A statue of St. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn at the Jeoldu-san martyrs' shrine in Seoul, South Korea / Rabanus Flavus|Wikipedia|CC BY-SA 3.0
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 11, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
The Vatican will dedicate a new statue of the patron saint of Korea, St. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, in St. Peter’s Basilica this Saturday.
Born in 1821, Tae-gŏn was the first native Korean priest and one of the country’s earliest martyrs.
The statue of the Korean martyr was proposed by Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung-sik, a Korean prelate and prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy, and approved by Pope Francis, according to the Holy See’s news arm, Vatican News.
The pope has pointed to Tae-gŏn’s missionary zeal as a model for all Christians to follow.
“The Christian is by nature a witness of Jesus,” Vatican News reported Francis saying in a May 24 homily. “St. Andrew Kim and the other Korean faithful have demonstrated that the testimony of the Gosp
Saint Andrew Kim Taegon (1821-1846) was a pioneer of human dignity, spreading the truth that all men and women are equal and have the same dignity, in a caste-ordered society