austraLasia 1365
Living the Gospel of life - the Korean way.
They say a cat has nine lives - well, the story below beats that by far!
SEOUL: 23rd December 2005 -- News has just come in of
a Vigil and March for Life to be sponsored by the Salesians in
Washington DC in January. That's a story worth keeping an eye on
in the month to come, but in Korea, the December pastoral letter from
the Archbishop of Seoul, Nicholas Cheong, has taken another angle on
the life issue, urging the Catholic population to seriously consider
blood and organ donation as well as the adoption of children. The
context is the conclusion of the Year of the Eucharist. It seems
that the Korea Salesian Province has long ago taken this message to
heart. Of the 112 members of the Province, 24, including the
Provincial, are registered with St. Marys Catholic Hospital in Seoul
for organ or whole body donation.
A movement in this direction, especially amongst
Catholics, has been in place in Korea for at least 15 years, following
the Eucharistic Congress there in 1989, when the Korean Church began to
urge practical self-giving as a way of living Eucharist. This
took the form of things like a huge rice jar at the entrance to the
Church, blood donation, adoptions and a whole missionary spirit of
helping poor young churches of Africa and South Asia.
According to a Korean Parliamentary report this
year, 642 patients died this year because of the lack of appropriate
organs which could have been available through donation. There is an
added difficulty of resistance in a country based on Confucian
principles, where the body is one's parents' heritage, so not so easy
to 'give away'. But the movement to donate organs, particularly
amongst the Catholic community, is now well in place, beginning with
eye donation and extending, for many, to whole body donation.
Since 1997, the Auxiliary of Seoul, Bishop Stephen
Choi, along with eight priests from the Social Pastoral Department,
publicly announced their decision to donate their organs. Other
dioceses quickly followed suit: Suwon's Bishop Paul Choi and 95
priests, Chuncheon's Bishop John Chang with 63 of his priests....
KONOS, the Korean public organ donation centre, has
registered some 79,000 organ donations. Catholics make up 20% of
the figure. It is said that with the present standard of medical
care, one person's complete donation at the time of death can save the
life of nine others!
_________________________________
AustraLasia is an email
service
for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions
as an
agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
