Experts and Catholic groups in South Korea have called for more psychotherapy centres and counsellors and urged the Church to promote counselling as part of pastoral care amid a rise in suicide rates.
“[Pastoral] counselling should be added to sacramental pastoral care,” said Father Matthew Hong Sung-nam, director of the Catholic Psycho-Spiritual Counselling Centre of Seoul archdiocese.
He added that “the Church intervenes in people’s lives from birth to death and takes care of them. Similarly, pastoral centres of the Church should try to solve the problem.”
Pastoral counselling is a unique form of psychotherapy that uses spiritual resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth, according to the American Association of Pastoral Counselling. It is provided by certified pastoral counselors, who are not only mental health professionals but have also had in-depth religious and/or theological training.
“The demand for psychological support has increased remarkably”
According to a Covid-19 National Mental Health Survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in August last year, the number of those admitting having suicidal thoughts had increased nearly threefold from 4.6 percent in 2019 to 12.7 percent in June 2022.

The Catholic Church in South Korea is the most trusted religious group on the peninsula, according to a recent survey.
Among those surveyed, 21.4 % of respondents revealed that they had more trust in Catholicism in comparison to other religions in the country.
The “2023 Korean Church Social Trust Survey” was conducted by G&Com Research on behalf of the Christian Ethics Practice Movement from Jan. 11 to 15 among 1,000 men and women over 19 years of age.
According to the survey, Protestantism came second with 16.5 % of respondents supporting it, while Buddhism occupied the third spot with 15.7 %.
However, in comparison to 2020 data, the overall reliability of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Buddhism declined.
The survey report was released on Feb. 16, at the 100th Anniversary Memorial Hall of Korean Churches in Seoul.
Catholics obtained the top spot with 29.4 % in terms of the volume or number of social support activities conducted. Protestants came in second with 20.6 % whereas Buddhists were third with 6.8%.
Catholicism also maintained the top spot in terms of the quality of social support services it provides to people.
In a 2020 survey, Protestantism occupied the top spot in this category.
Among the respondents, 26.7 percent felt that Catholic social support services offered good quality. Protestants came in second at 19.8 percent and Buddhists at 9.8 percent.

The Second Vatican Council’s document Lumen Gentium (light of the nations) clearly taught that the Church consists of all the baptized, not just the clergy.
The return to this conciliar concept surely is a powerful antidote to the recent discoveries of clerical domination and abuse in almost all spheres of ecclesial life.
In fact, the unprecedented opposition to this papal initiative even from within the Church — mostly from a powerful lobby of a vociferous clerical minority — is a clear sign that they are set to lose all the undue and excessive power and authority they had been used to wielding unjustly over the laity within the Church.
One characteristic of the current worldwide synodal process is to get all the baptized — the bishops, priests, religious and laity — involved in the ecclesial decision-making processes.
The unprecedented consultation of the baptized at grassroots levels on crucially important ecclesial issues was modeled for the harnessing of the sensus fidei fidelium (the sense of the faith of the believers) as it was done in the early Christian communities as we find in the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the Apostles.
This consultation — in the form of a questionnaire — thus, was uniquely novel in the sense that it was a process that began from the lowest rungs of the Church hierarchy — from the parish or ecclesial communities spread all over the world.
Those responses of the ecclesial grassroots were collected and sent to Rome by the bishops’ conferences in each country by August 2022.
It was this CSD that was sent to the seven zones of the world known as “continents”, namely, North America, South America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Oceania for further discussion and discernment.
The two-day Asian continental stage of the synodal process concluded on Feb. 26 at Samphran, Thailand with an ecclesial assembly consisting of delegates from all the episcopal conferences of Asia.

