The History of Roman Catholicism in Korea
The extraordinarily rapid progress of Protestant missions in Korea makes
one turn with interest to the past history of the country in its attitude
towards Christianity, as shown in the work of the Roman Catholics. This
history is a very unique one, and is characterised by some of the same
features as we see to-day; the zeal, self-sacrifice, and faith, the
independent spirit which makes the Koreans able, if need be, to carry
on the work without foreign aid, are to be seen on every page of its
history. No church has had to pass through more ceaseless and relentless
persecution for the first century of its existence, nor has counted more
heroic martyrs among its members. The story has been fully told in Père
Dallet’s _Histoire de l’Église de Korée_, and I was so impressed with
that work that I have ventured to make a brief sketch of it, in the hope
that it will be of interest to those who are unable to study that history
for themselves.
The first introduction of Christianity into Korea was a strange one.
In 1592 Japan sent an army of 200,000 men to conquer the country, and
a large number of these men had been selected for the purpose because
they were Roman Catholics, and Japan was anxious to get rid of them. The
great general known as Taïko Sama thought this was an excellent method
of extermination, but when the war was prolonged, the Christian admiral
of the fleet sent to Japan for priests and commenced missionary work.
Many converts were baptized, and things looked promising, when the sudden
recall of the army to Japan, followed by a fierce persecution, completely
stamped out the work in both countries.
Korea continued her policy of jealously excluding all foreigners from
entering the country, and only occasionally were a few books (printed
in Chinese) sent over by the Jesuits from Peking. Not until 1784 was
the work recommenced, and then it emanated from a purely Korean source.
A young man called Piek-i, of great physical strength and intellectual
keenness, heard that the father of a friend of his was going as
ambassador to the court of China, and that his son was to accompany him.
He therefore begged his friend, Senghoun-i, to use the opportunity to
visit the foreigners there, in order to study their science and religion.
Senghoun-i not only fulfilled his friend’s request, but was so deeply
impressed by what he heard that he became a Christian and was baptized,
after which he returned to his native land, carrying books, crosses, and
pictures with him. He at once sent books to Piek-i, who retired into
solitude to study them, and was soon convinced by pondering over the life
of Christ of the truth of what he read. No sooner did Piek-i become a
Christian than he set out to tell his friend, Senghoun-i, the good news.
“The great God of Heaven,” he said, “has had pity on the millions of our
fellow-countrymen, and He desires us to make them share in the benefits
of the Redemption of the world. It is the command of God. We cannot be
deaf to His call. We must spread this religion and evangelise the whole
world.” How thoroughly these words express the feelings and action of the
Korean Christians of the present day!
Piek-i at once commenced the work of evangelisation, and success attended
his labours; but close upon its heels came that persecution which was to
continue down to the present day. There were no foreign missionaries to
help or instruct the youthful disciples, and naturally they were unable
to see the bearing of Christian teaching upon the customs to which they
had always been accustomed. They evolved from their books a conception
of the priesthood, and elected from their number a sort of religious
hierarchy, which existed for some years undisturbed. When eventually
they heard that this was not sanctioned by the authorities at Peking,
and that they must utterly renounce the ancestor worship, which formed
the basis of their former religious belief, and was so integral a part
of the national life, it was a severe blow to them. They loyally obeyed,
however, the mandate to destroy the ancestral tablets, and a storm of
persecution swept over the church.
The leaders were tortured and executed, firmly refusing to renounce their
faith. Nevertheless the number of converts increased, and ten years after
the baptism of Senghoun-i at Peking there were 4000 Christians in Korea.
A time of comparative peace followed, and the church was consolidated.
At last a priest was sent over from China called Jean dos Remedios, in
1791; but he was unable to penetrate into the country, and was obliged to
return to Peking. No further attempt to send a missionary was made for
several years. Then a young Chinaman called Tsiou was selected for the
perilous task, and during a stormy night he succeeded in crossing the
closely guarded frontier disguised as a Korean. Some months later the
news of his arrival became known to the authorities, and they ordered
his arrest. But the Koreans who had long been asking for a missionary to
be sent to them guarded him with the utmost loyalty, and the authorities
seized instead the Koreans who had brought him into the country, and
after cruel tortures which utterly failed to make them confess his
whereabouts, they were put to death.
Tsiou, meanwhile, mainly owed his safety to a devoted Christian woman,
and continued his labours unremittingly in secret, while she prosecuted
an important work in teaching a large number of girls. During the reign
of the king at that time on the throne of Korea, the persecution was
somewhat limited, but as soon as he died in 1800 it broke out afresh
with redoubled energy. Tsiou was at last captured, and with many others
laid down his life, not only willingly, but joyfully. He was only
twenty-five years of age. The persecution raged till the next year, when
the king issued a strange edict, to the effect that he was determined to
have done with the matter; that the Christians filling the prisons should
at once be judged and executed, and after that no more trials were to be
instituted. Many were publicly executed, while others were strangled in
the prisons in order to expedite matters. Then followed a lull, and the
church had a breathing space, but all its leaders had been put to death,
and it was reduced to a pitiable condition.
