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Statue of Korea’s patron saint to be permanently installed at St. Peter’s Basilica

September 11, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
A statue of St. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn at the Jeoldu-san martyrs’ shrine in Seoul, South Korea / Rabanus Flavus|Wikipedia|CC BY-SA 3.0

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 11, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

The Vatican will dedicate a new statue of the patron saint of Korea, St. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, in St. Peter’s Basilica this Saturday.

Born in 1821, Tae-gŏn was the first native Korean priest and one of the country’s earliest martyrs.

The statue of the Korean martyr was proposed by Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, a Korean prelate and prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, and approved by Pope Francis, according to the Holy See’s news arm, Vatican News.

The pope has pointed to Tae-gŏn’s missionary zeal as a model for all Christians to follow.

“The Christian is by nature a witness of Jesus,” Vatican News reported Francis saying in a May 24 homily. “St. Andrew Kim and the other Korean faithful have demonstrated that the testimony of the Gospel given in times of persecution can bear many fruits for the faith.”

The statue’s dedication will take place on Sept. 16, the anniversary of Tae-gŏn’s beheading by the Korean Joseon Dynasty.

Pope Francis will welcome a delegation of 300 clergy and lay members of the Korean Church who will be coming for the dedication of the statue in a private audience on Saturday.

Cardinal You will then celebrate a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Korean at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

The 6-ton marble statue of the Korean martyr, which will be permanently installed in a niche in the walls of St. Peter’s Basilica, will then be blessed by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, at 4:30 p.m.

Speaking to Rome’s Agenzia Fides, You said that the statue’s dedication at the Vatican has brought great joy to the Church in Korea.

“We were very happy that Pope Francis wanted to accept our proposal,” You said. “It is a great honor for our Korean Church, which is very linked to the figure of this saint.”

“We believe and hope that he can be increasingly loved and his intercession invoked by the faithful from all over the world,” You added.

After converting to Catholicism at the age of 15, Tae-gŏn trained for the priesthood in Macao and was ordained in 1836 by French Bishop Jean Joseph Jean-Baptiste Ferréol, the first bishop of Seoul.

Despite an ongoing vicious persecution, Tae-gŏn returned to Korea to evangelize his homeland. He was only 25 years old when he was tortured and ultimately beheaded during the persecution by the Joseon Dynasty for the crime of being a Catholic.

Writing to his fellow Christians shortly before his death, Tae-gŏn encouraged them to stay true to the faith. He said: “We have received baptism, entrance into the Church, and the honor of being called Christians. Yet what good will this do us if we are Christians in name only and not in fact?”

In Tae-gŏn’s last words before his execution, according to research by Macao News, he gave a final exhortation for his compatriots to convert to the one true faith.

“This is the last hour of my life,” Tae-gŏn reportedly said. “Listen to me attentively. If I have held communication with foreigners, it has been for my religion and for my God. It is for him that I die. My immortal life is on the point of beginning. Become Christians if you wish to be happy after death, because God has eternal punishments in store for those who have refused to know him.”

Along with 102 other Korean martyrs, whose executions were documented, Tae-gŏn was canonized as a saint on May 6, 1984, by Pope John Paul II during a visit to Korea.

Though most executions were not well documented, it is estimated that approximately 10,000 Korean Christians were martyred for the faith before Christianity became tolerated in 1884.

The more than 12-foot-tall statue depicts Tae-gŏn with his arms outstretched and wearing traditional Korean dopo and a flat hat.

Created by Korean Catholic artist Han Jin-seop, the statue is made entirely of Carrara marble and weighs about 6 tons.

Speaking to a reporter for the Catholic Korean news source Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation, Jin-seop said: “More than anything, I sincerely pray that Father Kim Dae-geon’s [Tae-gŏn’s] bold, merciful, benevolent, yet Korean-like image will be expressed well in formative ways, so that his meaning and spirit will be known to the world.”

Asia has been a major focus for the pope recently. Francis just completed a four-day trip to Mongolia after which he said: “I have been to the heart of Asia, and it did me good.”