Indonesia’s minister of religious affairs has joined Church groups in condemning the disruption of Christian worship in Lampung province on Sumatra Island by citing a controversial government decree.
A local mob on Feb. 19 forcibly stopped congregational worship at the David Tabernacle Christian Church in Rajabasa saying the place of worship did not meet the criteria prescribed under the 2006 Joint Decree of the Minister of Religion and the Minister of Home Affairs.
A minimum of 90 people need to attend the services before establishing a place of worship under the decree. However, the Church reportedly has only 70 members.
The signatures of 60 members of other religious communities are also needed before setting up a church along with a recommendation from the local Religious Harmony Forum.
Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said in an official statement on Feb. 21 that “there is no need for dissolution or banning” worship at the church.
“All parties are responsible for creating harmony” and any problems “must be resolved by deliberation,” Qoumas added.
According to advocacy groups, the decree only adds to the long list of obstacles being laid for minority communities and their faith practices in the world’s largest Muslim nation.

Indonesian Jesuit Father Bagus Laksana teaches theology and cultural studies at Sanata Dharma University in Yogyaka-rta. His research revolves around Christian-Muslim relations in the context of Javanese culture. In 2004 he published a book titled, Muslim and Catholic Pilgrimage Practices: Explorations through Java.
It presents Muslim and Catholic pilgrimages around Java island and shows an underlining rich ethnography and how Javanese culture is shaping those pilgrimages. His work suggests that Christian-Muslim relations should not be seen as an abstract dialogue, or even as a binary reality, but it must be seen in the backdrop of the particular social-cultural context, which shapes their encounter and interactions. Capuchin Bishop Paul Hinder, former Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia speaks about a thriving Church in the conflict-torn region, and also recalls the kidnapping of Indian Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnalil and the murder of four Missionaries of Charity nuns while he headed the vicariate
“What I see here is also a distinctive way of communing with God. With the sacred past, with the local holy figures, but also with others, including the non-Muslims here. So, it’s a very rich, very hybrid religiosity and it has some value for our world today.
“But here for Muslims and Catholics alike, these saintly figures are considered to a certain degree as ancestors, part of the community’s past that continues to be respected today.” Jesuit Father Bagus Laksana said.
“Then pilgrimage is also a devotion and a spiritual quest for peace and well-being. It’s not just a pious visit, but people are looking for something deeper, something that is keeping them through peace and well-being. Then the sacramentality of space, time, and things. This is very much there in the pilgrim tradition. Our encounter with God and our encounter with spirituality happen through space, time, and things. That is the specificity of the pilgrims’ tradition.”

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has fired angry broadsides at diplomats, non-government organizations (NGOs), outlawed politicians and journalists while at the same time opening the door to delay a transfer of power for his oldest son Hun Manet by another three to four years.
The daily outbursts escalated amid a continued backlash over the forced closure of the Church-backed independent news outlet Voice of Democracy (VOD) in response to a disputed quote which Hun Sen said “could have led to internal conflict in the cabinet, and I cannot forgive them for that.”
It was a frank admission of a potential split in the cabinet as the prime minister prepares for elections in July, which only his long-ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) can win, and a widely expected handover of power to Hun Manet.
However, on that note, according to the government mouthpiece Fresh News, Hun Sen has been asked by French President Emmanuel Macron to remain in office for another three to four years in order to support Cambodian-French relations, made during a working dinner inside the Elysee Palace in December.
Hun Sen did not say whether he intended to stay on, nevertheless, his intentions of establishing a family dynasty were implicit in a separate attack on Sam Rainsy, exiled leader of the outlawed Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) .

Violence against children in Indonesia has reached a critical stage, with new incidents of abuse continuing to occur. Ironically, it happens amid intensified campaigns by the government and civil society groups, including churches.
Cases of girls and boys being raped, kidnapped, and tortured make media headlines almost every day.
A disturbing incident happened last month in Makassar, South Sulawesi. An 11-year-old boy was kidnapped and killed by two teenage boys. Local authorities said they did so after being lured by an internet advert offering to pay a high price for human organs.
The offer vanished immediately after the murder case became public.
Sexual abuse of children is rampant in the Muslim-majority nation and almost all regions have reported a number of cases.
In Catholic-majority East Nusa Tenggara province, a former member of the local assembly was arrested last month for fondling a three-year-old girl. A would-be-Protestant minister from the same province was nabbed for sexually abusing a dozen Sunday school girls.
Such incidents give Indonesia the distinction of having one of the highest rates of child abuse in Southeast Asia.
Regrettably, child sexual abuse seems to have a knock-on effect as reports show many offenders were also abused in the past.Government data show that the number of poor people in Indonesia increased significantly from 24.7 million in 2019 to 26.3 million in 2022. Unemployment also rose from 7 million to 8.4 million.

