The fire department said 23 people are now confirmed dead, including 17 Chinese nationals, with identification work ongoing.

"We plan to confirm the victims' identities by collecting DNA from their bodies," firefighter Kim Jin-young told reporters.

The government launched its formal investigation on June 25, involving ministries and departments from across the board. Investigators entered the building to pinpoint the exact cause of the fire.

Over 100 people were working in the factory when workers heard explosions from the second floor, where lithium-ion batteries were being inspected and packaged.

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The Catholic Climate Action group, Catholic Creation Preservation Solidarity, and civil society groups demonstrated in front of the main gate of the National Assembly to voice their concerns on Nov. 23, Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation (CPBC) reported.

The protesters were joined by some young children.

The rally came as the government seeks to commence operations of Unit-1 of Samcheok Blue Power Plant near Samcheok city in Gangwon province on Nov. 30.

A 6-year-old protester, Hannah Kim, called on lawmakers to stop the project, which would further deteriorate the environment in Samcheok.

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Moon, a Catholic, was in Rome for the G20 summit of world leaders and held private talks with the pope for about 25 minutes, the Vatican said.

The cross given to the pope is one of 136 crosses created from melted-down barbed wire from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) representing the 68 years that the Korean peninsula has been divided.

An accompanying message written in Spanish expressed the South Korean president's hope that the crosses would be a symbol of peace.

"Just as the barbed wire's thorns and razor blades melt in the fire to become a beautiful cross, I am hopeful that we can forever melt that iron barrier that separates our hearts. I pray devoutly that this cross will take deep root and peace will flourish," the note said.

Moon's office said the president had told Francis that a papal visit to Pyongyang would help revive the peace process.

"If you send me an invitation, I will gladly go to help you, for the sake of peace. Aren't you brothers who speak the same language? I'm willing to go," it quoted the pope as saying.

The Vatican said that the two sides discussed "the promotion of dialogue and reconciliation between Koreans" and the hope that "joint effort and goodwill may favour peace and development in the Korean peninsula, supported by solidarity and by fraternity".

When he met the pope in 2018, Moon relayed a verbal invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Francis for the pontiff to visit North Korea.

Vatican officials said at the time that the pope, who has made many appeals for rapprochement between the two Koreas, would consider such a trip under certain conditions if it could help the cause of peace.

"If the pontiff visits North Korea when an opportunity arises, it will be momentum for peace on the Korean Peninsula," Park Kyung-mee, the presidential spokesperson, said that Moon told the pope on Oct 29.

North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion as long as it does not undermine the state.

But beyond a handful of state-controlled places of worship - including a Catholic church in the capital Pyongyang - no open religious activity is allowed and the authorities have repeatedly jailed foreign missionaries.

Sources

• US News
• America Magazine
• Reuters

At least 182 Covid-19 cases have come from the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the city of Daegu, which is the fourth-largest in the country.

The group itself is often considered a cult in South Korea by mainstream churches: it was founded in 1984 by Lee Man-hee, who claims he is the second coming of Jesus. Read more

The mix-up was due to an inadvertent switch of medical charts, and a failure to confirm the patient's identity before the procedure, CNN reports.

A Vietnamese woman pregnant with a 6-week-old baby entered a gynecology clinic in the Gangseo district of Seoul on Aug. 7. She was supposed to receive a vitamin shot, but the nurse mixed up her identity and instead gave her an anesthesia injection, local police said. Read more

The United States and North Korean leaders signed a joint-statement making commitments "to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula."

After the summit, Trump said Kim would work to end North Korea's nuclear programme. Trump promised to end joint military exercises with South Korea.

South Korean Archbishop Kim Hee-Jung called the summit outcome "a surprise and a joy."

"Peace is never attained once and for all, but must be built up ceaselessly," he said quoting the Second Vatican Council's pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et spes.

Pope Francis' ambassador to Korea says a "very important" new page has been turned.