At the conclusion of this year’s World Youth Day, in Lisbon, Portugal, Francis announced that the next event would take place in Seoul, South Korea, in 2027.

There are currently more than 5 million Catholics in South Korea, making up about 11.3% of the country’s total population, according to Agenzia Fides.

Though widely practiced in the southern portion of the peninsula, Christianity remains brutally repressed in North Korea under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Un.

According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom: “Anyone caught practicing religion or even suspected of harboring religious views in private [in North Korea] is subject to severe punishment, including arrest, torture, imprisonment, and execution.”

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Pope Francis: Addressing others’ wrongs ‘without rancor’ requires kindness, courage

September 10, 2023 Catholic News Agency 5
Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Angelus reflection on Sept. 10, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Sep 10, 2023 / 07:05 am (CNA).

To dialogue with someone who has wronged us is a process that requires “real courage,” Pope Francis said Sunday, reflecting on the theme of “fraternal correction.”

In Sunday’s Gospel reading (Matthew 18:15-20) Jesus says: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.”

Fraternal correction is “one of the highest expressions of love, and also the most demanding, because it is not easy to correct others,” the Holy Father observed, speaking on Sept. 10 from a window at the Apostolic Palace to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “When a brother in the faith commits a fault against you, you, without rancor, help him, correct him: Help by correcting.”

The pope went on to condemn gossip, or “chattering,” which is “not right” and is “not pleasing to God.” He called gossip “a plague on the lives of people and communities because it brings division, it brings suffering, it brings scandal, and it never helps to improve, it never helps to grow.”

Fraternal correction, on the other hand, is a process that allows us to help the other person “understand where he is wrong. And do this for his good, overcoming shame and finding true courage, which is not to speak badly, but to say things to his face with meekness and kindness,” Pope Francis said. But he warned that “pointing the finger” at the other’s fault “is not good, in fact, it often makes it more difficult for those who made a mistake to recognize their mistake.”

“But we might ask, what if this is not enough? What if he does not understand?” the pope asked.

“Then we must look for help. Beware, though: not from the group that gossips! Jesus says: ‘Take one or two others along with you,’ meaning people who genuinely want to lend a hand to this misguided brother,” Francis urged.

“And if he still does not understand? Then, Jesus says, involve the community. But here, too, this does not mean to pillory a person, putting him to shame publicly, but rather to unite the efforts of everyone to help him change,” the pope said.

“And so, let us ask ourselves: How should I behave with a person who wrongs me? Do I keep it inside and accumulate resentment?” Pope Francis asked. “Do I talk about it behind their backs? ‘Do you know what he did?’ and so on. Or am I brave, courageous, and do I try to talk about it to him or her? Do I pray for him or her, ask for help to do good? And do our communities take care of those who fall so that they can get back up and start a new life? Do they point their fingers or open their arms?”

The pope asked again: “What do you do: Do you point the finger or open your arms?”

Pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square for the pope's weekly Angelus reflection on Sept. 10, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
Pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the pope’s weekly Angelus reflection on Sept. 10, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media

Following his reflection, the Holy Father expressed his “closeness to the dear people of Morocco” in the aftermath of a devastating 6.8 magnitude earthquake on the evening of Sept. 8 that has left more than 2,000 people dead and more than 2,000 injured as of Sept. 10.

Pope Francis also spoke briefly about the beatification of the Ulma family in Markowa, Poland. The Nazis brutally executed the devoutly Catholic family of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children in 1944 for hiding eight Jews in their home outside the village of Markowa in southeast Poland. This is the first time an entire family has been beatified together.

The pope highlighted the family’s courage and evangelical love, for they “represent a ray of light in the darkness of the Second World War, be a model for all of us to imitate in our desire for good and in the service of those in need.“

Pope Francis used the example of the Ulma family to call for acts of charity to counter violence, as well as prayer; especially “for many countries that suffer from war; in a special way,” he said, “let us intensify our prayers for the tormented Ukraine.”

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