The Catholic Farmers Association (CFA) has developed an 'environmental conservation-type sustainable agriculture' and consumption method they call ‘life agriculture', the Gwangju Catholic Peace Broadcasting Company reported.

The term 'life agriculture' means life-saving agriculture employing eco-friendly farming methods to produce food safely.

"We do life agriculture because we must live, nature must live, and agriculture must continue for future generations. We say that it is for the preservation of the creative order but, in the end, humans must do life agriculture to survive," said Gyeongho Kim, vice president of the CFA, established in 1966 in Gwangju archdiocese.

A prolonged drought on the Korean Peninsula is viewed as an effect of climate change and is contributing, along with inflation, to soaring commodity prices and food shortages.

Eight cities were reported to be on the verge of serious drought and eleven cities were placed under cautionary alert by the government as per the National Drought Information Portal of Korea.

Neighbouring North Korea has also raised the alarm as it braced itself to face the worst expected drought in 40 years. Continue reading

"We oppose the release of water containing the radioactive substance tritium into the ocean after purifying the contaminated water from Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant," they said this week in a letter to Japan's Prime Minister and cabinet members.

Releasing tritiated water after it goes through a purification process is wrong, the signatories say.

"We have a responsibility to hand over to future generations a global environment where we can truly live safely and with peace of mind," the bishops point out, citing Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical on a Christian ecology, Laudato Si.

"Since the world has been given to us, we can no longer view reality in a purely utilitarian way, in which efficiency and productivity are entirely geared to our individual benefit," Francis says in the encyclical.

"Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us."

The bishops' letter also noted a range of community interests are against the plan.

Local government councils of Fukushima Prefecture and of other prefectures are opposed to it. As are the local and National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives.

Then there's the Governor of South Korea's Jeju province, an island in the Korea Strait. He has also called for preparations to be suspended.

The event that caused the Fukushima nuclear plant to fail.

Back in 2011, three nuclear reactors at the plant suffered meltdowns in the massive 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami.

The damaged reactors have to be constantly cooled with water, which becomes radioactive in the process.

The plans

The current plans consider dumping over 1 million tons of partially cleared radioactive water into the ocean, as soon as 2022.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates the nuclear plant, says it has removed all radioactive isotopes but tritium.

An expert panel says tritium is harmful only in very large doses.

In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency says if properly filtered, the water could be diluted with seawater and safely released into the ocean.

However, the Catholic bishops argue that the water's secondary treatment is still in the testing stage.

Furthermore, the bishops point out, health experts disagree about the health effects of tritium, citing claims that it is linked to stillbirth, Down syndrome, and childhood death due to leukemia.

They advocated that treated water be stored in tanks or solidified in mortar. Ocean release should not be the only method, they said.

The bishops say it is "worrisome" that the government report did not mention the effects of treated water on non-human marine life and the marine environment.

The release of radioactive material into the ocean is "irreversible," they said. Government officials had provided false information in the past regarding nuclear power plant building and maintenance.

Source

• CNA
• Image: Ejinsight.com

"...the world is looking to us; it asks us to work together and with all men and women of good will," Francis said.

The representatives came from the seven main religious groups on the Korean peninsula. They were in Rome for an interfaith pilgrimage, amid growing tensions between North Korea and the United States.

Stressing the importance of inter-religious dialogue directed towards a future of peace and hope, Francis told the leaders it would involve "contacts, encounters and cooperation, a challenge directed towards the common good and peace...[and]...must always be both open and respectful if it is to be fruitful."

One of the leaders was Archbishop Igino Kim Hee-joong, is the president of the Korean Bishops' Conference.

Asking the pope to pray for peace and to help the Korean people was their main reason for visiting him, he said.

The group had decided to appeal to him to help them as they "seek peace not with weapons or sanctions but through dialogue, negotiation and mutual respect at all costs."

Aligning himself with the leaders in response to their appeal, Francis told them the world was looking "to us for answers and a shared commitment to various issues."

Francis said these issues include the:

• Sacred dignity of the human person
• Hunger and poverty which still afflict too many peoples
• Rejection of violence, in particular, that violence which profanes the name of God and desecrates religion
• Corruption that gives rise to injustice, moral decay,
• Crisis of the family, of the economy
• (not least of all) a crisis of hope.

Source

• News.VA
• Crux
• Image: Crux Now

Representatives from Korea's four major religions organized a religious festival aimed at tearing down the walls between them.

The World Religious Peace Committee organized the 2016 World Religion Culture Festival at Jeonju and other sites.

