hankyoreh

Why has Catholicism increased so dramatically in South Korea, while the number of those following Protestant Christian religions has petered off?

According to a survey last year, the number of Catholics and Buddhists has increased 744.4 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively, for the past 10 years, while the number of Protestant Christians has decreased 1.6 percent.

The Christian church has prepared a seminar to look at the causes of the situation. "The Growth of Catholicism, Which has Caught the Mind of Modern Society" was held on November 30 at Christianity Centennial Hall in Jongno, Seoul under the sponsorship of two groups studying theology, "The Institute for Pastoral Sociology" and "the Daily Life and Transcendence"

Father O Gyeong-hwan, an emeritus professor of Incheon Catholic University, cited "favorable impression'' as the most important reason for conversion. This refers to the fact that people come to have favorable or unfavorable impressions regarding different religions in their daily lives, and no matter how hard the religious people attempt to convert others through missionary work, it is really only people's already-held impressions that lead them to be converted.

Regarding why people have good feelings for Catholicism, he mentioned the following perceptions: The integrity associated with Catholic priests, their participation in justice and human rights movements, their flexible attitude related to traditional Korean ceremonies involving ancestor worship and funeral practices, as well as their generous acceptance of other religions. Also, Catholic churches never publicly reveal the amount of believers' individual donations, while the churches completely make public their income and spending. In addition, as parishes take responsibility for all the living expenses of priests and nuns, they do not have to own houses or collect assets, keeping them incorrupt, according to people's perceptions.

Previously, Catholicism looked to convert so-called heretics with their missionary work, and expressed an intolerant, self-righteous, exclusive, and imperialistic attitude until around the 1930s-'40s, when the church's position in South Korea began to change. Since the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican from 1963 to 1965, the Catholic Church espouses the belief that "there is also salvation through other churches."

Moreover, Korean Catholicism has accepted the nation's traditional ritual ceremonies and unique funeral practices, giving a strong impression to people still rooted in Confucianist culture, thus further encouraging them to convert to Catholicism.

Prof. Park Yeong-sin of Yonsei University said, "People seem to be tired of the Christian churches' drive for growth in the long run." Professor Park said it was a necessity for the churches to recover their "sacredness" instead of concentrating on worldly things such as the amount of money they have collected or the size of the church buildings.

According to a survey to be released at the seminar, in which 15 converts to Catholicism from Protestantism were intensively interviewed, the converts point out that Protestant churches are too preoccupied with their growth. Those interviewed also said that they were forced to donate more money to the Protestant church, and even had to endure the revelation of the amount of their individual donations. There were also interviewees who were overwhelmed by the climate in Protestant churches, in which they were expected to blindly believe the preacher, rather than having been given the time to ruminate on the church's teachings. They also felt the Protestant church too easily infringed on their privacy, they said.

According to Jo Seong-don, director of the Institute for Pastrol Sociology, due to the sheer number of Protestant churches in South Korea, the churches face many problems. It is difficult to guarantee the quality of the pastors, and the ministers engage in fierce competition, and also expend a huge amount of energy in doing missionary work to gain converts to Christianity. In contrast, Catholicism has succeeded in "branding'' itself as the church that deserves the people's trust. Regarding a suspected growing antipathy for Protestant Christianity, Jo cited as a main cause people's rejection of missionary work as the most important virtue, which the Christian churches still largely espouse.

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