The
Popular and Democratic Repubblic of North Korea has about twenty-five
million inhabitants. It is the country of the world where the
religious freedom is more denied. Infact the regime declares that
religion has negative effects on the people, besides it imposes on
the population the divine cult of the leader and the ideology of
“Juche” which is connected to the Marxism, the Maoism and the
nationalism. This regime took power in 1945: in that period in the
country there were almost three hundred thousand christians and
fifty-thousand of them were catholics. Nevertheless they were
persecuted and killed during the years of the war against the South
(1950-1953) and also in the following decades. Fifty thousand
christians are still imprisoned.
Today there are
three-thousand catholics officially registred by the authorities and
other seven thousand citizens that practise the religion secretly
(many of them are not baptized). The regime has only recognised the
Church of Jangchung and has expelled all the priests and the
missionaries. Infact the celebrations in that Church are presided by
a lay. The totalitarian government only recognises one catholic
association: Josean. It usually requires economic supports to the
“Commission for the reconciliation of the korean people”. But
since 2010 the government of South Korea has interrupted every
project of cooperation with the North. In spite of this many North
Korea citizens are attracted by traditional religions, hanging down
the faith from a generation to another.
In August, before the
pope visited Seul, in Kaesong, a town near the “kurtain of bamboo”,
a group of Northern-korean citizens had taken part to a mass with
Southern-korean people. Considering all this, it seems clear that a
kind of government that is able to completely delete the religious
feeling of everyone can not exist .
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