The committee comprised of representatives from Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant and Won Buddhist traditions.

Won Buddhism is a native religion of Korea. It was founded by Sotaesan (1891-1943), who claimed to reach enlightenment in 1916. Its three constitutional missions are propagation, education and charity. The religion has no formal links with Buddhism. Read more

The translation was made by Gerard O'Connell, its Vatican correspondent, who travelled on the plane with the pope.

This is not an official translation.

Q. During the visit to Korea, you reached out to the families of the Sewol ferry disaster and consoled them.

Two questions: What did you feel when you met them? And were you not concerned that your action could be misinterpreted politically?

A. When you find yourself in front of human suffering, you have to do what your heart brings you to do.

Then later they might say, he did this because he had a political intention, or something else.

They can say everything. But when you think of these men, these women, fathers and mothers who have lost their children, brothers and sisters who have lost brothers and sisters, and the very great pain of such a catastrophe...my heart. I am a priest, I feel that I have to come close to them, I feel that way. That's first.

I know that the consolation that I can give, my words, are not a remedy.

I cannot give new life to those that are dead. But human closeness in these moments gives us strength, solidarity.

I remember when I was archbishop of Buenos Aires, I experienced two catastrophes of this kind.

One was a fire in a dance hall, a pop-music concert, and 194 people died in it. That was in 1993.

And then there was another catastrophe with trains, and I think 120 died in that.

At those times I felt the same thing, to draw close to them. Human pain is strong and if we draw close in those sad moments we help a lot.

And I want to say something more.

I took this ribbon (from relatives of the Sewold ferry disaster, which I am wearing) out of solidarity with them, and after half a day someone came close to me and said, "It is better remove it, you should be neutral."

But listen, one cannot be neutral about human pain. I responded in that way. That's how I felt.

Q. You know that recently the U.S. forces have started bombing the terrorists in Iraq, to prevent a genocide, to protect minorities, including Catholics who are under your guidance.

My question is this: do you approve the American bombing? Continue reading

Sources

• America
• Image: Aol

This was in nation where VIPs are rarely seen in anything other than expensive, luxury cars.

After his arrival on August 14, the Pope left the airport in a compact black Kia that many South Koreans would consider too humble a conveyance for a globally powerful figure.

In a live television broadcast, the Pope climbed into the backseat of the boxy Kia Soul, rolled down the window and waved.

Francis's frugality and humble demeanour have received wide coverage in South Korea, a fiercely competitive country that celebrates ostentatious displays of status and wealth.

This national trait can be seen in booming industries such as private tutoring and plastic surgery.

Korea has grown from poverty after the 1950s war, to become the world's 13th largest economy

The images of the smiling Pope in his little car struck a chord online, with many playing on the car's name.

One South Korean user tweeted: "The Pope rode the Soul because he is full of soul."

The Pope also caught a commuter train to a Mass in a soccer stadium, rather than use a helicopter.

The same day, Francis warned Korea's bishops about what can happen to ministry in a prosperous society, which is increasingly secular and materialistic.

"In such circumstances, it is tempting for pastoral ministers to adopt not only effective models of management, planning and organisation drawn from the business world, but also a lifestyle and mentality guided more by worldly criteria of success, and indeed power, than by the criteria which Jesus sets out in the Gospel."

If "the face of the church is first and foremost a face of love, more and more young people will be drawn to the heart of Jesus", the Pope said.

Also in Korea, he warned lay Catholics not to let competition marginalise the poor.

He met relatives of those lost in the Korean ferry disaster and agreed to baptise a father of one of the victims.

The Pope was greeted by huge crowds at the Sixth Asian Youth Day celebrations, and he also beatified 124 Korean martyrs.

Francis travelled among the crowds using a Kia-made popemobile.

He also visited a symbolic cemetery for abortion victims.

Sources

• Associated Press
• Irish Times
• The Tablet
• Wall Street Journal
• Time
• Daily Mail
• Image: Associated Press

Soon after crossing into Chinese airspace on August 14, the Pope dispatched the message which read: "I extend the best wishes to your excellency and your fellow citizens, and I invoke the divine blessings of peace and well-being upon the nation."

The Pope traditionally sends a message to the leaders of countries he flies over.

But the case of China is a special one.

The last time a pope traveled to East Asia, when St. John Paul II flew to the Philippines in 1995, Chinese authorities denied permission to fly over their territory, forcing the papal plane into a long detour.

