Martyr's Beatification Cause Moves Forward
Korean Layman Worked With Poor
SEOUL, South Korea, JAN. 19, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The diocesan phase of the cause of beatification and canonization of John Song Hae-bung, a lay missionary martyred during the Korean War, has opened in the Diocese of Incheon.
The present cause is the first of a layman in the period following the Japanese colonial era, the Fides news agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples reported Thursday.
The diocesan commission has been established which will guide this phase of the process, collecting the necessary testimony and documentation for the cause of beatification.
According to a biography published by Fides, John Song was the eldest of a Catholic family, and entered the seminary in 1944.
After Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation, he left his theological studies to dedicate himself to active missionary work. He opened schools and homes for orphans and the poor in the Diocese of Incheon.
When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he was falsely accused of being a Communist. He was arrested and killed by a death squad, reported Fides.
Korea has over 10,000 Christian martyrs, killed in various persecutions over the centuries.
In 1984, in the first canonization ceremony held outside the Vatican, Pope John Paul II inscribed 103 martyrs of the Korean Church into the catalogue of saints.
In 2003, the Holy See approved the opening of the beatification process for Paul Yun Ji-Chung and 123 companions, tortured and killed for the faith in 1791, when Christianity had just reached Korea.
But was he killed because he was a Christian? Was he falsely accused of being a Communist because he was Christian? Or did someone mistake his charity for pro-Communist leanings?
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