"The Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula is a historical event.

It "opens the era of reunification of the Korean peninsula and is a gospel of hope on this earth," Archbishop Kim Hee-Jung of Gwangju says.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-In signed the Declaration.

In it they promise "there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun."

The Declaration agrees to "complete denuclearisation [and] a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula."

The two leaders agreed to strive for a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 war, which was halted by an armistice.

The Declaration also binds the leaders to involving China and the United States in negotiations to formally end the war.

Archbishop Kim says he expects "the fruits of this inter-Korean summit [at which the Declaration was signed], which God has made in response to our prayers and efforts, will be more energised by the unification ministry and private exchanges that the Korean Catholic Church has promoted during that time."

In the Declaration the leaders promise to undertake increased exchanges, visits, and cooperation between the North and South.

This aims to promote a sense of unity and to enable families separated during the Korean War to reunify.

Archbishop Kim says the Catholic Church in South Korea has actively engaged in private exchanges and cooperation efforts with North Korea in the past.

It has worked on this through the bishops' National Reconciliation Committee and Caritas International Korea.

"Since 1965, the Korean Catholic Church has been praying for the true peace of the two Koreas and the reconciliation of the nation on June 25 every year," he says.

"Until the day when complete peace is established on the Korean peninsula and divided peoples are united, the Catholic Church of Korea will accompany the journey for reconciliation of the people in unity."

The Declaration presents a turn-around from the situation between the two Koreas last year.

At that time Pyongyang and the President of the United States taunted each other with nuclear threats.

However, in January, the North Korean dictator said he was open to talks.

Within weeks, Korean athletes marched under one flag at the Winter Olympics.

Source

• The Tablet
• Vatican News
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: The Financial Express

One recalls in rapid-fire bursts how Father Emil Kapaun sneaked out of the barracks at night, risking his life to bring back morsels of food for his fellow prisoners.

Another remembers seeing the young American priest use a rock and a piece of metal to form a pan and then collect water to wash the hands and faces of the wounded.

A third chokes up when he tells of being injured and having an enemy soldier standing over him, rifle pointed; Kapaun walked up, pushed aside the muzzle and carried off the wounded man.

The military chaplain did not carry a gun or grenades. He did not storm hills or take beaches. He picked lice off of men too weak to do it themselves and stole grain from the Korean and Chinese guards who took the American soldiers as prisoners of war in late 1950.

Kapaun did not survive the prisoner camps, dying in Pyoktong in 1951. The man originally from tiny Pilsen, Kan., has been declared a "servant of God" — often a precursor to sainthood in the Catholic Church. And on Thursday, President Obama will posthumously award Kapaun a Medal of Honor. On hand will be Mike Dowe, 85; Robert Wood, 86; and Herbert Miller, 86.

"People had lost a great deal of their civility," Wood says of life in the POW compound. "We were stacking the bodies outside where they were frozen like cordwood and here is this one man — in all of this chaos — who has kept . . . principles."

Kapaun (pronounced Ka-PAWN) was so beloved that U.S. prisoners of war who knew him began calling for him to receive the military's highest honor on the day they were released from their North Korean POW camp 60 years ago.

"The first prisoners out of that camp are carrying a wooden crucifix, and they tell the story at length," says Roy Wenzel, a reporter at the Wichita Eagle who wrote an eight-part series and a book about Kapaun. "He was internationally famous and made the front page of newspapers." Continue reading

Sources

• The Washington Post
• Image: ABC News