the Christians in the church of silence in the North of this tragically divided land."

In recent decades, the church has been active in all signal movements for change in South Korea.

As such, they will be keen to play a part in any thawing of relations with the North.

Indeed, Catholic missionaries from the South, notably the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, have striven, often successfully, to provide whatever aid they can to the impoverished North — often delivering this in person.

There is plenty of irony in the Christian history of the peninsula's 75 million or so people, some 25 million of whom reside in the North.

At the dawn of the 20th century, just 10 years before Imperial Japan invaded the peninsula at the onset of 35 years or colonial rule, then-capital Pyongyang was hailed as the "Jerusalem of the East" due to its rapidly escalating Christian population.

By that time, an estimated 30 percent of the population of what is now the North Korean capital were Christian, in a country that was uniquely evangelized by lay missionaries rather than religious orders.

Indeed Kim Il-sung, the first leader of North Korea's ultra-repressive, abusive dynasty, was brought up as a Christian. He reportedly once played the organ in church, while his father was also said to be a God-fearing man.

Yet Kim, who seized power in 1948 and later battled the South with the support of China, would later reinvent himself as a de facto deity based on his juche ideology, a blend of communist precepts and cult-like beliefs.

He kept a firm grip on power until his death in 1972. The Communist Party-run Korean Catholic Association (KCA) is said to have barely 1,000 members. 

U.N. Command honor guards hold flags during a commemorative ceremony for the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice Agreement at the truce village of Panmunjeom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas on July 27. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je/AFP)

 

Most believers in the country are so-called "underground" Christians, as there are only five state-sanctioned "churches" in the country, all in Pyongyang. They are the Catholic Changchung Cathedral, three Protestant churches, and one Russian Orthodox church.

The North Korean dynasty has proven ever more repressive over the years in terms of its treatment of various religions, putting it on par with the Mao Zedong era in neighboring China.

Since 2013, Open Doors, a 60-year-old organization that works against religious persecution and is based in the U.S., has ranked North Korea as the most oppressive nation globally for people with religious beliefs.

During World War II, studies estimated there were three times as many Christians in the north of the country than in the south. But as Kim Il-sung moved into power, hundreds of thousands migrated south and more evacuated during the Korean War.

More recent studies suggest that around 30 percent of the South Korean population is now Christian, with Protestants outnumbering Catholics.

A 2015 census identified 3.7 million people as Catholic, or 7.9 percent of the population. But the Korean Bishop's Conference said in 2017 that it believed 5.7 million was a more accurate number, representing 11 percent.

The census indicated that Protestants account for 19.7 percent of the population, Buddhists 15.5 percent, and those with no formal religious affiliation 56.1 percent.

Scholars say a fair share of that last group subscribe to shamanistic or other traditional systems of belief and spirituality.

But warming ties between the two nations could spell good news for the church in the North.

"This [year's] meeting with Kim Jong-un and President Trump [was] huge," said Franklin Graham, son of the late evangelical leader Billy Graham.

"Christians are going to benefit in North Korea as a result of President Donald Trump," he added.

Some critics saw his remarks as premature and said he may, like Trump, have jumped the gun in assuming ties would develop more easily and rapidly than likely given the North's history of playing diplomatic poker.

The church has struggled to make inroads in the country lately despite overtures from Rome, but maybe the answer always lay "closer to home," with much now expected of its representatives in Seoul.

Pope Francis, for example, invited the KCA to send a representative to World Youth Day in 2013 during his first trip to Asia, but North Korea spurned the offer.

It is true that both Kim Jong-il and his son, Kim Jong-un, have allowed Vatican officials to visit the country. But this has largely been for the purpose of shaking the church down for emergency food aid to the famine-stricken country.

Yet the church can draw some hope and inspiration from having a pro-detente, Catholic president now running the show.

Moon's parents were born in Hungnam, in what is now North Korea. They were among 100,000 civilians who fled the North during the 1950 Hungnam Evacuation, one of the U.S. military's biggest-ever civilian rescue operations.

Moon was subsequently born in a refugee camp on Geoje Island in 1953, the year the war ended in a ceasefire.

If the thawing of relations continues, he is very well placed to push for increased religious freedom as part of a package of concessions.

History suggests South Korean Catholics will be keen to back him. The question now is, will he raise the subject in September?

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