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Miracles of the Catholic Church

It pains me to admit this, but arrogance is kind of the main trait of Korean Catholicism. Why? Because the existence of Korean Catholics is a Catholic miracle. I'm not exaggerating. This is the story Korean Catholics are taught about ourselves. And it's not unjustified. We were not converted by a persuasive visiting Jesuit. No. In the 1770s a study group of Korean aristocratic scholars (privileged nerds, hello, ancestors) decided to read Catholic texts translated into Chinese (which they could all read, because Chinese letters were the lingua franca of the aristocracy across N.E. Asia) because they wanted to know else was going on in the world, and decided they really liked this Catholicism thing, and just began practicing the religion on their own. They later realized through further reading that this is not actually proper, and then imported priests who had been sent to China by the Vatican. The urge to know everything through to the end and by reading and not being particularly interesting in talking to anyone else about it until you absolutely have to are trait that I have even now. And we OWN this religion, Catholicism, because we are descendants of a self-taught, self-awakened set of Catholics.

Catholicism is also much more egalitarian, and less misogynist (yeah for real!) to me than the clenched-up and radicalized version of Confucianism that was the one that we remember with short historic memories. This is yet another thing a Japanese invasion fucked up by the way - the OG Confucianism that lasted for most of the 500 years of Joseon wasn't actually as terrible and inequal as what came after the trauma of 임진왜란 but if you care about this you can learn about the problems having a violent barbarian neighbor on your own time.

Sacrilege

I find these distinctions tricky so I wanted to make note of them: heresy vs sacrilege vs blasphemy vs apostasy. Heresy is a teaching that contradicts the orthodox beliefs of a school of thought. Sacrilege is disrespect for something sacred. Blasphemy is basically spoken sacrilege - blame god for evil is sacrilege, or denying god credit is also sacrilege. Apostasy is when you reject an entire philosophy.

Use of religious iconography is neither religious nor sacrilegious, according to some, and others interpret such actions as appropriation of religious symbols for personal gain or to attract attention, which either is sacrilegious or at minimum, distasteful.

The lines that Yunho draws in his performances waver and wobble, because he does a duck and slide away from confrontation at every single opportunity.

For example he will take this pose for this photograph in a shirt that has this collar, and this fan took it exactly as intended: Instead of '아멘' (A-men) she wrote 호 (for Yunho)멘 (and apparently isn't very aware that Ho-Men might be an entirely appropriate but unintended pun in vernacular english. So HE may not have committed appropriation or sacrilege but he definitely got one girl to do it for him, and in praise of his beauty, which - double the sin.

Well if she can do that, I can do this. LOOK. (Also this is Passover week and this Friday is Good Friday and this Sunday is Easter and .... ) (Whatever. I'll just go to the Catholic part of hell. It's fine).

Why did I need to make the above? Well because Yunho does this shit. That he does. Did. Will do. During Halazia on stage. And is willing to demonstrate back stage. This Catholic gesture that caught my eye and made him suddenly much more interesting to me and I have ended up all the way here.

gifs by user nunutiny

The thing is, when he's asked in a jokey joke way, during the course of a Yunho Pop, to make the sign of the cross because the girls want to see it for their ... purposes, he does the thing that Yunho does when he is definitely not going to give you what you want.

At the start of this clip, he talks about going to a very big cathedral in Oakland. He also attended mass at this Cathedral. Ha Ha Ha "You want to see me make the Sign of the Cross? Why? I didn't expect that Our Atiny would so like my making the sign of the cross. Our Atiny - I didn't know Our Atiny would like my making the sign of the cross this much. Oh, you like it?" He's actually really offended, which is why the mirthless laughter, the asking the why, the saying he didn't know they'd like it this much (telling a blatant lie.) He heard the screaming that happens when he does this in concert. The Atiny that made this edit ends it where she ends it, so I actually ended up looking up the Live in order to check if he actually made the sign of the cross on demand during mass phone sex, oops sorry, Yunho Pop, and I was going to go after him like the Inquisition, but actually he doesn't. He stared down the camera for a very long silence before moving on to the next topic.

I heard an attorney once say that there's a hugely disproportionate number of attorneys and legal scholars who are Catholic.

Korean Catholics Feel Ownership Of the West

Yunho goes to a mass or a cathedral in every city he stopped in, on the European tour in 2025. Or at least, he said so, and he buys rosaries all the time. I also do this. I think most Korean Catholics, even the cafeteria catholics who don't go every Sunday to mass or do confession every week like you're supposed to. There's such a traumatizing history of mass executions (103 Korean martyrs were canonized at the same time in the 1980s) in Korean Catholicism, and I feel a weird ownership of all the Cathedrals in the world. I'm allowed to go there, I'm supposed to go there. My forebears bought entry to all the Cathedrals in all the world through their deaths. I think a lot of Korean Catholics of various levels of commitment feel this way. And absolutely all of us have a Rosary fetish.

Father Ateez WTF WTF

Did you know the CEO of Ateez is also a Catholic? I suspected that he must be, since a rosary bracelet is not a normal gift that agnostics or atheists give people.

The fact that this man has his charges call him FATHER is even more weird to me than ever. Korean Catholics do not call our priests "Father.'" We the Laity address God as Father, but we do not at all ever not a single time address any priest as "Father." We call priests literally, Sir Priest (Shinbu-nim 신부님), bishops Sir Bishop (주교님) etc. We don't call them Father. So this Catholic man has his mostly irreligious business charges call him FATHER which ... I really find this more disturbing than I did when I first heard it now that I learned from Yunho that his boss is Catholic.

The religiosity of the lyrics in the songs (and the set up of the lore being about otherwordly saviors, self sacrifice, going into battle even though you know you are outmatched) makes a lot of sense though, if the CEO is this openly religious.

St. Stefano

Korean Catholics have a concept of a Baptismal name. You 'take on' the name of a Catholic Saint in addition to your given Korean name when you are baptized in to the church. We call this 세례명. In most other countries, I think the baby just get baptized with the name they're going to use - or maybe as a middle name or whatever. But see, Korean Catholics are very aware that we are working with an imported religion whose roots lie elsewhere. So you have an identity as a Korean (Yunho Jeong) and you get an identity as a Catholic (Stefano).