The church sent a fresh appeal to the bishop at Peking to send them
another priest, but he was utterly unable to grant their request, for the
mission itself was at a low ebb on account of the French Revolution. No
missionaries were coming out to the foreign field, and no promise even
could be held out to the Koreans of any one coming to them in the future.
Again and again their messenger braved untold risks to carry their
piteous appeal to China, but in vain. To those who like myself intensely
dislike the system and many of the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church,
while loving and profoundly venerating many of its adherents, this
absence of the priesthood may well seem a blessing in disguise.
In 1816, for the fifth time, the messenger of the Korean Church arrived
in Peking, and the bishop, touched by their importunity, promised
to send them a priest. Plans were arranged that he should be met and
secretly taken into the country, for persecution still raged. The time
came, but at the rendezvous the Koreans found no priest awaiting them; it
had proved impossible to find any one willing to undertake the well-nigh
hopeless mission. Years elapsed: they were all marked by the same
record of faith and suffering, heroically borne, until the year 1827.
Then followed three or four years of comparative peace, and the church
steadily grew in numbers.
A letter was sent by it to the Pope, beseeching him to send
reinforcements to the suffering Christians. He forwarded the appeal
to the directors of the “Missions Etrangères” in France, which had
recently been re-established, after its destruction by Napoleon in 1805.
The directors forwarded the appeal, making it known throughout their
missions, with the result that Monseigneur Brugnière, a missionary
in Siam, volunteered for the perilous task in a letter burning with
apostolic love and zeal. His offer was accepted by the society, and after
some delay he set out accompanied by a young Chinese priest, educated in
Naples, who had also volunteered for the service.
Three years were spent by them in weary journeyings without success,
owing partly to the jealousy of a Chinese priest who had been sent
meanwhile to Korea by the Sacrée Congrégation de la Propagande, and when
at last the difficulties were on the eve of being overcome, Monseigneur
Brugnière was taken suddenly ill and died on the very threshold of the
promised land.
In 1836 the first European missionary penetrated into the country, and he
was soon followed by others in steady succession. Despite the ceaseless
persecutions the number of Christians in 1838 was estimated at 9000. The
following year a more violent persecution than ever broke out, and the
three French missionaries were betrayed and executed, beside many Koreans
of all ranks. The authorities were firmly resolved to exterminate them;
but the attitude of the Korean people in general towards the Christians
was no longer what it had been. Whereas previously they had been
despised, now they were respected, for the people realised that there was
a power in this religion which nothing could annihilate. The Christians
had been decimated as to numbers, and such as had escaped destruction
were reduced to a state of utter destitution, yet still they remained
loyal to their convictions. The non-Christian Koreans came to the rescue
and lent them the necessary grain to sow their fields, well assured that
they would honestly repay the loan, unlike what would have been the case
with some others of their fellow-countrymen.
The foreign missionaries having been murdered, there was a new
development in the life of the Korean Church; for the first time they
had two priests of their own nationality consecrated in China. They came
to the church at a time of great need, for persecution was raging more
hotly than ever. The time for labour was but brief in the case of one of
them, André Kim. His undaunted courage and zeal led him, at the age of
twenty-five, to the crown of martyrdom, “he being made perfect in a short
time, fulfilled a long time. For his soul pleased the Lord.”
In 1850 we again find two French missionaries at work, who gave their
testimony as to the steady growth of the church, despite ceaseless
persecution. European missionaries could only enter the country
by stealth, and they always had to endure untold hardships in the
prosecution of the work, which could never be carried on openly.
Monseigneur Daveluy described it in these words: “Our year (1859) may
be summed up thus—miseries upon miseries, but everywhere the great
protection of God, and in the midst of tribulations the advance of the
apostolic work.”
The aggressiveness of the Russians in the north in 1866 goaded the Korean
Emperor into a fierce determination to exterminate the Christians once
for all. He began by putting to death all the French missionaries upon
whom he could lay his hands, and nine out of twelve were taken. They seem
to have been put to the torture before execution; one was Bishop Daveluy,
who had spent twenty-one years in the country, and another was the latest
recruit who had only been there nine months. The three other missionaries
succeeded in escaping from the country, and one of them told the whole
sorrowful story to the French admiral at Tientsin, which resulted in the
sending of an expedition against Korea.
Meanwhile the church in Korea was exposed to relentless persecution, and
was again left to carry on unaided the long struggle to win her people
to the Catholic faith. Here Père Dallet’s narrative ends; but it would
not be complete without adding one word as to the position and numbers
of the Roman Catholics in Korea at the present day. I regret that it
only amounts to a statistical statement drawn from Krose’s _Katholische
Missions Statistik_, 1908.
The mission is that of the Paris Seminary, and there are 45 European
priests, 53 sisters, and 10 native priests now working in different parts
of the country. Their native membership numbers 64,070 and they have 8220
catechumens. They have 45 stations, and a considerably larger number of
schools. I hoped to have visited the sisters working at Seoul, and to
have been able to give some personal details, but was prevented from
doing so, as well as from visiting various institutions, owing to the
fact of having a severe chill, which confined me to bed during much of
the time I was there.