Priests' justice group marks 40 years in Korea

Democracy 'once again being trampled'.

Father Simon Chun Jong-hun (left) and Father Paul Moon Kyu-hyun of the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice walk together after mass at Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul on Monday

Korea:  “It’s been a long time since we had a mass in a cathedral with a roof on it,” the priest said.

An audience of around 500 at Seoul‘s Myeongdong Cathedral erupted into laughter at the opening remark by Father Simon Chun Jong-hun as he began his sermon. The event was a “gratitude mass” held on Monday to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice (CPAJ).

The priest’s observation was fitting: for much of its forty years, CPAJ has been working on South Korea’s streets. The “fathers of the street” have gone to the most unsavory of places to stand with the people suffering the most and share in their difficult struggles.

CPAJ traces its origins to a time when the movement for democracy in South Korea had reached a point of no return. It was in July 1974, with the Yushin Constitution of then-President Park Chung-hee in full swing, when the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) seized Bishop Daniel Chi Hak-soon, leader of the Wonju Diocese, at the airport on his return from a trip to the Vatican. He had been accused of plotting an overthrow of the government and donating funds to the Democracy Youth and Student League. Ten days after his capture, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison at an emergency court-martial. On 26 September of that year, around 1,200 priests and Catholic congregants gathered in the neighborhood of Myeong-dong in central Seoul for a prayer meeting to demand Chi’s release and the restoration of democracy. That same day, CPAJ officially came into being and released its first declaration.

“Today, the democracy that we fought and died to achieve is once again being trampled,” Jeon said at the sermon. “Livelihoods are collapsing, and the path to reunification [with North Korea] has been cut off. This day of commemoration is a time for committing ourselves once again to the mission of returning to that founding spirit forty years ago and becoming candles in the darkness,” said the priest.

Source: Hankyoreh