Catholic in Korea: Part 1

     I've been wanting to write a post for Catholics in Korea for a while. Before coming to Korea, I knew that only around 10% of the population was Catholic. However, it didn't really sink in how hard it would be for me to find a church, and go to mass when I first arrived. I didn't even know the Korean word for church, and using my Korean-English dictionary with romanized Korean wasn't very helpful in this regard. After a few weeks I found a church near my apartment, but the mass was, of course, in Korean. So, I have compiled (what I hope is) a few useful resources for newly arrived Catholics in Korea.

Useful vocabulary:

mass: 미사 (mee-sah)
Catholic: 천주교의 (Chun-jew-kyo-we)
church:교회 (kyo-hweh)


In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: 성부와 성자와 성령의 이름으로 (sung-boo-wa, sung-ja-wa, sung-ryung-we, ee-room-oo-row)
Amen:아멘 (A-meh)
Peace be with you: 평화를 빕니다 (pyung-wa-rule beep-nee-da)
Thanks be to God: 하느님 감사합니다 (ha-new-neem kam-sahm-nee-da)

Finding a Catholic church:

• Ask about Catholic churches on your city's foreigner Facebook page.
• Look for statues of Mary outside of church buildings.
• Look for Catholic symbols or pictures on banners or signs, for example this picture from the Jubilee of Mercy:

• Look for your Diocese or Archdiocese on this website: http://english.cbck.or.kr/dioceses    Then see if your Diocese has its own website. For example, I live in Suncheon which is part of the Archdiocese of Gwangju. I click on the Archdiocese of Gwangju page and scroll to "Archdiocesan Office". This section lists a Korean website for the Archdiocese: (http://www.gjcatholic.or.kr)     I then use Google translate to try to translate this website, which is generally a poor translation. However, I'm able to find "Information Parish" which leads me to a map of the Archdiocese of Gwangju divided into regions. I click on a box that says "Suncheon District". This results in a list of all of the Catholic churches in Suncheon and their addresses and phone numbers. You can even click on individual churches to get more information and maps to that specific church. I can't verify that every Diocese or city will have a google translatable website, but it definitely saves you a headache if it does. 

     Hopefully this is useful in helping you find a church in your city. If you ask about English masses on your city's foreigner Facebook page, you should be able to get a response. Although very difficult to sit through at times, I prefer to experience mass in total Korean immersion so I can become better at the language and get out of my comfort zone. If you also would like to take this route, I highly, highly recommend investing in a subscription of Magnificat so you can at least understand the readings (also really nice for daily prayer). My mom bought me a subscription as a gift and it is shipped from France to my school address. If you are getting a subscription, be sure to have it sent to a reliable address as the small book may not fit into your apartment mail slot. 

More about Korean mass, and an entire translation of the Order of Mass in Part 2... coming soon!