Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Youth

Youth pick up cross in plea for Korean peace

byStaff writers
11 March 2007
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

SCORES of Korean young people venerated the World Youth Day cross and icon on an otherwise desolate bridge barricaded with swirls of razor-sharp wire on February 24.

About 100 youth carried the cross as far as they could to the northern end of the bridge in Imjingak, where the razor fence enforces the decades-old division of the Korean peninsula.

There, each of them prayed in turn, with his or her brow against the cross.

The young people were from Uijeongbu diocese, which borders the Demilitarised Zone separating North and South Korea.

The World Youth Day Cross and Icon of the Blessed Mother that they brought were gifts the late Pope John Paul II gave in 1984 to a group of young people to carry across the world in preparation for the first World Youth Day the following year.

Besides praying for national reunification on the bridge, the youth also prayed the Rosary as they brought the 3.8 metre-high cross and the icon in procession around Imjingak, a park 50 km north west of Seoul.

From there people can peer through the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea.

“Nowadays young people don’t have much interest in the tragic national division or in reunification,” Veritas Kim Min-jeong, one of the young pilgrims, told UCA News.

“While praying at the cross, I thought about the role of young people. We as Catholic youth in the diocese need to promote unity and integration of society by spreading the spirit of the cross,” the 26-year-old woman said.

Veronica Lee Eun-me said the experience “was a grace-filled time for me to pray for the country and world peace”.

Related Stories

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

She also drew an analogy: “With help from my peers, carrying the cross was not hard.

“Likewise, if we gather our prayers together we can fulfil our mission as peace workers in the world.”

Fr Blaise Kim Young-wook, Uijeongbu diocese’s director for youth, added that the “World Youth Day cross and icon’s ‘pilgrimage’ to Imjingak should be a reminder of the pain of national division”.

Co-ordinator of the committee in charge of the cross and icon, Australian Fr Chris Ryan, described it as “a fantastic moment to witness South Korean youth praying for the reunification of the two Koreas”.

“Their prayer at the cross, with (such) warm faith, was beautiful and it inspires me,” he said.

The North and the South have been divided since Korea’s liberation from the Japanese in 1945, at the end of World War II.

The subsequent Korean War heightened animosity between the two Koreas. It ended in an armistice in 1953, not a formal peace treaty, leaving the two countries technically still at war.

The Imjingak “Bridge of Freedom” earned its name after 12,773 South Korean captives returned across it in an exchange of prisoners after the war.

The veneration of the cross at the bridge was one of the many programs being organised leading up to the first Korean Youth Day celebration in August.

The World Youth Day cross and icon arrived on February 18 in Jeju, the southern island of South Korea that is set to host the national youth day celebration. They had travelled through Africa.

The cross and icon left for the Philippines on February 26. From there, they will be brought to East Timor and islands in Oceania before reaching Australia in July.

UCA News

ShareTweet
Previous Post

ROCKY BALBOA – One last shot at glory

Next Post

Pope’s call to Eucharist

Staff writers

Related Posts

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says
Faith

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

18 May 2022
Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says
World

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

18 May 2022
Next Post

Pope's call to Eucharist

Brisbane voice for world body

Right recipe for spirit of giving

Popular News

  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI turned 95 on a ‘very happy’ day

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says
Faith

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

by CNS
18 May 2022
0

HOLINESS is possible, and the Catholic Church provides the tools for attaining it. That was the theme...

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

18 May 2022
Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

Bishops call out racism, gun violence after U.S. shooting

17 May 2022
Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

Parishes unite for Logan deanery family festival this Sunday

17 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping