Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

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by Pascale RizkSeoul (Fides Agency) – “If we follow the example of the martyrs and believe in the word of the Lord, then we will understand the sublime freedom and joy with which they went to their death.” These were the words of Pope Francis to the Korean people during the Mass for the beatification of Paul Yun Ji-Chung and his 123 fellow martyrs, celebrated on Saturday, August 16, 2014, at Gwanghwamun Gate in Seoul, during his apostolic journey to South Korea.In a Korea that hardly resembles that of three centuries ago, the joy and freedom of the martyrs of the past continue to attract many Koreans and lead them to encounter Christ.It is the places, the descendants, and even the soil that today hold “like a treasure” the memory of those who, with simple courage and the gift of self, left everything behind so as not to be “separated from the love of Christ” (Rom 8:35).This July, the Catholic Church in Korea pauses to commemorate the centenary of the beatification of its first 79 martyrs, canonized in 1984.Pilgrimages in the footsteps of martyrsIn recent years, the emotion felt by many Koreans who visit the sites of their martyrdom seems to be growing and becoming increasingly intense.In 2011, bishops and priests responsible for places of martyrdom in various dioceses created an ideal itinerary entitled “Shrines of Catholicism in Korea,” an initiative that has become a valuable guide for pilgrims. It collects and lists 167 references to shrines dear to the memories of the Church, 69 of which are places of martyrdom. The guidebook includes a prayer to begin the pilgrimage and another to conclude it. In its revised edition published in 2019, the guide distinguishes between shrines, places of martyrdom, and places of pilgrimage.The most well-known and popular places are the itineraries proposed by the Archdiocese of Seoul as pilgrimage routes, which were also approved by the Holy See on September 14, 2018. Three itineraries, presented as the ‘ Good News Road’, ‘the Eternal Life Road’ and ‘the Unity Road’, offer visitors the chance to walk through the streets of the capital, visiting the most important monuments in the history of the Catholic Church on the peninsula, such as Gwanghuimun Gate, where the bodies of martyred Catholics were carried, hence its nickname ‘Gate of the Dead’. Other significant sites include the Jeoldusan Shrine, a rocky promontory where thousands of baptized Christians were martyred, and the Gahoe-dong Church, where the first Mass was celebrated in 1795. At other points identified along the route, such as the site of the house of John the Baptist Yi Byeok, who welcomed the first Korean Christians, only commemorative plaques remain, after centuries of destruction and reconstruction have radically altered the urban landscape.The descendants honor their ancestorsIn September, the Catholic Church in Korea commemorates its 103 saints and 124 blessed. The former were canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1984, while the latter were proclaimed blessed by Pope Francis in 2014. The relics presented to public worship a few days ago, on July 2, in Seoul, belong to four Korean saints. The relics belong to three French missionaries of the Societé des Missions Etrangères de Paris (Bishop Laurent Imbert, Priests Pierre Maubant and Jacques Chastan), together with the first Korean priest, Andrea Kim Tae-gon. The Korean Bishops’ Conference received these relics on February 19, previously kept by the Sisters of St. Benedict of Olivetano in Korea. In particular, they are a fragment of Andrew Kim’s foot bone and hair from the others. Kim was martyred at the age of 25 on September 16, 1846, while the French missionaries were beheaded on September 21, 1839, in Saenamteo, on the north bank of the Han River, in the Yongsan-gu district of Seoul. The ceremony was part of a series of commemorative events for the centenary of the holy month of the beatification of the 79 martyrs.New faces of martyrdomCurrently, the Catholic Church in Korea is pursuing the beatification process for two other groups of baptized Christians who were killed during the persecutions. The first is that of the Servant of God John Baptist Yi Byeok and his 132 lay companions killed during the Joseon dynasty between 1785 and 1879. Yi Byeok played a key role in the first Korean Christian community and his companions included Francis Xavier Kwon Il-shin and Ambrose Kwon Cheol-shin.The second group is that of Bishop Francis Borgia Hong Yeong-ho and his 80 companions who lived in modern times, some of whom died in the 1901 massacre in Jeju and others killed after the division of Korea, including 20 priests and 3 foreign missionary nuns. Among them are Sister Marie Mechtilde of the Blessed Sacrament and Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus of the Carmelite monastery in Seoul who, together with three other