General Directory on the Catholic Church in Korea (2004~2012) published
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea (President: Most Rev. Peter Kang U-il) published General Directory on the Catholic Church in Korea (2004~2012) on September 15, 2013.
Bishop Kang said in the foreword in celebrating the publication, “With this General Directory, the Catholic Church in Korea came to have a vast volume of useful documents to utilize in diverse initiatives of pastoral ministries in the future.”
The Catholic Church in Korea, felt keenly the importance and necessity of recording historical documents, has compiled the related materials, such as yearbook and statistics since 1956. For this purpose, the CBCK had published Yearbook of the Catholic Church in Korea in 1994 and then General Directory on the Catholic Church in Korea (1995~2003) in 2004.
This General Directory presents a comprehensive overview on main activities and events relevant to the Catholic Church both in Korea and in the world from 2004 to 2012. This book contains the comprehensive documents compiled and chronicled from 2004 to 2012 and the text is composed of three parts. The brief introduction to this book is as follows :
The Part One : ‘The Catholic Church in the World’ shows how the Universal Church has responded to the rapidly changing modern world in an era of the New Evangelization. This part contains the report analysing the activities of the Universal Church in today, with papal documents, such as Encyclicals, Apostolic Exhortations, Apostolic Letters, and other documents of the Apostolic See, as well. In this part, we can see the pastoral activities of the Popes. This part also contains materials on the special events organized by the Holy See, that is, the special years such as the Pauline Year (2008~2009), the Year for Priests (2009~2010), and the Year of Faith (2012~2013), and some international Congresses, such as International Eucharistic Congresses and World Youth Days. Finally, this part looks into the aspects of pastoral ministry and activities for evangelization of the Catholic Church by continents. We can also see chronological list of Popes and history of the Vatican Dicasteries.
The Part Two : ‘The Catholic Church in Korea’ shows the main activities and fields of the Catholic Church in Korea, according to the Statistics from January 2004 to December 2012. In this part, we can look into her main trends of the pastoral ministries, such as New Evangelization, Bioethics, social welfare, pastoral care for North Korean Refugees, Promotion for Beatification and Canonization of the Korean Martyrs, etc. This part also contains the activities of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, National Committees, Dioceses, Seminaries, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
The Part Three : ‘Documents’ contains diverse documents, such as documents concerning the History of the Catholic Church in Korea, the Diaries of the Catholic Church in Korea, the Statistics of the Catholic Church in the world from 2002 to 2011 (excerpt of the Statistical Yearbook of the Church) and Statistics of the Catholic Church in Korea from 2003 to 2012, documents concerning the General Assemblies of CBCK and National Committees, etc. This part also includes List of Documents of the Catholic Church, translated into Korean from 2004 to 2012, and List of Catholic scholarly journals by themes, activities of Catholic research institutes. Finally, this part contains the List of the Korean Priests in chronological order according to year of ordination, from St. Andrew Kim Taegon to those ordained on 31 December 2012.