SEOUL (AsiaNews): The Archdiocese of Seoul has officially opened the cause for the beatification of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan (1922-2009), its archbishop for 30 years and a key figure in the recent history of the Church of South Korea.
A diocesan commission established on March 23 for the cause of beatification will also instruct the causes of Monsignor Barthelemy Bruguiere (1792-1835), a French MEP missionary who was Korea’s first vicar apostolic (although he died in China before reaching the country because of persecution) and a religious priest, Father Andrew Moo Bang Ah Yoo Ryong (1900-1986).
The opening of the causes for the beatification of Cardinal Kim and Father Bang is a significant moment in the life of the Korean Church. The commission will examine the heroic virtues of a bishop and a priest whom many still remember and whose pastoral action led to the extraordinary growth of the Catholic community in the last decades of the 20th century.
“Cardinal Kim,” reads the statement from the Seoul Archdiocese on the formal opening of the cause of beatification, “was loved and respected by many for his personal example of virtue, his contribution to the growth and esteem of the Korean Church, and his commitment to the affirmation of human rights and democracy. In particular, as a “friend of the poor and marginalised,” he treated the humblest as if they were another Christ, based on a fundamental compassion for man, which is the foundation of Christian thought, thus representing a perfect example of Christian love.”
Cardinal Kim was loved and respected by many for his personal example of virtue, his contribution to the growth and esteem of the Korean Church, and his commitment to the affirmation of human rights and democracy
Archdiocese of Seoul
The beatification cause of Cardinal Kim is also an important message to Korean society today. Indeed, many in the country remember his courageous work in defence of freedom in the years following General Chun Doo-hwan’s coup. During the June 1987 riots, in particular, many students demonstrating in Seoul against the regime sought refuge in Myeongdong Cathedral. Soldiers wanted to enter the church to arrest them, but Cardinal Kim stopped them in front of the door, “If you want to take the students, you must first put me down. After me, you must put down the priests, and after the priests, there will be nuns. Only then can you take the students.” Faced with this resistance, the soldiers retreated without entering the church.
Father Bang’s life and mission rendered significant contributions to the spread of Catholicism in Korea. He grew up in the early 1900s in a Korean Catholic family and was educated as a Confucian scholar by his grandfather, who was a famous scholar at the time. Once he became a priest at the age of 30, this unique path helped him accept the special call to found a Korean religious community that would live an ascetic life in the Eastern style.
At that time, Korea’s culture, identity, economy and very independence were threatened by Japanese imperialism. Even the Church, then ruled by foreign missionaries, struggled to value Korean identity due to an apparent superiority of Western spirituality.
On the contrary, Father Bang realised that the most effective way to propagate the faith in Korea was through the Korean way of speaking and thinking. This insight came to fruition in 1946 with the founding of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Korean Martyrs in the Gae Seong Catholic Church in present-day North Korea. The women’s branch was later joined by the priestly Congregation of the Blessed Korean Martyrs, in which he was the first to profess vows.
