Pope warns Korean bishops against worldly lifestyle

Pope Francis has advised Catholic church leaders in South Korea against "a lifestyle and mentality guided more by worldly criteria of success, and indeed power."

Addressing the country’s Catholic bishops at the beginning of a five-day visit there, he advised them to be “guardians of memory and guardians of hope” and that “particular care and concern needs to be shown for the children and the elderly in our communities.”

He also said “dear brothers, a prophetic witness to the Gospel presents particular challenges to the Church in Korea, since she carries out her life and ministry amid a prosperous, yet increasingly secularized and materialistic society.

“In such circumstances it is tempting for pastoral ministers to adopt not only effective models of management, planning and organization drawn from the business world, but also a lifestyle and mentality guided more by worldly criteria of success, and indeed power, than by the criteria which Jesus sets out in the gospel.”

In one of his first ever major addresses in English he told the country’s President Madam Park Geun-hye, members of the Government and diplomatic corps of his appreciation “for the efforts in favour of reconciliation and stability in the Korean peninsula.” He said “the search for peace from Korea is a cause that is particularly dear to us because it affects the stability of the whole area and the whole world, tired of the war.”

On Saturday at a Mass in the capital Seoul he will beatify 124 Catholic martyrs who died for their faith in Korea between 1791 and 1888.

*A report on this website last Monday stated that included among the 124 martyrs to be beatified on Saturday were seven Irish Columban priests killed during the Communist invasion of Korea in 1950. This information, which was inaccurate, was supplied in good faith to The Irish Times on behalf of the Columbans.