Taiwan’s former vice president, Chen Chien-jen, a Catholic, who became the country’s new prime minister at the end of January, can do a lot. But his term in office will be short as the East Asian nation goes to presidential and parliamentary polls next year.
Beneath all the harsh words and military manoeuvrings, Taiwan enjoys robust ties with China, which wants to annex it, and the US, which will come to its aid in case of an attack by the communist nation.
China, which lays claim to Taiwan as its renegade province, takes in 37 percent of all Taiwanese exports, which rose by 14.2% last year. China also provides 20 percent of Taiwan’s imports, which increased by 9.5 % in 2022.
As neighbours, they face a raft of mutual risks from the depletion of marine stocks to global supply chain challenges. So, they cooperate one way or the other.
But still, Chen has to worry because there are enough strategic reasons why China won’t consider Taiwanese independence from the mainland.
Though the appellation “Taiwan” appears in brackets after the Republic of China, (the official name of Taiwan) and only 14 nations, including the Vatican, have diplomatic ties with it, Taiwan proudly occupies the United States’ eighth-largest trading partner position among the nearly 200 nations in the world.
“Chen will have to lift the fortunes of the party before presidential and parliamentary polls next year”
Though about 267 times smaller than China in size, Taiwan’s trade ties with the US are constantly strengthening.
A devout Catholic, Chen, who attended Pope Benedict’s funeral at the Vatican as the president’s envoy, took up the new assignment as part of a reshuffle by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) after it suffered heavy losses during local elections four months ago.

The suicide blast at a mosque in Pakistan, claiming the lives of 101 people — mostly policemen — and injuring more than 220 on Jan. 30, has set alarm bells ringing among the country’s Christian groups.
The blast in Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, is the deadliest since twin suicide bombings at the city’s All Saints Church that killed 70 worshippers and injured more than 120. The attack in 2013 was the worst strike on Christians in Pakistan.
Atif Javed, a Catholic, whose six friends and their families were injured in the church blast, expressed fear for his wife who works at the social welfare department close to the targeted mosque in the sixth most populous city in Pakistan.
“Nobody is safe. We try to return home early when we go out shopping and eating,” Javed told.
“We don’t trust words and await what plan they have to protect us”
“We were worried about her when the news came in about the mosque blast. On the phone, she described the blast as an earthquake initially. A Christian police officer, who lives adjacent to the mosque, lost his mother,” Javed added.

Governments in multiple countries in the Asia-Pacific region suppressed basic freedoms and civic space amid rising authoritarianism and high level of corruption, says a new report from Transparency International (TI).
Afghanistan, Cambodia, Myanmar, and North Korea are ranked among the worst Asian nations to curb civic space and basic freedoms, according to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2022 report published on Jan. 31.
The Berlin-based global anti-graft watchdog said that “grand corruption remains common, and the overall situation has barely improved” among Asia-Pacific nations.
While the report pointed out some Asian countries making headway in their fight against corruption, the region scored an average of 45 points out of 100 for the fourth year in a row.
The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, scoring on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
Among the Asian nations, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan scoring 83, 76, and 73 points each were ranked in the top three spots.
“Asian leaders persisted in allowing anti-corruption commitments to fall on the back burner”
Among the tail-enders were Afghanistan, Cambodia, Myanmar, and North Korea scoring 24, 24, 23, and 17 points respectively.
Despite the Asian sub-continent seeing multiple diplomatic summits to ease international tension and reduce corruption, the results were widely varying, TI said.
“Asian leaders persisted in allowing anti-corruption commitments to fall on the back burner, while Pacific governments refocused and recentered their efforts to combat it,” the annual report read.
It specifically pointed out Malaysia’s (47 points) 1MDB scandal terming it as a “grand corruption” that implicated banks, celebrities, and institutions across six countries.
In 2022, former prime minister, Najib Razak, was jailed for his involvement in the scandal.