The CBCK Committee for Family Pastoral Ministry (President: Most Rev. Paul Hwang Cheol-soo, Bishop of Pusan) held the annual seminar at Donggwang Church in Jeju on May 19, 2009. At this seminar, two papers were presented and followed by a panel discussion. The theme was "The Reality of Multicultural Families in Korea and the Role of the Church."

In his opening speech, Bishop Hwang said, "The resident foreigners in Korea are no more 'foreigners' but our neighbours coming from other cultural contexts. …… Now we have to recognize not the discrimination but the difference in them and make efforts to have a vision of living in communion with them as the people of God."

In her paper entitled "Multicultural Families in Korea", Ms. Suh Hye-jeong, Research Fellow of Gyeonggido Family & Women's Research Institute, said, "As of 2007, there were 38,491 incidences of intercultural matrimony, accounting for 11% of all the marriages registered in the year. …… As of 2008, there were 20,280 students from multicultural families studying in primary and secondary schools, a 40% increase over last year." Of those students, she said, 18% were victims of the school bullying, mostly because their mothers were from foreign countries. She also said that only 11.3% of the multicultural families were the recipients of the 'basic social welfare payment', even though 52.9% of them were living in absolute poverty with money less than the minimum incomes.

In his paper, entitled "The Policy for Multicultural Families in Jeju Island: Its Limits and Propositions", Mr. Hong Ki-ryong, General Secretary of Jeju Migrant Peace Community, said, "Quite often immigrant women married to Korean men are not treated as a human person, but a means for carrying on a family line."

In the penal discussion Rev John Choi Byong-jo, Director of Pastoral Services for Migrant Laborer of Suwon Diocese, said, "For the multicultural society to take a root in Korean society, we need proper public relation, special educational system for multicultiral families and proposal for a community model to build a one world."

Rev. Benedictus Song Yong-ho, Secretary of CBCK Committee for Family Pastoral Ministry, said, "The Church loses her vitality, so we have to now focus on the family which is the basis of all pastoral ministries."