This time, Beijing allowed Pope Francis to fly over China.

The gesture is significant, particularly in light of the poor relations between China and the Holy See.

These have hit a low in recent years after Chinese authorities placed a Catholic bishop under house arrest.

Pope Francis is in Korea for five days.

Continue reading

In January, Francis will return to visit Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and a trip to Japan — where the pope wanted to go as a young priest — is reportedly under consideration.

"I must go to Asia," the pope said a year ago as he returned from a visit to Brazil, adding that his predecessor, Benedict XVI, never traveled there during his eight-year pontificate.

Now Francis will get his chance, and Asians will have their first opportunity to see their new pope up close.

But more than evangelizing missions or personal pilgrimages, the Asian trips also highlight Francis' push to globalize and reform a Catholic Church that is still very much centered on what happens in Rome, and anchored in a European mindset that is accustomed to the privileges of a majority status and often preoccupied with matters of doctrine and ecclesiastical politics.

Asian Catholicism, by contrast, is younger, less rooted in the surrounding culture and less interested in looking to the Vatican for answers to every question.

While 130 million Asian Catholics represent only 11 percent of all Catholics worldwide, the church in Asia is growing faster than any place else except Africa, and almost half the population of Asia is under 25.

In fact, Francis is going to South Korea to take part in Asian Youth Day, a Catholic jamboree that will draw young people from 29 Asian countries.

Asian churches also benefit by being so distant from the Vatican, and from the internecine concerns of the Roman Curia.

For example, bishops in Asia are often freer to tell Rome when they disagree with certain policies or decisions and they have a better chance of Rome letting them do their own thing — a dynamic of decentralization that Francis says he wants to encourage. Continue reading

Sources

• Huffington Post
• Image: South China Morning Post

More than 25,000 copies of Evangelii Gaudium have been sold since December.

This is the highest figure for any Vatican document since Unitatis Redintegratio, the Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism sold 85,000 copies in Britain.

Sales are already twice as much as for any previous papal document.

The managing editor of the Catholic Truth Society, which publishes such documents in Britain, said some bishops were buying it for their priests.

But parishes are also being encouraged to buy copies, Pierpaolo Finaldi said.

"If we as British Catholics can emulate the enthusiasm for evangelisation that shines through the text then it will be good news, not just for the Church but for the country at large," he said.

Evangelii Gaudium is also rocketing off book shelves in Korea, ahead of a papal visit.

Since being published in Korean two weeks ago, 25,000 copies have been sold.

Usually, about 4000 copies of papal documents are sold in Korea.

A Catholic sister who works in the "Daughters of Paul" book shop said: "Christians, Catholics but also Protestants and Anglicans, have come in droves to buy the book."

"Even non-Christians have begun to read it, and the announcement of the visit has boosted sales".

A Korean Catholic newspaper also put the document's success down to its easily accessible language.

Sister Kown, from the Pauline bookshop said papal documents usually don't sell well in Korea because there is "a certain prejudice against these texts among Koreans".

"They consider them complicated, far removed from the life of the faithful."

"Instead this exhortation is seen as a letter, which speaks of current issues and explains how to live well in a normal language".

Sources:

• Catholic Herald
• Asia News
• Image: Huffington Post

He has had to step down from the board of trustees of the Korean school after parents refused to send their children while he was involved and been shunned by his South Korean community after starring in a mockumentary seemingly produced by the North Korean Government that appeared to praise the North Korean system.

His wife, a teacher at a language school, has been accused by students of being a North Korean spook.

The accusations are false. The mockumentary argues that the world is controlled by corporates who use consumerism, religion and pop culture to prevent people rising up against their corrupt rulers. North Korea is promoted as a glorious exception.

Posted on YouTube, the film purports to have arrived in the West via North Korean defectors living in Seoul. In fact the film was made by Christchurch film-makers Slavko Martinov and Mike Kelland and had its world premiere in Amsterdam in November, with support from the New Zealand Film Commission.

The filmmakers were so concerned by the accusations that they requested a meeting with the Korean Society to make formal statements about the film - as they had done to the South Korean Embassy - to clear Eugene's name. But despite firm and repeated attempts to declare that the film was New Zealand-made and there were no connections with the North Korean regime at any time, all three have been accused of colluding with the North Korean regime and acting as agents of North Korea.

A prominent person in the Christchurch Korean Society, who asked not to be named, said many in the community now regarded Chang as a North Korean sympathiser and spy, even if they did understand he had been acting.

