Therese Park

The Korean Catholic Church was founded by laity without help of clergy. Pope John Paul, while visiting South Korea to canonize 103 Korean martyred saints in May 1984, made the following remarks about the Korean Church:
“The Truth about Jesus Christ reached Korean soil in 1784. In a most marvelous way, Divine Grace moved your ancestors first to an intellectual quest for the truth of God’s word and then to a living faith in the risen Christ. The splendid flowering of the Church in Korea today is indeed the fruit of the heroic witness of the martyrs. Even today, their undying spirit sustains the Christians in the Church of silence in the North of this tragically divided land. The Church on Korean soil desires in a solemn way to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the gift of the redemption. To this lofty price, your Church desires on the basis of the witness of the Korean martyrs’ faith to add an enduring witness of faith, hope, and charity.”
In the fall of 1784, a scholar Sung Huhn Lee went to Peking as a member of the Korean Delegation to China. There, he was introduced to Catholicism and was baptized by Father Alexander de Gouvea, a member of Paris Foreign Mission Society who later became bishop of the Peking Diocese.
Compared to other Asian countries, Korea was late in receiving the Gospel due to its own isolationism. The Koreans monarch didn’t allow any westerners into the country for centuries, fearing that marriages between themselves and foreigners would contaminate the purity of their proud bloodlines. They also were cautious about foreign influence which would disturb their class system, a system that strictly divided society into upper, middle and lower classes, and slaves.
The volume entitled “The True Doctrine of God” written by Matteo Ricci, St. Xavier’s successor in the Jesuit Society, were brought into the country on several occasions between 1644 and 1770 by Korean cultural delegations to China. It was through this route, on at least a yearly basis, that contacts were made with western missionaries in China.
The True Doctrine of God translated into Chinese characters attracted Korean scholars who considered Matteo Ricci’s theology “Western Thoughts.” They had long accepted Buddha’s teaching--that the world was fundamentally a snare and delusion and that by escaping the wheel of existence with meditation and hard work, one can achieve enlightenment, for the world was only a passing mirage. But through The True Doctrine of God, they saw God as ultimate Truth and Love, who created them with His own image and abided in them day-by-day.
The Gospel soaked into Korean scholars’ souls like spring rain soaking parched land. The factual wrangling of politicians and vicious fights between clansmen in the government circles had been long and strenuous for them. Social turmoil between upper and low class, poor and rich, powerful and powerless was never ending.
Returning from Peking, Lee began preaching the gospel in his private home, first to his scholar friends and then their family members. Words spread fast among those seeking something that could quench their thirst, something they could hold onto. As the community gathered regularly and the members grew with time, the authorities began to investigate. Learning that the Catholic Church disapproved of ancestral-worship and considered it as uncivilized religion, the monarch prohibited Catholics from gathering for worship services.
Instead of diminishing, the number of Catholics increased. As the community grew, the members wished for a priest to guide them. Until then Lee performed Mass as described in the books, heard confessions, and even appointed a few members as priests. The members began to doubt Lee’s knowledge as the leader of the Church. A secret envoy was sent to Peking in 1789 to plead for a priest.
Moved by the growing members of the Korean Church and their hunger for true leadership of the community, Bishop Gouvea granted their wish: a Chinese priest, Fr. Moon Mo Chu, was chosen as the first shepherd to lead the Korean flock.
Father Chu arrived in Korea in late March 1795. By then the number of Catholics reached more than four thousand. Two months later, the two men, Yoo-Il Youn and In-Gill Choi, who secretly helped Fr. Chu enter the country, were arrested and beheaded, and Catholics feared the approaching persecution. Still, during the next six years, Fr. Chu expanded membership to more than ten thousand.
In 1801, nearly 300 hundred members of the church were captured and tortured. If they confessed their crime of worshipping the western god and promised to abandon Him, the judge forgave them and let them go free, but most of the Catholics chose to die rather than give up their new life in God.
