SEOUL (UCAN) - Catholic Church leaders have welcomed the election of Kim Dae-jung, a Catholic, as president of South Korea, but expressed concern for his and the country's future in the face of economic crisis and disunity.
"I pray that he becomes a president whose accomplishments will be respected in history," Bishop Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk of Cheongju, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea (CBCK), told UCA News on Dec. 24. Describing the records of Kim's predecessors as "distressing," the bishop said that he hopes to see the first Catholic president-elect "succeed."
Bishop Cheong appealed to the president-elect to solve the political divisions that separate the people of the Korean peninsula. Kim won 97.3 percent of votes in his stronghold of Kwangju, but only 12.5 percent in Taegu, a stronghold of his rival Olaf Lee Hoi-chang, also a Catholic, who won 72.7 percent in Taegu but only 1.7 percent in Kwangju. However, the Dec. 18 nationwide ballot saw Kim of the opposition National Congress for New Politics win 40.3 percent of the vote to 38.7 percent for Lee of the Grand National Party. Kim will begin his five-year term in February. Bishop Cheong advised Kim to work to eliminate corruption, discrimination against women, the fusion of politics and economics, and to promote education that develops youths' unique, God-given individual talents.
The CBCK president expressed his support for Kim's election campaign pledge to remove discrimination based on academic achievement, which the bishop said has created problems among Koreans for decades. The president-elect only graduated from high school but is known as a man of knowledge through self-education, even while jailed as a political prisoner under military rule.
Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan of Seoul in his Dec. 19 Christmas message expressed hope that the president-elect would help Koreans out of "despair." He also prayed that the new president would unite the people, pointing out that people's hearts are divided according to native place and social classification.
Moses Ryu Deok-hee, president of the Lay Apostolate Council of Korea, told UCA News Dec. 23 that Kim should work to overcome the foreign exchange crisis that faces South Korea. While noting Kim's status as the first elected Catholic president in the country, about 6 percent of whose population are Catholics, Ryu noted that outgoing President Kim Young-sam is a Protestant. "He is a Christian, our brother, but he thoroughly failed to lead the nation to an extent that we can hardly understand. So most of us are praying that Kim Dae-jung, a Catholic, succeeds and saves the face of Christians."
South Korea once had a Catholic Premier, John Chang Myon, who took office under a different political system in 1960, but he was forced to step down after a military coup in 1961.
In a Dec. 19 press conference, President-elect Kim explained that South Korea must develop itself "both in democracy and economy." Describing his victory as the first real transfer of political power in Korea in 50 years, he said that he would protect the rights of grassroots people and put his efforts into developing a "democratic market economy."
South Korea, the 11th largest economy in the world, recently received the largest-ever economic rescue package of over US$60 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund, which in turn demanded that the country slash economic growth, raise taxes and cut expenditures.
Father Alphons Song Jae-nam, parish priest of Sogyo-dong Church in Seoul archdiocese where the president-elect used to attend Mass, told UCA News Dec. 23 that his parishioners "only desire Kim's success." The 15th president of South Korea was born in 1925 on Haui Island in southwestern Korea. His first success in the political field was in May 1961 when he won a seat in parliament, but he was prevented from registering as a member because of a military coup three days later. He became a lawmaker in 1963 and unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 1971. He survived two assassination attempts in the 1970s and was sentenced to death in 1980, but was released after several years in prison during the dictatorial rule of former presidents Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan.
UCAN 26. desember 1997