VATICAN - "The proclamation of the salvific message to our Korean people remains a common and primary responsibility": meeting of Cardinal Filoni with the lay faithful

Saturday, 5 October 2013

Seoul (Agenzia Fides) - "Every time that the Church in Korea is spoken about in the world, one cannot fail to recall that your beginnings are bound to the extraordinary initiative and decision of a group of lay scholars, who, being without priests and Bishops, and in their desire for a loyal pursuit of the truth, wanted to know the Catholic Faith and to appreciate it as it was introduced into their Country...
Yoy, dear friends are the heirs of this nucleus, perhaps better to say this seed, that today has assumed the form of a thriving plant, with fruit that is everywhere admired and appreciated". This is how the Prefect of the Congregation, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, began his speech during the meeting with the Lay faithful, this morning in Seoul.
In giving evidence of "the positive signs in the life of the Church in Korea", the Cardinal focused on some aspects related to today's life and our way of life, which are dangerous for the faith and for the Church. First of all, secularism and materialism: "insinuate themselves into the life of a Christian, in fact, bringing about a change in thinking and living, such that the Word of God is no longer the source of a Christian’s actions". An additional danger is represented by the tendency towards bureaucratization and hyper efficiency , "almost depersonalizing or depersonalizing oneself, according to a kind of bureaucratic -administrative style, almost as if the Church were a profit company or a holy NGO". A further problem consists of "the tendency, according to a Confucian way of thinking, to break apart the composite reality of the Church, where the virtues of fraternity and ecclesial communion do not prevail, but rather distinction, rank and age".
Cardinal Filoni, in the concluding part of his speech, remarked that the Church in Korea today needs "to instill a sense of profound spirituality in its own life and in society", and stressed that "50 years since the Second Vatican Council the proclamation of the salvific message to our Korean people remains a common and primary responsibility. This cannot and must not be simply delegated to priests or religious men and women, if for no other reason than the beginnings of evangelization in this Land came about through the initiatives of enlightened by lay faithful". (SL) (Agenzia Fides 05/10/2013)


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