Archbishop of Sydney

Korea

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
20/1/2008

Most of us thought that the Cold War between Communism and the Free World ended in the early 1990s.  And so it did, except in Korea.

North and South Korea are still divided nearly 55 years after the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement ended the 3 year war, where 400 Australian soldiers died among the 2,000,000 victims.

Today Communist North Korea is heavily armed and hostile, while its people are among the poorest in Asia, brainwashed, starved of the truth, and without religious freedom.

Last week I visited Panmunjeom, the Joint Security Area on the demarcation line, where the two armies each of 1,000,000 soldiers, including a big U.S.A. military presence to support the South, face one another on high alert.

It is still tense, dangerous and a bit surreal.  When our delegation visited the official negotiating room (and we stepped briefly into North Korea), two North Korean officers, dressed like creatures from Dr. Who, came up to peer aggressively through the windows.  This Northern hostility and unpredictability are the final relics of Stalinism.

Sixty kilometres away in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, we do not find Stalinism, but spectacularly successful capitalism.

The average per capita annual income in Korea 50 years ago was $100 U.S.  Today it is $120,000 U.S.  Seoul now has a population of 10,000,000, against fewer than 1,000,000 50 years ago.

I saw technology used in Seoul which I have never seen at home.  Commuters there watch local T.V. on their mobile phones.

Another surprise has been the continuing growth of Protestant and Catholic numbers.  Together they constitute 30 per cent of the population and South Korea seems destined to become the third Asian country with a majority of Christians.  While Protestants are more numerous, especially Pentecostals, the Catholic archdiocese of Seoul baptizes 30-40,000 adult converts each year.  Strangely for us the Church runs few schools.

Religious growth is like global warming as we don’t know exactly how it begins, how long it will last or why it peters out, but these are years of plenty for Christian Korea.  1500 young men are studying for the Catholic priesthood.

The first Korean to be baptized a Catholic in 1784 was a local scholar who had discovered Christ in books.  In the traditional stratified society of the time Christianity was attractive but contentious and bitterly resisted.  The fifth major persecution ended in 1866 after 10,000 Korean Catholics had been martyred. 

Usually capitalism is hostile to families and this has proved to be the case in Korea.  The birth rate has fallen to less than 1.1 babies per woman and abortions probably out number live births by three to one.

Twenty years ago more girls were aborted but today both boys and girls are eliminated.

The Catholic archdiocese of Seoul is now a world leader in the struggle for human life, and this support for life is probably a major reason for Catholic expansion.