The clandestine life of a go-between

Map 1: The travels of Kim Taegǒn in East Asia between 1836 and 1846.

4Catholic communities outside of Europe before the twentieth century usually remained localized and only flourished in specific places. It was precisely the case in Chosǒn Korea where the local Church emerged without foreign missionaries in the 1780s through the reading of Chinese Jesuit books, and then became an underground movement during most of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the early Korean Church, just as the Chosǒn society in general, was embedded in various geographical and social networks, and it developed through relational and marital ties. One of his main centres, the coastal region of Naep’o 內浦 in the Ch’ungch’ǒng province, was also the birthplace of Kim Taegǒn. The latter’s family was closely linked to the oldest Korean Catholic lineages and harshly suffered from the state repression during four generations (Choi 2006).

5Training indigenous priests was central to missionaries and their policy of indigenization in East Asia, but only two natives were raised to priesthood during the first century of Korean Catholic history. Western missionaries first had a hard time convincing the faithful to raise a local clergy since religious specialists like Buddhist monks and shamans were marginalized and stood at the bottom of social hierarchy. Moreover, missionaries finally settled in Korea from the 1830s onwards, but they often ended up considering Koreans inferior to Europeans.

6It is in such context that Kim Taegǒn spent nine years abroad, but it was a curious journey to priesthood (Map 1). He actually never went to seminary but spent a few years in Macao learning Latin and theology with missionaries of the Paris Foreign Mission Society (MEP), and then travelled in North China, scouting out safer routes for bringing French clerics in Korea. It is my contention that Kim became one of these illegal travellers who frequently crossed the Sino-Korean border, with the particularity that he engaged in “religious smuggling.” So doing, he unwittingly contributed to the myth forged by Westerners that Korea was a secluded country (Korean Church History Institute 1996).

7The greatest and often-overlooked achievement of Kim Taegǒn remains his map of the Korean peninsula (Map 2). Based on both Asian and Western geographical traditions, this map was also the first one ever produced in a Western language by a Korean man, and it remained a reference work for French naval officers during several decades, notably during the famous punitive expedition of 1866 against the Korean government. As such, it demonstrates a fascinating circulation of geographical knowledge between the two edges of Eurasia at a time when modern cartography was still not very influential in Korea (Chǒng 2015). Kim was finally ordained a priest near Shanghai in 1845, but his main activities remained those of a “religious broker”. It was indeed under his guidance that two French missionaries sneaked into the country, and he was surveying the West coast of Korea when local authorities arrested him in 1846. All this reminds us that in mission fields, members of the clergy and the faithful could easily become spy-explorers for a foreign power or a missionary society in the context of the nineteenth century.

Map 2: Copy of the map of Korea drawn by Kim Taegǒn.

8What follows is usually an edifying tale of martyrdom emphasizing the cruelty of an evil state. The reality is, however, quite different since Kim’s judgment was held by conscientious officials and it followed the general procedure of criminal cases with re-examination at successive administrative levels upward to the central government. There was no official verdict after the last hearing and Kim was just maintained in prison for two months. But it soon became clear that he had communicated with the French Navy and leaked information. The decision to execute him came a month later. Accused of “high treason”, one of the gravest crimes in the penal code, he was beheaded by royal order on 15 September 1846 (Korean Church History Institute 1997).

9This case shows that Catholic “persecutions” were not a particular feature of the Chosǒn period and cannot be understood independently of the legal and political context. Christianity was a serious ideological challenge to the Chosǒn society, but it is also true that Catholics were rarely sentenced to death, except during wide-scale anti-Christian campaigns. Moreover trials were not as unjust and speedy as the hagiographical texts suggest. Caution regarding the taking of life indeed encouraged delays in the judicial system to allow for a careful review of capital cases. An important concern of the state, the border defence system against smuggling and the increasing presence of Western ships along the coasts also played a decisive role in the sentence. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Kim was executed more as a traitor to his country than as a Catholic heretic, and his status of religious leader remained of little interest to the authorities (Roux 2012).

The making of a catholic hero

10Kim Taegǒn came to be venerated in the twentieth century as the most prominent figure in the history of Korean Catholicism. It proved to be a long sainthood process that lasted one-and-a-half century: Kim was declared venerable in 1857, then beatified in 1925, and finally canonized in 1984. In 1949 the Holy See also named him the patron of the Catholic clergy in Korea. Kim was probably given so much importance because there were only two indigenous priests in Korea before the late nineteenth century, and he was the only one to meet a martyr’s death.

