By RAY CAVANAUGH
South Korea has become one of the Church’s biggest success stories in the Far East, but such success came amid much peril. For an extended period of time, Catholicism was punishable by death.
Between the late-eighteenth and late-nineteenth centuries, about 10,000 persons, most of them native Koreans, died violently for their Catholic beliefs. Of this group, 103 martyrs received canonization en masse during Pope John Paul II’s 1984 visit to the South Korean capital of Seoul. Their feast day is September 20.
Catholicism came to the Korean peninsula via China and Japan, and as the eighteenth century progressed, the faith had gained enough momentum in Korea that the reigning Joseon Dynasty (Korea was formerly known as the “Kingdom of Joseon”) began to regard it as a threat. The ruling powers reacted in a way that made Korea an epicenter of Catholic martyrdom.
The first documented incident of Christian persecution occurred in 1785, when authorities broke up a private religious gathering and confiscated a crucifix from a Seoul residence. The persecution quickly became far more intense. By the early 1790s, the authorities were executing Catholics. At this point, the faithful lived in constant fear of having someone (including family members) inform on them.
Many Catholics fled from larger society to form small villages in geographic isolation. Though such communities were bonded by faith and goodwill, they lived in ongoing fear: Catholic men, women, and children were at risk of execution.
Of the 103 canonized martyrs, 92 of them were Korean laypeople (men, women, and youths). Ten of the martyrs were French missionaries (who ventured to Korea knowing that a violent death almost certainly awaited). And one of the martyrs, St. Andrew Kim Taegon, was the first native-Korean Catholic priest.
Born in 1821, Andrew Kim Taegon was the son of Catholic converts (his father was also martyred). Baptized at age 15, he proceeded to attend a seminary on the island of Macau, a former Portuguese colony. After receiving his Ordination in Shanghai, he returned home, seeking to evangelize. The Joseon monarchy reacted to his efforts by decapitating him.
Shortly before his execution, he wrote a prison letter to Korean Catholics: “In this difficult time, we must be steadfast like brave soldiers fully armed in the battlefield. . . . God will soon send you a much better pastor than I. So do not grieve but practice greater charity and serve the Lord so that we may meet again in God’s eternal mansion.”
Korean Catholicism endured several major waves of persecution, the last of them taking place in 1866. Ensuing decades saw an easing of laws directed at Christians. The Joseon dynasty ended in 1897, at which point both Catholicism and Protestantism were flourishing.
Christianity continued to grow even when Korea fell under Japanese control, which spanned from 1910 until 1945. Only a few years after the Japanese occupation ended, the Korean War tore the Korean Peninsula asunder. Many Christians from the northern half fled to the southern half, which was going to be more hospitable to their faith.
In 1967, the Korean Martyrs Shrine (Jeoldusan Martyrs Grounds) was established in Seoul at the same location — a hillside overlooking the Han River — where many early Korean Catholics met their violent fate. A 2016 Columbia magazine article relates how, “Depictions of the killing at Jeoldusan show martyrs lined up at the mount’s peak, awaiting a blade while the headless corpses of those who came before them float in the river beneath.”
Delivering a homily at Seoul’s Yeouido Place on Sunday May 6, 1984, Pope John Paul II talked about how the faith arrived to Korea “by means of books brought from China” and how “divine grace soon moved [Korea’s] scholarly ancestors first to an intellectual quest for the truth of God’s word and then to a living faith in the Risen Savior.”
John Paul II also related how Korean Catholicism is “unique in the history of the Church by reason of the fact that it was founded entirely by lay people.” Indeed, this early Church was “so strong in the faith” that it “withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution.”
South Korea has been a much kinder place for Catholics in the modern era. The Vatican News (vaticannews.va) reports that, as of 2018, South Korea has 5.8 million Catholics, which is almost a 50 percent increase from its Catholic population two decades earlier.
One should note, however, that while Christian martyrdom in South Korea is a thing of the past, North Korea continues as a place of martyrdom and terror for untold numbers of the faithful, who must conceal their faith every bit as much as did Catholics during the severest of Joseon persecutions.
As John Paul II said in 1984, the Korean peninsula is a “tragically divided land.” And it remains so nearly four decades later.
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