Papal mass to recall torture, execution of Korean martyrs

 

Papal mass to recall torture, execution of Korean martyrs

 

 

 

Kuwait Times

 

Aug. 16, 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEOUL: Pope Francis will pay tribute to the courage and sacrifice of South Korea’s first Catholics when he beatifies 124 tortured and executed martyrs at a special mass in Seoul Saturday. Up to one million people are expected to converge on the capital’s central Gwanghwamun Square for the mass, which will mark the religious centerpiece of the pope’s five-day visit to South Korea. The most prominent among those to be beatified is an 18th century nobleman, Paul Yun Ji-Chung, who became Korea’s first Catholic martyr when he was executed in 1791 after clashing with Confucian officials. According to the Church, around 10,000 Koreans were martyred in the first 100 years after Catholicism was introduced to the peninsula in 1784. Uniquely, the religion was not brought in and spread by foreign missionaries, but by Korean scholars who had come across Catholic teachings in China and shared them on their return with family and friends. It survived, as a largely illegal community, with virtually no formal missionary priests until clergy from France arrived more than 50 years later.

 

 

 

Clash with Confucianism Born to a renowned noble family in what is now the southwestern county of Geumsan, Yun was introduced to Catholicism by his cousin, Kwon Sang-Yeon, and was baptized in 1787 by Korea’s first Catholic convert, Peter Yi Seung-Hun. Yun converted his brother and also his mother, who requested Catholic rites for her funeral rather than the accepted Confucian ritual. Yun not only acceded to her wishes but also smashed his family’s wooden ancestral tablets-the focus of Confucian worship. News of his actions triggered outrage and eventually spread to the royal court, which ordered a local magistrate of Jinsan to arrest Yun and Kwon. Despite brutal interrogation, the two refused to disavow their faith or reveal the names of other Catholic followers. —AFP