foreign sisters, founded the small convent in Hyehwa-dong, desired by Bishop Won Larriveau in 1940. All of them had the opportunity to flee abroad, but decided to remain with the Korean nuns: two of them were kidnapped and tortured. Eventually, during the infamous “death march” from Pyongyang to Chunggangjin on the Amnok River, they were martyred and buried in North Korea. The other three were repatriated to their country of origin, France, thanks to a prisoner exchange.The Maryknoll missionary Patrick Byrne, the first bishop of Pyongyang, who was originally from the United States, also chose to remain in Korea during the war. Refusing to denounce the United States, the United Nations, and the Vatican, he was sentenced to death by the North Koreans but managed to survive, albeit after suffering brutal treatment. He later joined other prisoners on a forced march led by a ruthless commander known as “the Tiger.” Despite his suffering and exhaustion, Byrne assisted dying soldiers, praying and giving blessings along the way. On the third day of the march, while giving general absolution to the soldiers kneeling with him in the snow-covered mountains, he fell seriously ill and died in a freezing North Korean hospital with no medicine, known to the prisoners as “the morgue.”The investigation for the beatification process was completed in June 2022 in Korea, and the relevant material was sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.The hidden shrine of HantiDuring the Joseon dynasty, Catholics fled to the south of the country and sought refuge in the mountains. They tried to stay close to or at least in secret contact with their families who had been imprisoned and arrested in various places. Thus, the first Christian families arrived at the mountain called Hanti, located 600 meters above sea level, northwest of Palgongsan and north of the city of Daegu, in the province of Gyeongsang. After the persecutions of Eulhae (1815), Jeonghae (1827), and Gihae (1839), and during a period of easing tensions in the middle of the century, the presence of Catholics in the country had become significant. This is also attested to by the letter sent in 1862 to François-Antoine Albrand, Superior General of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, by Siméon-François Berneux, Vicar Apostolic of Korea (1854-1866), which reads: “I went to a very isolated village on the side of a large mountain, and about 40 Christians received Holy Communion.”With the Byeongin persecution (1866), which followed the Gyeongsin persecution (1860), the tribulations of Korean Catholics reached their peak of violence, becoming extermination: nearly 8,000 out of 10,000 were killed. Then came the Mujin persecution (1868), which struck the inhabitants of Hanti, martyred on the spot for apostasy.The first pilgrimages to the site began a hundred years later, and in 1988 six martyrs’ graves were exhumed and transferred. Present at the site, Joo-gang Thomas Aquinas, professor of anatomy at the National University of Kyeongpook’s medical school, recounts in an article in a Catholic newspaper: “The body in front of me was decapitated. The neck was bent at the waist and the lower part of the body was lying on the ground. I carefully examined the cervical vertebrae. There were no fractures and the number matched; it seemed that only the flesh had been cut with a sharp knife. Tears streamed from my eyes.“ Today, 37 tombs of the “countless unknown martyrs” rest on Hanti Hill in the metropolitan archdiocese of Daegu.The soil soaked with the blood of martyrsThere were just as many nameless martyrs in the diocese of Daejeon, 157 kilometers from Daegu. “In 2014, Father Peter Kim Dongyum oversaw the transfer of the graves of the nameless Korean martyrs, who belonged to the lowest social class and were killed in the 19th century in Deoksan, Haemi, and Hongju, cities located in the diocese. This intervention was necessary because rising water levels threatened the integrity of the graves,“ says Father Agostino Han, head of the office at the Dicastery for Evangelization. ”The graves were transferred to a plot of land adjacent to the Silli Shrine. In Silli, Saint Marie-Nicolas-Antoine Daveluy, M.E.P., fifth bishop of the Korean peninsula, secretly carried out his pastoral ministry for 21 years. During the transfer, Peter Kim felt compelled to preserve some of the soil around the graves, believing that it might contain relics of the Martyrs, who had been buried without proper funeral rites due to the harsh persecutions of the time. For this reason, he reserved a portion of that soil for the creation of ceramic crucifixes and rosary beads, incorporating the soil taken from the tombs of the Martyrs. It can therefore be assumed that these rosary beads contain soil imbued with the blood and bone fragments of those Martyrs who offered their lives in witness to their faith. It is a way of honoring them, their faith, and their memory.”(Fides Agency 22/7/25)Share: