austraLasia
#1885
A modest contribution to national
reconciliation
SEOUL: 22nd June 2007 --
Sunday 24th June - apart from being the Rector Major's name day (he
follows the tradition of Don Bosco's choice of the Feast of St John
the Baptist) also happens to be the day this year when Bishop Kim Won
Tae, auxiliary of Seoul, will ordain 5 young Salesians to the
priesthood. But for the South Korean Catholic Church in general it is
an annual celebration called Reconciliation Day.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, they will be called God's
children", is the theme for Reconciliation Day, taken from
Mt 5:9. The Salesian Family has been offering its own modest
contribution to reconciliation, for example by its open-door policy
in the Don Bosco Youth Centre, a policy which sees many young
refugees from the North pass through its doors. The Salesian
Sisters have opened a facility for juvenile refugees, a group home.
The Caritas Sisters are involved helping refugee families with social
welfare issues, health care, family visits.
A
celebration of a national reconciliation day amongst Catholics is a
challenge to many. The Bishops invite the faithful to carry on
with the hope of one country in spite of the huge political and
ideological gap. Many southerners, and especially young people,
have serious doubts about unification since they assume it might mean
a backward step economically and socially. The Church's
presentation of a spirit of openness to unification, and of striving
for it, is a response to these doubts, reminding Southern Koreans
that a unified Korea will be more open to the world, to the Asian
continent, that the national economy would develop, especially since
the huge military expenditure on both sides of the border could be
reduced. The bishops also promote the notion of increased 'social
capital' through the removal of distrust and competition. But
the strong faith-oriented motivation is to remind Koreans that they
will achieve true religious freedom, an evangelical hope to be able
to preach the Gospel to all the nation.
Of
10,000 North Korean refugees who are in Seoul, around 1350 of them
have been through the Hanawon educational centre where they come in
touch with Catholic volunteers for catechesis and cultural programs.
Some (around 135) have been baptsied as a result. They are seen
as a bridge to the other culture and mentality and a front line for
evangelisation in the near future.
The secular
press is full of news these days about renewed efforts and contacts,
especially between North Korea and the US. The story tends to revolve
around missiles and starvation. But there have been other and more
important contacts between North and South themselves: the May 20th
north-south train, for example, that made the journey through the
demilitarised zone - the first such journey since 1953. The number of
South Korean visitors to the North has jumped sharply from some
26,000 in 1994 to around 90,000 in 2006. The story is similar though
the numbers fewer, from North to South. It also has to be said that
the number of defectors annually from the North has risen sharply
since the year 2000 - from a three figure to a four figure
number.
austraLasia has been following this
story occasionally since 2005. It makes interesting reading to
follow these items up in sequence: #1001, January 2005; #1337 24
November 2005.
Important note:
the SDL server is currently down, so apologies to those attempting to
access it. The amount of material now being added to SDL is
exponential, and this has resulted in the need for a larger, more
stable server. The entire exercise is a prelude to a major expansion
of availability of documentary material of the Congregation which
will be available in as many as forty languages, so a brief wait of a
week or two is acceptable, hopefully!
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