Beth Salerno

Roman Catholicism in Korea and Saint Anselm’s Humanities Program

February 25, 2008 Author: Beth Salerno

Korean Roman Catholics take great pride that Korea is one of the few places in the world where Catholicism arrived before missionaries.  Catholicism came to Korea first via a Korean royal who converted while in China.  In the 1700s missionaries arrived from China and Japan and in the early 1800s from France.  The first recognized Catholic faith community in Korea met in 1784 at Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul.   It may give you a sense of how big Seoul is and how many Catholics there are to realize that Myeongdong Cathedral holds Sunday mass at 7, 9, 10, and 11 am as well as 12, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 pm in addition to masses for elementary and handicapped students, middle and high school students and an English language mass.  About 11% of Koreans are Catholic (4.5 million people).

But Catholics faced violent persecution at numerous points in Korean history and thousands were executed all across the county.  In 1839 all the French priests were killed.  In the 1866 killings, 8000 of Korea’s 23,000 Catholics were killed.  When Pope John Paul II visited Korea in 1984 to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the official establishment of the Catholic Church in Korea, he canonized 103 martyrs.  The site where he prayed is called Joldusan or Beheading Mountain.

At Saint Anselm, I teach in our required 2 year Humanities program, which contains a unit on the early Christian martyrs.  We read about Saints Perpetua and Felicitas who were brought before the Roman authorities for failing to make the sacrifices that recognized the Emperor as a deity.  Even when her father pleaded with her on behalf of her family and baby child, Perpetua would not renounce her faith.  In an era when Church and State were deeply linked, this disrespect of religious ritual was also treason.  When State and family were deeply linked, this disrespect of family lineage and authority showed one to be a danger to society.  So Perpetua was executed.

My Humanities students may be shocked to discover that this 3^rd century A.D. story is deeply relevant for Korean history (and that of other martyrs around the world).  Catholics here in Korea were executed for exactly these two reasons. 

At a time when the state religion was based on Confucianism, Catholics’ unwillingness to perform the traditional worship of the King was seen as treason. Their stress on human equality in the sight of God also challenged the divine hierarchies in society, another form of treason. Their lack of patriotism seemed an attack by insiders to a nation constantly struggling with attacks from outsiders.   In addition, Catholics’ unwillingness to perform ancestral rites for their own families was seen as threatening to the stability of society.  They were not good citizens or family members.  Koreans feared their gods and their ancestors would abandon them if they did not kill the Catholics.

Humanities students may also be surprised to see a statue of Michaelangelo’s Pieta outside one of the major shrine sites in Jeonju, South Korea.  Michaelangelo’s expression of the pain of a mother, and the depth of her son’s sacrifice, resonates even for South Korean Catholics.

 I always love it when what I teach in class turns out to be useful in what students think of as “real life” (forgetting that my ‘real life’ mostly happens in the classroom!).  Being able to connect and compare across time and space is an amazing life skill.  It is also remarkably useful when trying to find one’s footing in a new and different culture.

Entry Filed under: religion, History