11It would be however short-sighted to consider this posthumous fate through a mere religious perspective. The issue of national sovereignty in twentieth century Korea profoundly shaped the work of historians and their representations of the past. “Glorification” and “victimization” thus emerged as two major characteristics of national historiography. (South) Korea was identified with a glorious past but always stood as a victim, being a tributary state of China, then a colony of Japan, and finally an unfortunate result of the Cold War. This historiographical tendency unwillingly paved the way for a hagiographical approach of Korean Catholic history: nineteenth-century martyrs indeed were victims of the Chosǒn state, but they obtained glory through martyrdom.

12The apology of Korean history also gave rise to a particular historical genre based on prominent figures (inmul 人物). A number of icons from the past thus emerged during the twentieth century such as King Sejong who invented the Korean alphabet in 1443, and Admiral Yi Sunsin 李舜臣 famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin war (1592-1598). Something similar occurred for Kim Taegǒn, especially when the pressures of life during the Japanese occupation (1905-1945) increasingly turned Catholics to the cult of saints. Kim thus became a prominent figure of the Catholic Church, but he remained largely unknown outside of this religious circle.

Illus. 3: Portrait of Kim Taegǒn adorning the Myǒngdong cathedral in Seoul.

13The council of Vatican II (1962-1965) then marked a turning point in the indigenization of the Korean Church. It resulted in worship services held in Korean rather than in Latin, and the clerical hierarchy came to be predominantly Korean rather than Western. Some Christian activists also took a leading role in the struggle for a more democratic society in the ‘60s and ‘70s, beginning with Stephen Kim Sou-Hwan, the first Korean Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and Kim Dae Jung, future President of the Republic of Korea. All these elements led to a rapid growth of the Catholic population: from less than 200,000 in the 1950s, it increased to 700,000 in the 1960s, and then two million in 1980s, and five million (i.e. 10 % of the population) in the 2000s. By way of comparison, the rise of Korean Protestantism is also the result of several factors, including early indigenization, and the number of faithful is now close to nine million (about 19 % of the population) (Kim and Kim 2015).

14It is in this context that Kim Taegǒn became much more than just a saint and reached far beyond religious circles. The canonization ceremony in 1984 marked the bicentenary of the founding of the first Catholic lay community, and it was an even more special event because Pope John Paul II set a precedent on two major points. Instead of holding the ceremony in Rome he chose to visit Korea for the occasion, and he modified the top-bottom ecclesiastical hierarchy in the list of the 103 new saints. Kim came to occupy the first rank while French bishops and priests only appeared in the middle of the list (Illus. 3). With a few exceptions, canonizations now follow this Korean model of a local saint in first position.

Illus. 4: The birthplace of Kim Taegǒn in Solmoe village is becoming a tourist attraction since the visit of Pope Francis in 2014.

15Last but not least, the South Korean government started to develop a cultural policy in the 1970s through the promotion of national history and cultural heritage. Several Catholic properties were designated as “cultural assets” (munhwajae 文化財), which marked an official recognition of the Church as an integral part of Korean history. This trend continues even to this day with the development of religious tourism and “holy places” (sǒngji 聖地) promoted by the Korea Tourism Organization. The Catholic Church holds much more numerous sǒngji than other religions in Korea, and a number of them are linked to Kim Taegǒn. Every site where the latter sojourned or passed through is now considered a “holy place.” Statues, paintings, and shrines dedicated to Kim Taegǒn now cover the whole country and can be found as far away as China and the Philippines. The number of parishes named after Kim has also grown steadily throughout the world in recent decades.

Conclusion

16Kim Taegǒn is usually remembered as the first Korean-born Catholic priest and a glorious martyr. But a new understanding can be reached by looking beyond hagiography. Kim had a very unusual fate for a young man of the late Chosǒn dynasty. Very few Korean people had the opportunity to leave abroad for a long period. Even fewer were those who dared risking their lives as preachers of a prohibited doctrine. In this sense, Kim was more a clandestine go-between and a “religious broker” for a “smuggling religion” than a priest dedicated to pastoral work. An analysis of his trial also suggests that Catholics were not systematically condemned to death because of summary trials.

17Kim Taegǒn unwillingly became a symbol of the indigenization and the success of the Korean Church. In other words, he is more celebrated for what he represents than for what he actually accomplished. It is not exaggerated to say that his posthumous destiny encapsulates the whole history of Korean Catholicism and explains why this religious figure finally became not just a saint but also a cultural icon in Korean history.