President Kim Dae-jung, a Catholic, Has Reached Out to the North
ROME, OCT. 15, 2000 (ZENIT.org).- South Korea's Nobel Peace Prize-winner is a devout Catholic whose faith has motivated his overtures of reconciliation to North Korea, according to one observer.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung on Friday joined the select circle of Peace Prize winners, who include Mother Teresa of Calcutta.According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the award to the first Catholic Korean president in history is merited because of «his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular.»
Dae-jung, 75, has been president since February 1998, and since then, «has contributed to consolidate a democratic government and promote reconciliation with South Korea,» the Nobel Committee said.
«Through his 'sunshine policy,' Kim Dae-jung has attempted to overcome more than 50 years of war and hostility between North and South Korea,» the chairman of the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, Gunnar Berge, said. «There may now be hope that the Cold War will also come to an end in Korea.»
Last June, the South Korean's «sunshine policy» shone in all its splendor when he began the rapprochement with his Communist brother, Kim Chong-il, by taking part in a historical summit in Pyongyang, with the North's leader.
On that occasion, Dae-jung proposed to Kim Chong-il that John Paul II be invited to North Korea as a sign of peace and reconciliation. The proposal was supported by the North Korean leader, and is currently being studied by the Vatican.
«I think God preserved me in difficult moments to help me lead the country in the new century,» Kim Dae-jung said, following his victory in the 1997 presidential elections, after four previous unsuccessful attempts.
Kim Dae-jung is a former dissident who was condemned to death and escaped several assassination attempts, the most serious in 1970, which left him with irreparable physical damage.
He was born in 1925 to a poor family in a little island off the southwestern coast of Korea. After managing a small maritime transport company, he turned to politics in the early 1950s, which exacted, among other things, the loss of his fortune, his first wife, and imprisonment.
International protests saved him from the death penalty in 1980, after which he lived in exile in the United States for almost five years.
Thomas Han Hong Soon, professor of political economy at Hankuk University in Seoul, is proud of Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Award, «as a Korean and as a Catholic,» he said.
Faithfulness to Sunday Mass in Sejong Ro parish in Seoul, is not merely a formality for the president, Hong Soon told the Italian newspaper Avvenire on Saturday: «He has witnessed to the faith in his political activity.»
Hong Soon believes that with his policy, the South Korean president «offers authentic Christian witness.»
«His plan of reconciliation with the North stems from his membership in the Catholic Church, the first to speak of reconciliation and offer concrete acts in this respect,» he said. «Today it is a source of satisfaction that the so-called secular world recognizes this teaching and example.»
The president's testimony is particularly significant, Professor Hong Soon said, because Catholic are only 10% of the population. However, it is one of the countries with the greatest rate of adult conversions, in which, over the last years, the Church has exerted decisive influence in defense of human rights.
«This award makes us feel even more responsible and more committed to improve society,» the professor said. By way of example, he mentioned that in the last few days a representative of the Episcopal Reconciliation Commission is visiting North Korea to agree on a number of areas for assistance.
Regarding the situation of North Korean Catholics, Hong Soon explained: «There are few, about 3,000, more or fewer. There is a church in Pyongyang, but there are no priests or nuns.»
«However, there are lay persons who seem to have a degree of preparation. However, the most important thing is that these Catholics have known how to keep the faith despite the persecutions. We must remember that Catholics have been persecuted in the North almost without interruption for the last two centuries.»
Zenit - The World Seen From Rome
15. oktober 2000