Archbishop Alfred Xuereb, apostolic nuncio to South Korea and Mongolia, says the joint statement "marks the beginning of a still long and arduous journey, but we are hopeful because the start has been very positive, very good."

Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung of Seoul and the apostolic administrator of Pyeongyang celebrated Mass together to pray for the summit agreement to take effect promptly.

"When I heard the news that there was a meaningful agreement between the two summits in their first meeting, I deeply thanked God to remember our prayers for reconciliation and union of the Korean people," Cardinal Yeom said in his homily.

"I sincerely wish that the agreement can be promptly executed to achieve the common good not only for Korean people but for all people on the globe."

He added prayers for the believers in North Korea to have the freedom of religion and be able to lead humane lives as soon as possible.

South Korean bishops have called for Catholics to pray a novena for North Korea from 17 to 25 June with specific prayer intentions for each day.

The novena includes prayers for the North Korean people, separated families, North Korean refugees, the evangelisation of the North and the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula.

Source

• Catholic Philly
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: CNN.com

"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

He will also actively encourage peace initiatives in the region.

Monsignor Marco Sprizzi has been in charge of the Nunciature in Seoul since the retirement of Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla last year.

He says Xuereb is "one of the closest allies of Pope Francis and reads the pope's thinking very well."

Xuereb is taking up his diplomatic post amid improving relations between the two Koreas.

The two countries have been technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty.

North Korea and the United States have been trading insults and threatening war for months over the North's nuclear and missile programmes.

After carrying out a number of tests last year, North Korea stopped its testing programme in November.

This has helped improve relations with the South.

Positive developments include the two Koreas marching together under a united flag in the opening ceremony of this year's Winter Olympics in South Korea.

United States President Donald Trump announced last week that he had accepted an invitation to meet with North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un.

The meeting's aim is to negotiate the North's nuclear weapons programme.

Trump will be the first sitting United States president to meet face-to-face with a North Korean leader.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in helped to facilitate the upcoming meeting.

He sent his National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong to Pyongyang on Monday and then to Washington to convey the North Korean leader's invitation to Trump.

Moon is a practising Catholic who has pledged himself to peaceful dialogue on the Korean peninsula.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Vatican News
• Image: Eurasia Review

The IOC annual meetings the Vatican delegation will observe are scheduled for 5-7 February. At the meetings, voting members will discuss policy issues relating to the Games.

This is the first time the Vatican has been invited to attend these meetings.

Mgr Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture and head of its Culture and Sport section, is leading the delegation.

The Vatican delegation has also been invited to attend the Games' opening ceremony. This will take place at the Olympic Stadium in Pyeongchang on 9 February.

Mgr Sanchez will present the IOC president and all Korean Olympic athletes with the official yellow and white jerseys worn by members of the Vatican's running club, Athletica Vaticana.

The Games will see athletes from both North Korea and South Korea walking walk together during the opening ceremony and carrying the Korean Unification Flag.

The flag is designed to represent all of Korea when athletes from the North and South participate as one team.

The move comes at a time of heightened anxiety over the North's nuclear programme. In recent months North Korean President Kim Jong-un has ramped up missile tests and conducted the country's sixth nuclear test.

Pope Francis is firmly in favour of nuclear disarmament, and has often spoken out on the subject.

In a speech to diplomats about the Korean peninsula last month, he said it is "of paramount importance to support every effort at dialogue ... to find new ways of overcoming the current disputes, increasing mutual trust and ensuring a peaceful future for the Korean people and the entire world".

• KBS World Radio
• The Table
• Image: Toronto Star

They suggested faith groups could use their ability to mobilise people and public opinion, and lay out the moral and spiritual case for disarmament.

The Nobel laureates joined with leading Vatican and secular diplomats who urged world leaders to freeze investment in nuclear arms production.

Instead, the money should be for peace and development initiatives.

