On Thursday Pope Francis landed in Seoul for a five-day visit to South Korea. He will attend Asian Youth Day, a gathering of Asia’s young Catholics, and beatify 124 martyrs.
1. South Korea’s Catholic population is one of the fastest-growing in the world. There are 70 per cent more Catholics in South Korea than there were ten years ago, and Catholics make up 11 per cent or 5 million of the country’s 51 million inhabitants. Protestants make up about 19 per cent. Despite being a small minority, Catholics were at the forefront of Korea’s transition to democracy in the second half of the last century.
2. Korean Catholicism didn’t come through missionaries but through lay people, who brought books by the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) into the country from China. The first European missionaries didn’t turn up until the mid-nineteenth century.
3. Asia is home to more than half the world but only 3 per cent of its population is Catholic. And although Pope Benedict XVI never made it to Asia, Francis has a second trip lined up – he'll be visiting Sri Lanka and the Philippines in January.
4. South Korea’s economy is 40 times bigger than it was 50 years ago. In 1960, GDP per capita was US$100 (worth around £475 today, with inflation). It is now $32,000, or £19,000. Commentators have noted that the Korean experience belies the theory that as a country modernises, it secularises.
5. Its repressive northern neighbour is the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. North Korea, with whom South Korea wants to reconcile, is thought to be home to as many as 100,000 Christians but they worship in secret because even owning a Bible is enough to get someone thrown into a prison camp. Experts estimate that 20-30,000 of the concentration camp inmates are Christians.
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