JOHN PAUL II INAUGURATES PONTIFICAL KOREAN COLLEGE

VATICAN CITY, MAR 24, 2001 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon John Paul II inaugurated the Pontifical Korean College, which will be the residence of seminarians preparing for the priesthood and priests taking academic courses at Rome's various pontifical universities. Participating in the celebration of the Word were the prelates of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, who have just concluded their "ad limina" visit, the rector, priests, and the students of the new college.

The Holy Father said that the entire theological and pastoral formation of the college "will be directed towards ensuring that every priest may be Christ for others, a convincing sign of His love and His salvific action. ... Foremost to their care, therefore, must be a constant familiarity with Jesus in the Eucharist, and confident recourse in prayer to His grace and the light of His Word."

John Paul II recalled that this year commemorates the "bicentenary of the great persecution of 1801, which caused the death of more than 300 Christians in your country. Thanks to the courage of those witnesses of faith and of others who followed their example, the Gospel seed, the seed of hope, did not die despite the subsequent wave of persecutions. In fact, it progressively developed, giving solidity to an astonishing growth of the Church in your country."

After remembering the figure of St. Andrew Kim Tae-gon, martyr and patron of Korea, the Holy Father said that he "was faithful until death. ... He exhorted the believers to draw from divine charity the strength to remain united and resist evil. As did the early community, ... so also the Korean Church had to find the secret of its cohesion and growth in adherence to the teaching of the successors of the apostles, in prayer and in the breaking of the bread. This same unity of purpose and the same spirit of charity, I am certain, will be the soul of the Pontifical Korean College."

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