A former South Korean ambassador to the Holy See backs a call by
senior priest for the resignation of Cardinal Nicholas Cheong, saying
the cardinal made a mistake.
“What is important in Catholic Church is the episcopal collegiality.
Cardinal Cheong’s remark on the river project broke it and brought the
confusion and division among faithfuls,” said Bosco Seong Youm in an
interview with the Protestant-run CBS radio program on Dec. 14
The former ambassador to Vatican from 2003 to 2007 pointed out that
the documents from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea are stern
against the project.
“It is the anti-environmental project disregarding the nature and no
other opinion will follow on it,” he said. “Church’s teachings
themselves do not change.”
The former envoy added there are followers of the Church’s social teachings and those who deny them.
The senior priests’ calling for Cardinal Cheong to resign was an act
of the Korean Catholic Church as a whole.
They took the cardinal’s
mistake as part of the Korean Church to embrace him, he explained.
“Now is the time to pray for the unity of the Church…and preserve the
2,000 year long Catholic tradition of the unity centering the
ordinaries,” said Fabiano Choi Hong-jun asking the lay faithfuls to
pray.
The president of the Catholic Lay Apostolate Council of Korea said
“We should see the project in the eyes of God and try to be faithful
followers to God.”
SIC: CTH/ASIA