{"id":340410,"date":"2012-01-08T04:30:15","date_gmt":"2012-01-08T03:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/korea-a-pearl-for-the-whole-of-asia\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:04:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:04:30","slug":"korea-a-pearl-for-the-whole-of-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/korea-a-pearl-for-the-whole-of-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Korea \u2013 A Pearl for the Whole of Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"From the heart of Europe it takes about twelve hours to reach the farthest peninsula of the Eurasian landmass: Korea, \u2018the Land of the Morning Calm\u2019 as it is called. This country is one of the few in the world still divided between North and South. South Korea<\/strong><\/a>, with its 48 million inhabitants – 12 million of them living in Seoul, the capital \u2013 has had the presence of the Movement since the \u201960s. After the opening of the first focolare in 1969, the Movement spread swiftly throughout the country, and was welcomed by people of every age and social group. Now there are five centres in Seoul, two in Daegu and a Centre for meetings and formation in Kyeonggido. We offer here a few brief notes to give an idea of the life of the Movement in Korea today. \"\"Interreligious Dialogue<\/a><\/strong> is typical of a country under the cultural influence of major religions, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, that also has a strong Christian presence. We need only indicate the latest significant event: Han Mi-Sook, a focolarina and a member of the Catholic Bishops\u2019 Conference of Korea<\/strong>\u2019s Committee for Promoting Christian Unity and Interreligious Dialogue (http:\/\/english.cbck.or.kr<\/a>), accompanied the Ven. Ja Seung, president of the \u2018Jogye Order<\/strong>\u2019 of Korean Buddhism and Dr Gun Duk Choi, president of the Confucian Association, to last October\u2019s Assisi meeting. They were active in their participation. The president of the Confucian Association and his colleagues later visited Loppiano<\/strong><\/a>, the Focolare\u2019s international little town near Florence, and the Movement\u2019s Centre in Rome. He said, \u2018I hope you realize your dream \u201cMay they all be one.\u201d\u2019 \"\"Social Initiative<\/strong>. Heaengbok Maeul<\/em>, \u2018The Village of Happiness\u2019, is a monthly project that has been active for eight years. It helps foreign workers, refugees from North Korea (more than 20,000) and many others in need. Among its services, the project offers a range of medical services, food and clothing, hairdressing and lessons in Korean. \u2018To begin with,\u2019 the volunteers with the project say, \u2018people were wary, but now they feel loved, and bit by bit they open up and they even bring their own food to be shared.\u2019 \"\"Politics and economy<\/strong>. The Movement for Unity in Politics (MUP) in Korea began in 2004. It was the initiative of a group of Members of Parliament who, since 2008, have been meeting once a month in the \u2018Political Forum for Unity\u2019. The group conducts research and is recognized by the Korean Parliament. Its activity extends to a \u2018Social Forum\u2019 open to journalists, lawyers, civil servants, doctors and economists, which meets in Parliament every two months with about 30 people each time. Among the activities promoted by the MUP in 2010 there was the campaign for \u2018a purer form of language\u2019<\/strong><\/a>. About a hundred students of journalism from several universities monitored the language used by politicians and Members of Parliament in their political activity, interviews and speeches. Their research was a stimulus to politicians to be more attentive in how they spoke and concluded with the giving of a prize. The Movement for Unity in Politics has also worked to set up two schools for young politicians and interested students. The courses have ten lessons and so far have been attended by 58 people. Maria Voce\u2019s Visit<\/strong>. In January 2010 the President of the Focolare Movement together with Giancarlo Faletti, the Movement\u2019s Co-President, met about 1,700 members of the Movement. They spent two days together in a festive atmosphere to get to know one another, share the latest news, and to deepen their understanding and living of the spirituality of unity. Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti also met several bishops and, in Parliament, various politicians who are part of the Movement for Unity in Politics. The Korean community experienced a renewal of Chiara Lubich<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s hope for them, expressed in 1982, when she asked the members of the Movement to be \u2018locomotives\u2019, that is, a driving force, for the whole of Asia: a daily challenge and commitment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new year, a new feature for the website! Through \u2018Worldwide\u2019 we will travel around the world to get to know the life of the Movement in various countries. We start with Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}