2013-04-26 16:16:54

Beatification of N. Korean bishop solicited


26 April, 2013 - The bishops of South Korea have asked the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints to open the beatification process for Bishop Francis Borgia Hong Yong-ho of Pyongyang and his 80 companions of North Korea, who were martyred by the Stalinist regime of Kim Il-sung immediately after the division of the Korean peninsula in 1948. This is an important step towards the recognition of the suffering of the Catholic community in the north, decimated by the ideological hatred of the Kim regime. Ordained a priest on May 25, 1933, Bishop Hong was appointed vicar apostolic of Pyongyang on March 24, 1944 by Pope Pius XII. In 1962 when Pope John XXIII elevated Pyongyang to diocese, he appointed as its first bishop, Msgr Hong, who has becomes a symbol of persecution against Catholics in North Korea and in general in the communist regimes. Although he disappeared on March 10, 1962, he has never been officially declared dead. The Vatican’s Pontifical Yearbook still lists Bishop Hong as bishop of Pyongyang. At present, the Catholic Church in North Korea is in appalling conditions. Since the end of the civil war in 1953, the three local ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the whole Catholic community have been brutally wiped out by the Stalinist regime. Not a single local priest has been left alive and all foreign clergymen have been expelled. In the early years of persecution by Kim Il-sung, North Korea's first dictator, an estimated 300,000 Catholics have vanished. Despite this, the Pope has kept alive the clergy assigning sedi vacanti et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis to some South Korean ordinaries. At present, in addition to Cardinal Cheong, who administers the diocese of Pyongyang, there are Mgr John Chan Yik, bishop of Chuncheon and administrator of Hamhung, and Fr Simon Peter Ri Hyeong-u, abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Waegwan and administrator of Tokwon. The result is that today there are no Church institutions nor resident priests in North Korea. Still there are some Christians. However, following the inauguration of the first Orthodox church last August in the North Korean capital, the remaining Catholics are the only community without a minister to celebrate their faith. According to credible sources, actual Catholics number 800, far fewer than the 3,000 recently acknowledged by the government. The so-called North Korean Catholic Association, an organization created and run by the regime, claims to represent local Catholics. The Holy See has always discouraged visits by its leaders to Rome since there are still serious doubts about their legal and canonical status. There are strong suggestions that they are Communist Party officials, not Catholics. (Source: AsiaNews)








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