Sts. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions

Biography

The Catholic faith came to Korea in an unusual way: through lay scholars who studied Christian books from China. In 1784 Yi Sŭng-hun was baptized in Beijing and returned to share the faith, and for decades the Korean Church was led largely by laypeople, often without any priest. Christianity was forbidden, and waves of persecution in the nineteenth century took thousands of lives. St. Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, a lay leader whose father had been martyred, traveled to Beijing many times seeking priests and wrote to the pope on behalf of Korean Catholics; he was martyred in Seoul on September 22, 1839. St. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, whose father was also martyred, studied for the priesthood in Macau and in 1845 was ordained in Shanghai, the first Korean-born priest. He returned home to minister secretly but was soon arrested and was martyred in Seoul on September 16, 1846, at about twenty-five years old. The 103 martyrs canonized together include three French bishops and seven French priests of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, along with 93 Koreans, most of them laymen and laywomen, including catechists, mothers, and young people. They died in the persecutions of 1839, 1846, and 1866–1867. Pope St. John Paul II canonized them in Seoul on May 6, 1984, during the bicentennial of the Korean Church.

Patronages

Symbols