Father Andrew Kim Taegon was the first priest of Korean descent. Two hundred and ten years ago, he was arrested, tortured, and finally beheaded near Seoul, the capital of South Korea today. His blood watered the soil of the Korean penninsula, where almost six million Catholics live today.
It’s a different story in North Korea, as you can imagine. While there were three and a half million Catholics in the Diocese of Pyongyang 75 years ago, today there is not a single functioning Church in the People’s Republic.
Most of the Catholics have been killed or imprisoned. It began under Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il’s father, when the secret police invaded the largest monastery in North Korea, arrested the Benedictines living there and sent them to internment camps. In the coming years sixteen of the Benedictines were tortured and killed for the faith and nineteen were starved to death. A few years later, the remaining 42 monks were exiled to Germany.
So pray for the Church in Korea, especially today. That through the Blood of the Martyrs the Church may be purified, renewed and resurrected to the Glory of God and the salvation of all the people of the Korean penninsula.
