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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