Seoul (UCAN): As South Korea continues to modernise and with the number of single mothers on the rise, calls to decriminalise abortion have increased from sectors of society. In response, the Catholic Church launched a signature campaign on 3 December 2017 to keep the country’s anti-abortion law in place and has gathered over a million names to date. 
 

PAJU (UCAN): Peace on the Korean Peninsula calls for repentance and atonement between Pyongyang and Seoul a three-day symposium ending on December 3 in Paju City in South Korea on the role of Catholic people in fostering peace in the region has concluded.
 
But the symposium was closing just as the United States of America (US) and South Korea were launching military air exercises, heightening tensions between the two Koreas, as well as South Korea and China.
 

BANGKOK (SE): "A rare Catholic leader in Asia, South Korea's new President Moon Jae-in is a very faithful man, in a Catholic sense," Michael Sainsbury says in pointing to the great appeal he had to many people who hope he can break the dominance of big corporations over government.
 
However, while he won an overwhelming majority of the popular vote in the capital of Seoul, as many a prophet of good tidings, he was not nearly as welcome in his home town of Busan.
 

SEOUL (UCAN): The International Domestic Workers Federation was awarded the 20th Bishop Tji Hak-soun Justice and Peace Award at a ceremony in Seoul in South Korea on March 14.

Myrtle Witbooi accepted the award on behalf of the union of domestic workers at Sejong Centre for Performing Arts.

SEOUL (AsiaNews): South Korea has opened the process of beatification and eventual canonisation for two groups of martyrs; John Baptist Yi Byeok and his 132 companions; and Bishop Francis Borgia Hong Yong-ho, the first bishop of Pyongyang and his 80 companions.

Both groups have cleared the first hurdle and are at the servant of God stage.

SEOUL (UCAN): At the annual meeting held in Incheon, South Korea, the bishops of Japan and Korea expressed concern that a decision by Seoul to deploy a United States of America (US) anti-ballistic missile system and the political swing to the right in the Land of the Rising Sun presents a real threat to peace in northeast Asia.