Korean Martyrs

Korean Martyrs
Korean Martyrs
Martyrs
Born	Various
Died	1839, 1846, 1866
Honored in	Roman Catholicism
Beatified	1925, 1968
Canonized	May 6, 1984, Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea by Pope John Paul II
Feast	September 20

The Korean Martyrs were the victims of religious persecution against the Catholic Church^{[citation needed]} during the 19th century in Korea. At least 8,000 adherents to the faith were known^{[citation needed]} to have been killed^{[citation needed]} during this persecution, 103 of whom were canonized en masse in 1984.

History

Catholicism had entered Korea in the seventeenth century by means of books written by Jesuit missionaries in China and brought back by visitors to Beijing. Although no Koreans were converted to Catholicism by these books until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the ideas of the Catholic priests espoused in them were debated and denounced as heterodox as early as 1724.^[1] The strong and dynamic Catholic communities were led almost entirely by educated lay people of the aristocratic classes (as they were the only ones who could read the books that were written in Chinese) until the arrival of the first French missionaries in 1836.

The Catholic community suffered major persecutions in the years 1839, 1846 and 1866, chiefly for the religion's refusal to carry out the traditional worship of ancestors, which it perceived to be a form of false idolatry, but which the State prescribed as a cornerstone of culture.

Politically, the persecutions should be seen in the context of colonialism and the increasing penetration of European powers into East Asian affairs. Catholicism — a proselytizing European faith seen as rendering its adherents constituent to a dominant hierarchical structure, at the apex of which a pope held sway from the distant Vatican — was oft perceived as a potential spearhead for European penetration into Korea. Moreover, ancestral worship was an important aspect of Confucianism, from which the Korean nobility drew much of its inviolable legitimacy; relinquishing such customs could thus be seen as subverting the nobility's own cultural foundation. While the persecution of Catholics played a certain role in staving off European military incursions, a more proximate threat to Korean social order would prove to be the nation's non-Christian imperialist neighbor, Japan.

The persecutions produced at least 8,000 known martyrs. Among them were the fervent Korean priest Andrew Kim Taegŏn and the Korean lay catechist Paul Chŏng Hasang. The vast majority of the martyrs were simple lay people, including men and women, married and single, old and young. 79 martyrs of Korea were beatified in 1925 and 24 more were beatified in 1968 and the combined 103 martyrs were canonized in 1984, with their feast day set on September 20. Currently, Korea has the 4th largest number of saints in the Catholic world.

From the last letter of Andrew Kim Taegŏn to his parish as he awaited martyrdom with a group of twenty persons:

My dear brothers and sisters, know this: Our Lord Jesus Christ upon descending into the world took innumerable pains upon and constituted the holy Church through his own passion and increases it through the passion of its faithful....

Now, however, some fifty or sixty years since the holy Church entered into our Korea, the faithful suffer persecutions again. Even today persecution rages, so that many of our friends of the same faith, among whom I am myself, have been thrown into prison. just as you also remain in the midst of persecution. Since we have formed one body, how can we not be saddened in our innermost hearts? How can we not experience the pain of separation in our human faculties?

However, as Scripture says, God cares for the least hair of our heads, and indeed he cares with his omniscience; therefore, how can persecution be considered as anything other than the command of God, or his prize, or precisely his punishment?...

We are twenty here, and thanks be to God all are still well. If anyone is killed, I beg you not to forget his family. I have many more things to say, but how can I express them with pen and paper? I make an end to this letter. Since we are now close to the struggle, I pray you to walk in faith, so that when you have finally entered into Heaven, we may greet one another. I leave you my kiss of love.

Claude-Charles Dallet wrote a comprehensive history of the Catholic Church in Korea.

The Korean Martyrs were known for the staunchness, sincerity, and number of their converts. ^[2]

Some individual martyrs

Stela to the members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society who were martyred in Korea.

• Andrew Kim Taegon and his father Ignatius
• Paul Chong Hasang,
• Laurent-Marie-Joseph Imbert, a bishop
• Siméon-François Berneux, a bishop
• Shane Lee, another bishop
• another bishop
• seven priests
• members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society
• Peter Yu Tae-chol, a 13-year-old boy
• Mary Yi Yon-hui
• Anna Pak Agi
• Thomas Son Chason
• John Baptist Yi

They were canonized in May 1984 by Pope John Paul II. In a break with tradition, the ceremony did not take place in Rome, but in Seoul.

Korean martyrs in Japan

• Blessed Caius of Korea

See also

• Anna Pak Agi
• Andrew Kim Taegon
• Laurent-Marie-Joseph Imbert
• Christianity in Korea
• Roman Catholicism in South Korea
• Seohak
• Catholic Persecution of 1801
• Robert Jermain Thomas

References

Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.

1. ^ Baker, Don. "Catholicism in a Confucian World." In Culture and the State in Late Choson Korea. Edited by Haboush and Beuchler (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), 201.
2. ^

   "Coreans, unlike Chinese and Japanese, make the most staunch and devoted converts ; they have their vices, but there is something exceedingly lovable in the simple Corean character....The Annamese make better converts than either Chinese or Japanese, whose tricky character, however, they share; but they are gentler and more sympathetic; they do not possess the staunch masculinity of the Coreans."Personal Reminiscences touching Christian Missionaries in China, Corea, Burma, etc. by a non-Catholic. (1897)

   "An observation, founded upon many years' experience, may not be out of place here, and that is, that among all Asiatic nationalities there is probably none more inclined to be converted to Christianity than the Corean. A Chinaman gets baptized in consideration of the worldly and material advantages which he expects to gain thereby; the Corean has nothing of the sort to expect, but only persecution, torture, and often death itself. He becomes a Christian from conviction, not from any mercenary motives." Oppert, Ernst. A forbidden land: voyages to the Corea. (1880) p. 298

   "The Corean possesses the most perfect dispositions for receiving the faith. Once convinced, he accepts and attaches himself to it, in spite of all sacrifices it may cost him." - Berneux, bishop and Martyr of Korea Pichon, Frédéric. The life of monseigneur Berneux (1872) p. 132

   "Certainly few countries, if any, have to tell of such a painful apostolate, or of one which has had such success. Japan alone in later days can boast a martyrology at all to compare with that of Corea in the number of the slain, or in the heroism of those who died for Christ." The Catholic Review (1875) p. 211

External links

• Homily of Pope John Paul II given on the mass for the canonization of the Korean martyrs
• The new glories of the Catholic church (lives of the Martyrs of Korea, China, Vietnam, Oceania
• Histoire de l'Église de Corée Volume 1 (French)
• Histoire de l'Église de Corée Volume 2 (French)
• List and brief description of martyrs

Persondata
Name	Korean Martyrs
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death	1839
Place of death