[KS] Catholicism in N. Korea

[Kwang On Yoo]

Hello All,

Just before the Korean War there were 52 Catholic parishes in the North,
with some 50,000 believers in three dioceses, Pyongyang, Hamhung and
Chunchon, plus a territorial abbey that was a direct subject of the Holy
See.
After the end of the Korean War and the resulting division of the nation,
the Vatican handed over the Apostolic administration of the North
Korean dioceses to bishops in South Korea.

The current Archbishop of Seoul, Cardinal Cheong Jin-suk, is the Apostolic
Administrator for Pyongyang and Hamhung while Bishop Kim Un-hwi of the
Chunchon diocese in South Korea is the Apostolic Administrator of
Chunchondiocese in North Korea.

Over the years, requests by the South Korean Bishops for pastoral visits to
the North Korean dioceses have repeatedly been denied.

Since 1988, the North Korea regime has presented Jangchung " Cathedral", the
only so called Catholic church in North Korea, to outsiders as a shining
example of North Korean Catholicism with hundreds of parishioners. Actually,
the church has no functioning priest and no sacraments.

In April, a Seoul based North Korean defector's radio station, *Free North *
*Korea*, alleged that Jangchung Church is in fact a clandestine cocaine
factory where cocaine is manufactured for illegal export, to generate much
needed foreign currency.

This is the current state of North Korean Catholicism.

Kwang-On Yoo
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