"Every day we are bombarded with bad news about the atrocities ... harming each other and nature, about the increasing drumbeat of a possible nuclear conflagration and the fact that humanity stands on the precipice of a nuclear holocaust," keynote speaker Cardinal Peter Turkson said.

Turkson, the first prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, was one of many voices at the Vatican-organised meeting asking for peaceful ways to be found to resolve the world's problems.

Entitled "Prospects for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament," the summit drew a line-up of world leaders.

These included United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation officials, representatives from nuclear powers including Russia and the United States, as well as South Korea and Iran.

Turkston said fears of a potential global catastrophe are rising to a level not seen since the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In his view ongoing discussions about nuclear weapons are "critical".

He said decisions made by global leaders about peace and war in the coming months and years "will have profound consequences for the very future of humanity and our planet."

Source

• Crux
• EWTN News
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

The two countries are trading insults, with North Korea threatening to send four missiles into the sea off Guam, as a response to President Donald Trump's escalating rhetoric.

"The only way forth is that of dialogue, because the way of conflict is always wrong, says Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi.

The current crisis shows how international relations can easily break down when there is a determination "to violate the minimum standard of common sense in dealing with other people," he adds.

"That's why you need to invest time, energy, money, resources in preventing the necessity of arriving at these boiling points of crisis."

U.S. and South Korean Catholic bishops have also called for the U.S. and North Korea to deescalate the current threat of war between them.

Bishop Oscar Cantu, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' international justice and peace committee, has written to Secretary Rex Tillerson urging Washington to avoid war and find a dialogue-based solution to the current tensions with Pyongyang.

Cantu says while the threat posed by North Korea should not be "underestimated or ignored," the "high certainty of catastrophic death and destruction from any military action must prompt the United States to work with others in the international community for a diplomatic and political solution based on dialogue."

He also says he and his colleagues support South Korean President Moon Jae-in's proposal to reopen negotiations with North Korea. Catholic bishops in South Korea aslo back this proposal.

Source

• Crux
• The Daily Caller
• Image: Daily Mail

"You are always welcome," South Korea's Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-jong was told when he asked if President Moon Jae-in could visit.

Last month Moon, who is a practising Catholic, sent Archbishop Kim to the Vatican on his behalf.

Kim is South Korea's first-ever envoy to the Vatican.

"I was sent by the president to ask the Holy Father for his support [and prayers] in the reconciliation process between North and South Korea, and I hope the Vatican can act as a mediator," he says.

The mediation "could be the same as the mediation made during the restoration of relations between Cuba and the Unites States," he suggests.

During his week-long trip, Kim met Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State and spoke briefly with Francis.

He says the scheduled talk he and Parolin had stretched from 15 to 45 minutes.

Kim says Parolin wanted an in-depth briefing about the situation in South Korea and the relations with the North.

"He agreed [with the South Korean stance] that dialogue is the only way out," Kim says.

In his five-minute conversation with Francis, Kim says "the Pope seemed very interested in the details [of the problems on the Korean peninsula].

He says he asked Francis to "offer blessings for the new president to complete his missions".

In response, Francis said is taking a special interest in Korea and the church.

"He also wished the new government under President Moon Jae-in to do well," Kim says.

Francis gave Kim a Rosary to take to Moon and reportedly said, "The more difficult the situation, the more it should be resolved through dialogue rather than arms."

Ultimately, Moon would like to reopen borders and possibly meet North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

The international community is wary of Moon's stance, with the North's recent missile launches prompting increasingly tough sanctions from the UN Security Council.

Source

• Korean Herald
• Yonhap News Agency
• CatholicCulture
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: The Hankyoreh

These are among the expectations South Koreans have for their new president, Moon Jae-in.

In a congratulatory message from the Korean Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-joong said the country needed "a credible leader who keeps principles and steps toward true peace and justice beyond today's conflicts and confrontations."

"May the new president be a great leader who can make democracy take root in this country and bring peace and prosperity to the Korean people."

A Franciscan interviewed about Moon's win described him as "a good Catholic".

He said he expects Moon, a human rights lawyer, to "clear up all the corruption that is deeply settled in all the public systems of Korean society."

A member of a Catholic young adult group also said Moon has a lot of support from young Catholics.

"Moon took a leading position in impeaching former president Park, and people especially supported him for this cause."

Moon has vowed to ensure former President Park Geun-hye's trial for corruption takes place.

She is charged with bribing top officials of major Korean corporations, including Samsung.

Park is accused of colluding top executives in exchange for policies that gave them majority control of their companies.
Most of her supporters are older Koreans.

Source

• The Tablet
• Asia News
• Chanel News Asia
• Image: Prensa Latina

This should see priests leading services in Pyongyang on major holy days from next year.

The move followed a visit to the North Korean capital by South Korean bishops last week.

The visit was at the invitation of Pyongyang's state-run Korean Catholic Association (KCA), which has no link with the Vatican.

There is no resident Catholic priest anywhere in North Korea.

The first visit by priests from South Korea is scheduled for Easter, 2016.

Continue reading

South Korea has an estimated 360,000 priests and monks whose earnings will be re-classified as "religious income", rather than the current label of "honorarium".

A sliding scale means those earning 40 million won (US$34,500) or less a year will only be taxed on 20 per cent of their income.

At the upper end, those earning more than 150 million won will have to pay tax on 80 per cent of their income.

Public opinion polls have long favoured extending tax responsibilities to religious groups.

Some religious groups are highly secretive about their financial arrangements.

"Pastors who receive benefits and gifts outside of their monthly income and do not pay income taxes can be perceived as not doing their duties as members of the community," said Kim Ai-Hee, secretary general of the Korean Christian Alliance for Church Reform.

Catholic priests have voluntarily paid income tax since the mid-1990s, AFP reported.

But the most vocal opponents of the new tax policy are within the larger Protestant community which wields considerable political clout.

Some individual Protestant churches boast enormous congregations and considerable wealth, and are run like mini-fiefdoms with pastors passing control of the church and its business down to their children.

Last year, David Yonggi Cho, the pastor of the biggest congregation of all, at the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, was handed a three-year suspended jail term for embezzling millions of dollars.

But the opponents of taxation insist their stance is grounded in principle rather than self-interest.

"Taxing religious practitioners equates religious activities with commercial activities," a conservative Protestant group, the Commission of Churches in Korea, said in a statement.

A spokesman for the commission, Choi Kwi-Soo, also noted that Protestant pastors who, unlike monks and Catholic priests, generally marry and have families, would be hardest hit.

"They are different from monks or priests who can live on a relatively meagre income. That should be taken into account," Choi told AFP.

Sources

• AFP
• Image: Christian Post

In January, Francis will return to visit Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and a trip to Japan — where the pope wanted to go as a young priest — is reportedly under consideration.

"I must go to Asia," the pope said a year ago as he returned from a visit to Brazil, adding that his predecessor, Benedict XVI, never traveled there during his eight-year pontificate.

Now Francis will get his chance, and Asians will have their first opportunity to see their new pope up close.

But more than evangelizing missions or personal pilgrimages, the Asian trips also highlight Francis' push to globalize and reform a Catholic Church that is still very much centered on what happens in Rome, and anchored in a European mindset that is accustomed to the privileges of a majority status and often preoccupied with matters of doctrine and ecclesiastical politics.

Asian Catholicism, by contrast, is younger, less rooted in the surrounding culture and less interested in looking to the Vatican for answers to every question.

While 130 million Asian Catholics represent only 11 percent of all Catholics worldwide, the church in Asia is growing faster than any place else except Africa, and almost half the population of Asia is under 25.

In fact, Francis is going to South Korea to take part in Asian Youth Day, a Catholic jamboree that will draw young people from 29 Asian countries.

Asian churches also benefit by being so distant from the Vatican, and from the internecine concerns of the Roman Curia.

