At Sacred Heart, we still miss our friends with the Korean Catholic Community, but we're happy that they've resolved their differences together now at Our Lady of Korea quasi-parish in Woodbridge. But not all division within the Korean church is over. Check this out...
South Korean priests asks cardinal to resign after dissent with bishops
By Catholic News Service
SEOUL, South Korea (CNS) -- Senior South Korean priests asked Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk to resign as archbishop of Seoul after a disagreement with his fellow bishops, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.
At a Dec. 13 news conference, the 24 priests said Cardinal Cheong, 79, had broken the episcopal collegiality and created confusion in society and division in the church.
"It is long tradition of the church for an individual bishop to respect the agreement and decision among bishops, though his individual opinion is different," the priests said.
Earlier in December, Cardinal Cheong criticized the bishops' stand on the controversial Four Rivers Project, a $19.1 billion project to dredge and dam the country's four major waterways in an effort to prevent flooding and pollution. The cardinal said scientists, "not religious people," should determine whether the project is thoughtless.
The bishops had described the project in October as "thoughtless development." Environmentalists and some Catholic groups say the project will cause irrevocable damage to the environment by destroying the eco-system of four rivers.
At the news conference, Father Augustine Ham Sei-ung quoted Bishop Peter Kang U-il of Cheju, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, who said the bishops' decision was "their teaching for the local Catholics, therefore a Catholic should not raise different opinions from it."
On Dec. 9, the Catholic Priests' Association for Justice issued a statement saying Cardinal Cheong had distorted the bishops' decision.
Earlier, Father Matthias Hur Young-yup, public relations director of Seoul Archdiocese, said on archdiocesan-run radio that Cardinal Cheong's remarks did not mean he was in favor of the project.
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