SEOUL (UCAN): “A nation has a responsibility to protect its people’s lives and safety under any circumstances. Every life, from the moment of conception, should be protected as a human being and secured with its dignity,” Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung, the archbishop of Seoul, said after South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled that the country’s current abortion ban is incompatible with the constitution on April 11.
 
The court called for a legislative change to partially allow early stage termination of pregnancy.

SEOUL (UCAN): In letters sent to Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung of Seoul, South Korea, and to 100 young pilgrims from Laos, Mexico, Malta, the United States, India, China, Pakistan and South Korea, who wrote to Pope Francis expressing their desire to become workers for peace after joining the 2018 Wind of Peace pilgrimage along the demilitarised zone dividing the two Koreas in August.
 

SEOUL (UCAN): In letters sent to Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung of Seoul, South Korea, and to 100 young pilgrims from Laos, Mexico, Malta, the United States, India, China, Pakistan and South Korea, who wrote to Pope Francis expressing their desire to become workers for peace after joining the 2018 Wind of Peace pilgrimage along the demilitarised zone dividing the two Koreas in August.
 

SEOUL (UCAN): An Iranian student, who converted to Catholicism in South Korea, has now obtained refugee status thanks to the efforts of Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung of Seoul and his classmates.
 
The Ministry of Justice announced on October 19 that the Korea Immigration Service had accepted the application of the student—referred to as Anthony as his name was withheld to protect his identity and safety. 
 

HONG KONG (SE): As South Korea awaits the outcome on the Constitutional Court’s deliberations on the constitutionality of the country’s ban on abortions, the country’s seventh March for Life Korea, hosted by the Prolife Federation, was held at Myeongdong Cathedral on June 16, in opposition of any move to repeal the ban and in support of the rights of mothers and unborn children, the Committee for Communications of Archdiocese of Seoul reported.
 

SEOUL (UCAN): An official delegation representing the French Catholic Bishops’ Conference visited South Korea from October 14 to 23 to pay homage to various holy places, including Galmaemot and Saenamteo, where nine French missionaries were beheaded during the 1866 Byeongin Persecution.

A total of 66 people, including Jean-Pierre Cardinal Ricard, from Bordeaux, and five other bishops made the trip to strengthen ongoing relations between the local Korean and French Churches.

SEOUL (SE): Five priests from the archdiocese from Seoul in South Korea were commissioned to take up missionary appointments overseas by the archbishop of the capital city,  Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung on March 10.

SEOUL (SE): The archdiocese of Seoul in South Korea ordained 20 deacons as priests on February 5.

Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung told Fides that given the large numbers of people expected to attend, the ceremony was held in the hall at Olympic Park.

Seoul ordains around 30 priests on average each year and over the past 20 years, there have always been more than 20.

SEOUL (CNS): To mark the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula into north and south, and the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the archdiocese of Seoul launched a prayer movement entitled, North Korean Church in my Heart, on November 24.