Father Chu had been informed of the Catholic-hunters and narrowly escaped to another village, hiding his appearance with a large brimmed straw hat and a mourner's garb. While preaching there, the armed constables kept following, and he escaped again, this time toward China. As he neared the border, he decided that he couldn’t leave his faithful Koreans under the bloody hatchets of the Korean monarch and returned. Father Chu and nearly 300 Catholics were taken to the mountain overlooking the Han River, beheaded on a steep cliff, and then thrown down to the river below. The mountain is now called “Behead Mountain.” According to the witnesses, the river turned red for miles with the blood of the martyrs. On July 5th, 1925, Pope Pius XI canonized 79 of these early martyrs at St. Peter’s Cathedral. Father Chu is also revered for establishing Myong-Do Confraternity in the Church community, a vigorous women’s laity movement, which is still active today.
Although they lost their trusted shepherd and large number of their members, Korean Catholics didn’t lose trust in God. They sent another secret messenger to Bishop Gouvea of Peking to report the bloodshed and plead another priest. They also contacted the Vatican and requested missionary priests on a permanent basis.
Pope Gregory XVI officially recognized the Korean Church in 1831 and commissioned the Paris Foreign Missionary Society to lead the Korean group. In 1836, three French missionaries, Bishop Laurant Imbert, Fr. Pierre Maubant and Fr. James Chastan arrived in Korea, and the Church regained its vitality. The missionaries had served in China and were accustomed to the Asian way of life.
The three Frenchmen lived in the home of a well-respected Korean scholar, Ha-sang Chung. In order to avoid the watchful eyes of the authorities, they hid their western appearances with large brimmed hats and roomy mourners garbs that loosely fit their western frames. They preached only at night, going village to village. Sometimes wild beasts confronted them when they accidentally trespassed their territory, and other times, the “Catholic-hunters” forced them to hide in a cave for days at a time.
Still, the missionaries never ceased preaching the Gospel. They made a long-range plan for the Korean Church by recruiting three future priests and sending them to Macao to be educated in a seminary, one of Paris Foreign Missionary’s schools. Among the three boys, only Kim Dae-Gun and Choi Yang-Op finished the seminary and returned to Korea. Choi Bang-je, however, became ill and died in Macao in 1838.
More persecution followed as the monarch felt threatened by the steadily growing number of Catholics. In 1839, the second persecution swept the country. The French missionaries were captured along with hundreds of church members, ranging in age from 13-79, and were beheaded. The news of the persecution reached the Peking Diocese and French government at no time. Two French warships approached the West Sea in 1846 and delivered a letter from the French government to the Korean monarch, inquiring about the death of their missionaries. The Korean monarch executed eight more leaders of the church that day, including Father Kim, accusing them of collaborating with the French government.
In 1850 more French missionaries arrived and the church again strived. In 1865, the Church boasted 3 bishops and 9 priests from the Paris Missionary Society and 23,000 Korean members. The last and most virulent persecution of all in Korean history was yet to come. In August, 1864, Bishop Berneux, then the vicar of the Korean Church, wrote to the Paris Foreign Missionary Society:
“Korea’s king, Chul-jong, suddenly died a few days ago, without leaving an heir, and a 12-year-old boy, a relation to the Old Queen, took the throne. Chul-jong wasn’t interested in governing the kingdom, the reason he didn’t care about the fast-growing Church. But now that the new king is too young to govern the dynasty, it’s apparent that the boy’s father will act as the king, which is common in Asia. This man, Hungsun-Gun, is known for a quick temper and dislike of westerners. Rumors have it that he is going to wipe out the "western devils" and anyone who refuses to worship their ancestors. In a society where killing is not a serious crime, what couldn’t he do at a spur of moment? We are losing new members, as they sense the approaching storm…”
The following year, as Bishop Berneux had predicted, the bloodshed began, and until 1871, the monarch methodically captured, tortured, and killed nearly ten thousand Catholics and nine of the twelve French missionaries, including Bishop Berneux.
As the prison guards transported Bishop Berneax and three other French missionaries--Fr. S. Bretenieres, Fr. B. Beaulieu, Fr. H. Dorie--to the execution ground, each with a sign “Traitor so-and-so” on their chest, the spectators giggled and ridiculed the “western devils.” Bishop Berneux said to them, “It’s not a time for you to laugh, my Korean friends: you should be crying instead.”
