Korean Martyrs - History

History

Catholicism had entered Korea in the seventeenth century by means of books written by Jesuit missionaries in China and brought back by visitors to Beijing. Although no Koreans were converted to Catholicism by these books until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the ideas of the Catholic priests espoused in them were debated and denounced as heterodox as early as 1724. The strong and dynamic Catholic communities were led almost entirely by educated lay people of the aristocratic classes (as they were the only ones who could read the books that were written in Hanja) until the arrival of the first French missionaries in 1836.

The Catholic community suffered major persecutions in the years 1839, 1846 and 1866, chiefly for the religion's refusal to carry out the traditional worship of ancestors, which it perceived to be a form of false idolatry, but which the State prescribed as a cornerstone of culture.

The persecutions produced at least 8,000 known martyrs. Among them were the fervent Korean priest Andrew Kim Taegŏn and the Korean lay catechist Paul Chŏng Hasang. The vast majority of the martyrs were simple lay people, including men and women, married and single, old and young. 79 martyrs of Korea were beatified in 1925 and 24 more were beatified in 1968 and the combined 103 martyrs were canonized in 1984, with their feast day set on September 20. Currently, Korea has the 4th largest number of saints in the Catholic world.

From the last letter of Andrew Kim Taegŏn to his parish as he awaited martyrdom with a group of twenty persons:

My dear brothers and sisters, know this: Our Lord Jesus Christ upon descending into the world took innumerable pains upon and constituted the holy Church through his own passion and increases it through the passion of its faithful....

Now, however, some fifty or sixty years since the holy Church entered into our Korea, the faithful suffer persecutions again. Even today persecution rages, so that many of our friends of the same faith, among whom I am myself, have been thrown into prison. just as you also remain in the midst of persecution. Since we have formed one body, how can we not be saddened in our innermost hearts? How can we not experience the pain of separation in our human faculties?

However, as Scripture says, God cares for the least hair of our heads, and indeed he cares with his omniscience; therefore, how can persecution be considered as anything other than the command of God, or his prize, or precisely his punishment?...

We are twenty here, and thanks be to God all are still well. If anyone is killed, I beg you not to forget his family. I have many more things to say, but how can I express them with pen and paper? I make an end to this letter. Since we are now close to the struggle, I pray you to walk in faith, so that when you have finally entered into Heaven, we may greet one another. I leave you my kiss of love.

Claude-Charles Dallet wrote a comprehensive history of the Catholic Church in Korea.

The Korean Martyrs were known for the staunchness, sincerity, and number of their converts.

Coreans, unlike Chinese and Japanese, make the most staunch and devoted converts; they have their vices, but there is something exceedingly lovable in the simple Corean character. ... The Annamese make better converts than either Chinese or Japanese, whose tricky character, however, they share; but they are gentler and more sympathetic; they do not possess the staunch masculinity of the Coreans.

An observation, founded upon many years' experience, may not be out of place here, and that is, that among all Asiatic nationalities there is probably none more inclined to be converted to Christianity than the Corean. A Chinaman gets baptized in consideration of the worldly and material advantages which he expects to gain thereby; the Corean has nothing of the sort to expect, but only persecution, torture, and often death itself. He becomes a Christian from conviction, not from any mercenary motives.

The Corean possesses the most perfect dispositions for receiving the faith. Once convinced, he accepts and attaches himself to it, in spite of all sacrifices it may cost him. - Berneux, bishop and martyr of Korea

Certainly few countries, if any, have to tell of such a painful apostolate, or of one which has had such success. Japan alone in later days can boast a martyrology at all to compare with that of Corea in the number of the slain, or in the heroism of those who died for Christ.

They were canonized in May 1984 by Pope John Paul II. In a break with tradition, the ceremony did not take place in Rome, but in Seoul.