One recalls in rapid-fire bursts how Father Emil Kapaun sneaked out of the barracks at night, risking his life to bring back morsels of food for his fellow prisoners.

Another remembers seeing the young American priest use a rock and a piece of metal to form a pan and then collect water to wash the hands and faces of the wounded.

A third chokes up when he tells of being injured and having an enemy soldier standing over him, rifle pointed; Kapaun walked up, pushed aside the muzzle and carried off the wounded man.

The military chaplain did not carry a gun or grenades. He did not storm hills or take beaches. He picked lice off of men too weak to do it themselves and stole grain from the Korean and Chinese guards who took the American soldiers as prisoners of war in late 1950.

Kapaun did not survive the prisoner camps, dying in Pyoktong in 1951. The man originally from tiny Pilsen, Kan., has been declared a "servant of God" — often a precursor to sainthood in the Catholic Church. And on Thursday, President Obama will posthumously award Kapaun a Medal of Honor. On hand will be Mike Dowe, 85; Robert Wood, 86; and Herbert Miller, 86.

"People had lost a great deal of their civility," Wood says of life in the POW compound. "We were stacking the bodies outside where they were frozen like cordwood and here is this one man — in all of this chaos — who has kept . . . principles."

Kapaun (pronounced Ka-PAWN) was so beloved that U.S. prisoners of war who knew him began calling for him to receive the military's highest honor on the day they were released from their North Korean POW camp 60 years ago.

"The first prisoners out of that camp are carrying a wooden crucifix, and they tell the story at length," says Roy Wenzel, a reporter at the Wichita Eagle who wrote an eight-part series and a book about Kapaun. "He was internationally famous and made the front page of newspapers." Continue reading

Sources

• The Washington Post
• Image: ABC News

He studied Korean for two years before being sent to Wonju, Gangwon Province, where he met Bishop Ji Hak-soon, well-known for his pro-democracy activities, who was in charge of the local church.

He spent 17 years working in the eastern coast city of Samcheok and the mining city of Jeongseon, where one of the notable things he did in Jeongseon was to set up a credit union. Nonghyup, the banking unit of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, which was the only financial service provider working in the village, was drawing complaints from community leaders for what they saw as excessive interest rates charged to the town's many low-income earners.

Source

• The Korea Times
• Image: The Korea Times

Kim's successor, Kim Jong-un, and his military backers have an "unprecedented opportunity" to "turn a new page on the human rights situation in the country," the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK) said in a statement released yesterday in London.

Echoing this call, the Catholic bishops' in Korea labelled Kim's death "a turning point" for the re-unification of the Koreas.

"We hope that the Lord gives light and strength to the North Korean brothers so that there is a return (to) a policy focused on dialogue, peace, reconciliation," Bishop of Cheju Diocese and president of the South Korean bishops' conference, Peter Kang, told Fides news agency.

The Christian Solidarity worldwide, too, is saying it is time to "seize the moment," and calling on the international community to press for change.

"There is now a real opportunity for North Korea to change direction, end its isolation, stop the brutal oppression of its own people and open up to the world," said Mervyn King, chief executive of Christian Solidarity worldwide.

Bishop Kang said the bishops did not expect Kim's death and the bishops do not know in detail the current political situation in North Korea.

He suggested that a "settling time" was possible.

Korea's new leader, the 30-year-old Kim Jong Un, is young, with little political experience. Observers say he does not seem to have the confidence of the Korean people.

"Our hopes are always towards the beginning of a journey of peace and reconciliation", the bishop said.

Sources

• ucanews.com
• CNA
• Fides
• Image: Indy Bay International

The capsules are reportedly being sold for therapeutic purposes such as boosting stamina.

According to South Korean broadcaster SBS, some hospitals in China apparently sold aborted foetuses after they were turned into a "human-flesh capsule" containing remains.

The capsules were allegedly sold NZ$900 per 100 capsules.

Asia News reports that South Korean customs authorities asked prosecutors to look into the matter. The South Korean government announced that it would work with China to stop this "horrific" trade.

Chinese officials said that they would take the necessary steps to end it, adding that China has "strict regulations" to handle the disposals of human remains.

China's Ministry of Health spokesman, Deng Haihua said the disposal of infant and fetal remains, including placentas, is strictly regulated in China.

The fact it involves aborted foetuses simply increases the credibility of the reports, Asia News says.

According to SBS, retail prices for stamina booster pills in South Korea are ten times higher than in China.

Sources

• Asia News
• Caixin Online
• Image: Caixin Online