Bishop was executed first. Four hundred soldiers surrounded the area to guard the excutioners from the heated crowd. The executioners stripped the bishop naked, leaving only his underpants on, and had him kneel before a wooden post, where they secured his head. Then the six-executioners, each with a sword in his hand, danced as they struck him, taking turns. When his head fell to the ground after the third blow, they hung it on a tall tree for everyone to see. Loud cheer followed as if they had killed an enemy commander. The three other missionaries died in the same fashion.
The young king's father, Hungsun-Gun, had two major reasons to kill Catholics and their shepherds. First, the middle and lower classes began rallying against the government everyday, complaining about wayward authorities sucking their blood and demanding social reform, and Hungsun-Gun blamed the missionaries for spreading the Gospels, the dangerous Western Thoughts, to the lower classes.
Secondly, he was building an extravagant new royal palace with 1,777 rooms for his son, which employed 60,000 laborers, and he could use the possessions and properties left by the Catholics after their deaths.
As such a large number of Catholics were captured everyday, the persecutors had a shortage of torturing hands. They used the simple method of letting the "criminals" starve to death by feeding them straw mixed with millet, a substance unsuitable even for cattle. They also suffocated them by having their faces covered with thick rice paper soaked in water, while their hands were bound behind them.
The remaining Catholics scattered into the hearts of mountains and endured poverty and harsh labor. Often, they became prey to wild beasts as well as bandits looking for those who had no place in society. Like early Christians in Roman history, the Korean believers accepted starvation, loneliness, and death as the price for their gifts of faith. Some of them turned to pottery and others tobacco growing. Even today some Catholic communities in rural areas are recognized as "Pottery villages."
Tobacco farming was popular among the Catholics, for it didn’t need much water and care. It took time for them to get acquainted with mountain soil, but they eventually mastered the trade. However, as too many people raised tobacco, the quantity exceeded the demand, and the price of tobacco slumped sharply with time. In 1845 when Bishop Ferreol, the successor of Bishop Gouvea of Peking, arrived in Korean to lead the Korean Church, 20 French franc (about $5.00) could buy as much as a load which two sturdy men could carry.
Historians today acknowledge that Catholicism introduced western civilization to Korea. Many French missionaries not only translated French religious books into Korean, but also produced Korean religious volumes with print-blocks made by their own hands.
They also took care of the sick and fed the hungry with their meager allowances from the Paris Missionary Society. In exchange, the Koreans fiercely protected their spiritual teachers, hiding them in their own homes against the vicious predators. But some became “Korean Judas” and handed the missionaries over to authorities for the prize the government offered.
The books the French missionaries painstakingly produced for the Koreans were the first Korean religious books ever written for the middle and lower classes. The books not only opened the Koreans' eyes to see God, the world, and themselves in a different light and but also taught them to read and write, at a time education was strictly for upper class males.
The two first Korean priests who had been educated in Macao became the solid “rocks” of the church when they returned in 1840s, in spite of the fact that their parents and their respected French missionaries had been already slaughtered during 1839 persecution. Father Kim helped many French missionaries to enter the country through a secret route and hid them in the Catholic community. In September, 1846, he was captured. After two months of torture and interrogations, he was beheaded. Father Choi translated diaries and letters written by the French missionaries and the Korean martyrs into Latin and sent them to the Missionary Society in Paris. His large collection is recorded in Fr. Charles Dallet’s volume Histoire de I’Englise de Coree, published in Paris in 1874.
Finally, in 1873 Hungsun-Gun stepped down from power and the peace treaty between the French government and the Korean monarch was established. The 71-year-long persecution of Catholics finally came to an end.
As a result of the martyr’s sacrifices, today, South Korea has nearly 2.5 million Catholics out of a population of forty-five million. While the blood of martyrs turned into the seeds of the Church and germinated in Korean soil, the Christ-like love the French missionaries bestowed onto their Korean flock grew as the roots. Without the French missionaries’ examples and their love toward their “least brothers,” the Korean Catholic Church wouldn’t be the same as it is today.**