ASIA/SOUTH KOREA – Catholic Bishops: for 2014 “a Church with a warm heart”

(Agenzia Fides) – A “Church with a warm heart”. This is the motto chosen by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of South Korea for the year 2014: Fides was informed by Fr. Thaddaeus Lee Ki-rak, the Conference’s executive secretary. The Bishops aim, in harmony with the pastoral approach of Pope Francis , “to work all together to build a community which promotes and practices communion, service and sharing, in keeping with the words of Saint Augustine ‘Love and do what you will”. “To be a Church with a warm heart – the message said – means to be a community which spreads joy and hope: this is possible if we make humble efforts to communicate with others, to show respect and consideration”.
“The Church – the Bishops affirm – does not exist alone. She grows in holiness striving to help heal society with her inexhaustible vitality, walking hand in hand with others in human history”. To do this the Catholic Church in Korea intends to strive for ever better forms of communication with society, with the media, with civil institutions in order to face the challenges of the present day. At the start of the Year of the Horse, according to the Chinese Zodiac, the Bishops’ Conference says the Church in Korea will strive to build greater harmony based on communication and mutual understanding between Church and society. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 24/2/2014)