Catholic navigation of South Korean President’s Political Agenda


Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil, ThD)


There is nothing wrong in a president of a country that prefers to attend his own religion due to freedom of religion initiatives. I am a Seventh-day Adventist and I will attend the Adventist Church if I was a president. No one will object. At least I thought so. Until I ran into the subject of fascism especially described by the current philosopher of neo-fascism, Alexandr Dugin of Moscow Russia. His fascism is a mixture of an ecumenical kind of astrology, Islam, Russian Orthodox Church, Satanism, mysticism, occultism, Sufi ideas, Samurai ideas, neo-Eurasian ideas, neo-socialism, and actually conservative revolution.

What about populism versus law?

Immanuel Kant rejected populism as method because this kind of society transformation “palingenesis”

Kant felt that palingenesis was a transition to a better constitution in 1797

A stark critic of revolutions, the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant  argued in his 1797 Metaphysics of Morals that palingenesis is “the transition to a better constitution […], which requires a new social contract on which the previous one (now annulled) has no effect”.

As Hannah Arendt said so profoundly: “'Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself'”.

The role of the mob in the election of the current president of South Korea cannot be denied. He himself continuously thanked the candle-light movement. Two million at one time.

But what about Kant’s view in 1797, a year before the removal of the papacy as papal-fascism of the world by Berthier, the general of Napoleon, or the socalled “deadly wound” issued according to the prophecy of John in Revelation 13 to this first beast, namely the Holy Roman Empire. For Kant in this year before the end of papal fascism, one of the negative aspects of palingenesis was that the palingenetic transformation of a society 'would have to take place by the people acting as a mob, not by legislation.'

The concept of palingenesis is described by Roger Griffin in 2002 which is a transformation of society towards a neo-fascistic shape.

1.     Palingenesis is a new birth after a period of perceived decadence

2.     Palingenesis can only take place with the completed death of the old and none of the existing structure can be used.

3.     A liminoid stage of decadence or decay or chaos or death of the structure is necessary for it to be reborn.

4.     In Moscow philosopher Alexandr Dugin’s view he mix politics and metaphysics. What does this mean? It means for example when you mix religion and politics. If Moon would take his Catholic Priest Paul Yoo also to North Korea on a Summit, it is mixing politics and religion.

5.     Catholicism is a “Christianized paganism” scholars are telling me. It is also a political religion like Islam, Judaism and many other religions in the world today. It mixes politics and religion. Adventism absolutely separate religion and politics.

So in a nutshell, if a neo-fascist transformation of a society from a society that was not fascistic inclined towards fascism, chaos will first exist for some time and things will go bad, for example the economy, but then they live in the dream that one day “heaven will arrive on earth”.

China for example envisaged such a heaven in 2025 according to their president recently.

Dugin is clear that Russia has not arrived at that “heaven” or Eurasian ideal yet.

With this introduction, one can ask this question about the South Korean president: Is he a catholic? Yes. His priest Paul Yoo described it to the journalist Victor Gaetan in November 2017. There are photos of him and his wife in church. Then some comments followed that is interesting:

1.     That Moon asked the Catholic father and four nuns to visit the blue house and come and bless it, after he incarcerated the impeached Buddhist previous president. A photo can be seen with them at the Blue House.

2.     When Moon went to his third Summit to North Korea which ended yesterday with many photo-ops on Baekdusan, who showed up next to Moon? Father Paul Yoo. Religion has to go with the politics.

How much is the Catholic Church involved in the current state of affairs of the Blue House and the leadership of that party of the government?

a.      The anti-US sentiment is part of the Catholic opinion strongly in South Korea and the leadership is said by Yoo to support his own feelings of remorse of their presence (see essay below by Gaeten). The date? November 2017. Writes Gaeten: “Our diplomacy has suffered from the loss of independence,” observed Father Yoo, in reference to the dominant U.S. influence in the South. Every Catholic cleric I talked to (including bishops and the cardinal) said overtly or subtly that the dominant US. influence has caused an anemic Korean diplomacy.”

 

b.     The pro-Chinese stance is expressed by Yoo and other Catholic clerics to indicate that they are progressing in their dream to enter the Chinese religious market. Moon did take a couple of trips to China. Again, a pro-Chinese approach is nothing wrong in itself, provided religion is not a baggage that one tries to wiggle into the picture. If a ruler goes to further the cause of the Catholic Church in another country, he is not furthering the cause of his own people but of the country called the Vatican.

 

c.      People do not realize but Vatican property (many mountains as graveyards for example) does not belong to South Korea, it belongs to the country of the Vatican. Catholic Universities in South Korea, are not South Korean Universities. They are Vatican Universities stationed in South Korea. There is a legal difference or nuance. In this way, Catholicism and Buddhism are not the same. Buddhism does not have a country which is a political independent entity recognized by all countries.

 

d.     All governments before 1992 were “dictatorships”(Catholic opinion)

Catholics described all governments before 1992 as “dictatorships” and after this time as “democracy” in South Korea. “Thousands of Koreans were arrested under the dictatorship, which ended in 1992, when the first civilian president was freely elected.” (see Gaeten below).

 

e.      Hiding of anti-government protesters and involved in political activism (Catholic political pragmatism)

 

“Another historical factor that fuels national respect for Catholicism — and converts — was the Church’s role in promoting democracy, especially against military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. The Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice (CPAJ), founded in 1974, was one organization determined to confront a series of regimes accused of corruption and abuse of power. The Catholic Church encouraged student activists, explained Father Yoo, even giving sanctuary to some who ran afoul of the government and needed to evade arrest.” (see Gaeten below).

 

f.       One of the first things the new president [Moon of South Korea] did after taking residence at the presidential palace, known as the Blue House, was to ask Father Yoo to come and bless it. (See Gaeten below). Again this act by itself is not out of place. It is private and for him and his wife in their new setting. Fine.

 

g.     “Father Yoo hopes the president will seek reconciliation with the communist North, one of his campaign promises, which is also the Catholic Church’s stand on the preferred solution.” (Gaeten below citing the words of Archbishop Kim). Here we see some agenda spelling by the Catholic Church to the Catholic President of South Korea.

As a Seventh-day Adventist looking at the prediction in Ellen White’s book Great Controversy that the papacy will again regain political agendas worldwide in line with the role of the second Beast of Revelation 13 or the USA, one cannot but recognize that the papal fascism of the Middle Ages (First Beast) will surface up again in the near future although it is now democractic neo-fascism of a Dugin kind (liberalism) and papal democratic neo-fascism mixed as one can see here in South Korea.

 

 

 

Source:

Victor Gaetan, “South Korea’s Hidden Treasure: A Vibrant Catholic Church”. National Catholic Register November 28, 2017 downloaded from http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/south-koreas-hidden-treasure-a-vibrant-catholic-church

Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p.112. Op. cit. by Shekhovtsov 2008: 491-506 on Alexandr Dugin’s neo-fascism.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1973), p.341).

Roger Griffin, “The Palingenetic Political Community: Rethinking the Legitimation of Totalitarian Regimes in Inter-War Europe,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 3/3 (2002), pp.24-43. Op. cit. Shekhovtsov 2008: 491-506.