JB Life March 2017

WORLDVIEW
faith back to Korea.
In the beginning, the Catholics wouldn’t bow the
knee to the ancestors, so they were persecuted. Tertullian
said that ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed
of the church,’ and Korea was no exception. The
attempt at ridding the peninsula of believers was
bloody, rigorous, and a glorious failure. Today, Roman
Catholic Christians represent about ten percent
of the Korean population (but these days they have
become very Confucian again, right down to the
bowing to ancestors, though now it’s rationalized differently,
or syncretized). Catholics were persecuted
officially by the government for practicing a banned
religion. They were also persecuted and ostracized
by their own families and communities for shunning
ancestor worship. Many formed little Christian villages,
where they could live together and have property
in common. When French missionaries came in
the 1800’s, they were astonished to find that there
were already Christians in Korea, and that they were
living in a communal way that very much resembled
the early church.
Certain regions have a greater Catholic presence
than others. Iksan, here in Jeonbuk Province, is said
by locals to be the real epicenter of the faith. Perhaps
it is why the Jeolla people are so warm, accepting,
and are taking to globalization so earnestly. After
all, ‘catholic’ means global. It appears the ‘yeast’ of
Catholic believers ‘leavened the whole loaf’ of the
province.
The influence of Catholic Christianity is especially
strong in Jeonbuk. The Samnye countryside, for example,
has many hospitals and retirement care centers
founded and run by Catholics. This can probably be
seen around the nation as well, to varying degrees.
Roman Catholicism is generally thought by locals
to resemble Won Buddhism very much in its simple,
accessible, common-people approach. An erudite local
physician observed that the two faiths are compatible
and even syncretistic in many ways. Both faiths
offer a very clear system, are easily accessible to the
average working person, and emphasize practical
compassion.
In Korea, the Roman Catholic church is unrivalled
in compassion for the poor. Other religions and fellowships
have great merit, but in them it is hard to
find as many accounts of self-less compassion, and
simple, total devotion to sharing God’s love, sharing
property, sharing meals, sharing health care, and sharing
time.
The thesis of these articles is that all these religions
and philosophies are to some degree syncretized into
the Korean culture and mind.
But more specifically, that the complex, liberal,
thoughtful, Jeonbuk mentality isn’t the same as the
other regions of Korea. This has been deeply impressed
upon me by my older Korean friends, family,
and colleagues, in interviews and conversations over
the last dozen years. It is readily apparent in political
history, and in the regionalisms that persist within
Korea. Jeonbuk has been marginalized by the other
regions of Korea for a thousand years, so it’s not the
only reason for the difference, granted; but talking to
the people, not surfing the web, is how this theory has
been formed.
(By this point, any astute reader is calling ‘bias.’ I’d
like to note, parenthetically, that my background is
ferociously Protestant. Indeed there was a bias; and
it has been tenderized significantly by my time spent
investigating Jeonbuk Catholics.)
There is strong evidence to support the idea that the
Catholic ingredient is much stronger in the local stew.
Even if you do not subscribe doctrinally to some, or
any, tenets of Roman Catholicism, its strong presence
in the recipe still offers a most pleasant aroma.
PHOTOS :
PAGE 42-43 -- Jeondeong Cathedral, in
Jeonju’s Hanok Village.
LEFT -- Images of Catholic martyrdom outside
Jeondong and the cross atop Martyr’s Mountain,
a renowned Catholic site in Jeonju.
RIGHT -- The inside of the Cathedral; the statue
atop a small Catholic church in Dukjin-gu.
[Photos by ANJEE DISANTO]
42 Jeonbuk Life 43