For example, bishops in Asia are often freer to tell Rome when they disagree with certain policies or decisions and they have a better chance of Rome letting them do their own thing — a dynamic of decentralization that Francis says he wants to encourage. Continue reading

Sources

• Huffington Post
• Image: South China Morning Post

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

The nation that has the largest number of Catholics today is Brazil, with 134 million, more than Italy, France, and Spain put together. Catholicism there has successfully confronted fierce competition, which in recent decades inflicted serious damage on it. Because when liberation theology was in fashion among the neo-Marxist Catholic élite, the faithful did not convert en masse to their message. They went over by the millions to the new Pentecostalist Churches, with their festive celebrations, music, singing, healings, speaking in tongues. But now this exodus has stopped.

In the Catholic Church as well, the faithful are finding the warmth of participation and firmness of doctrine that three and four centuries ago brought success to the Reductions, the Jesuit missions among the Indians. Next year, world youth day will be in Brazil. Pope Joseph Ratzinger has promised that he will be there.

Then there are the Asian tigers. South Korea is the emblem of these. There the number of Catholics is rising at an astonishing rate, with tens of thousands of adults baptized each year. They were the soul of the popular movement that peacefully overthrew the military dictatorship. And they are an active part of the productive classes that produced the Korean economic miracle. In the capital, Seoul, they are now 15 percent of the population, when only half a century ago they didn't even exist. And as in a big company, the Korean Catholic Church has set itself the goal of converting 20 percent of the population by 2020: "Evangelization Twenty Twenty" is the title of the program.

In Asia, the Philippines is the only nation in which Catholics are in the majority, with 76 million faithful. But beyond Korea, Catholicism is on the rise in various other countries. Even where it is most persecuted, like in China.

Sources

• UCA News
• Image: The Learning Diary of an Israeli Water Engineer

Following the warming of ties, South Korea halted its tradition of lighting up Christmas trees in 2003, but the South lit a tower last year as relations deteriorated between the neighbours.

The trees will stay lit for 15 days starting 23 December and the South will bolster security near the trees

The trees will be able to be seen from Kaesong, a major North Korean city and for the South are a symbol the freedom of expression and religion.

The North's state-run Uriminjokkiri website responded saying the North will retaliate using a form of "psychological warfare".

Animosity between the two Koreas still lingers in the aftermath of the North's alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship and its artillery bombardment of a South Korean island that killed a total of 50 South Koreans last year.

North Korea has denied responsibility in the warship sinking.

The Associated Press quotes a defence ministry official as saying the South has agreed to allow Christian groups to light a further two towers this year.

The official says the towers will be located in the western, central and eastern parts of the border and security will be tight during the 15 days they are lit, beginning on 23 December.

Sources

• BBC
• The Telegraph

Japan's closest neighbours have begun to set aside long-term animosities in an effort to help the region most affected by last week's devastating earthquake.

With a drive to help Japan spreading across South Korea, Bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik of Daejeon, South Korea has asked to forget the historical animosity between Korea and Japan and pray for and help people suffering after the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan.

Lazzario said in a message issued yesterday that "Japan is the country of which we have bad memories in the past."

But he stressed that "we, Catholics who believe in God and live His words, should pray, help and love our neighbouring brothers," asking to pray that the Japanese people can overcome this disaster and become closer with Koreans.

Koreans have been posting messages on the Internet to cheer up the Japanese, such as: ‘Japan, you can do it. Go for it!', ‘So close, yet so far. Nevertheless, we are one family on the globe,' and ‘We are neighbours who can help each other when the other is in need.'

Koreans have also been using the Internet to get donations for Japan.

Bishop Peter Kang U-il of Cheju, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea (CBCK), sent a message yesterday to Archbishop Ikenaga Jun, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan and said Korean bishops wish to express their solidarity in a concrete form of assistance.

Accordingly, CBCK asked all 16 dioceses in South Korea to send financial aid for Japan to the CBCK by March 18.

Source:
Published with permission ucanews.com