Mass Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of Father Kim Seung-hoon, Who Exposed the Cover-up and Minimization of Park Jong-cheol's Torture Death

Memorial Mass at Myeongdong Cathedral on the 1st

A memorial mass marking the 20th anniversary of Father Kim Seung-hoon, who exposed the cover-up and minimization of the torture death of Park Jong-cheol, will be held. The Catholic Priests' Association for Justice announced that the mass will be offered at 7 p.m. on the 1st at Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul.

Father Kim is remembered as a leading figure in the democratization movement, having served as the head of the Catholic Priests' Association for Justice from the 1970s to the 1980s. During the 7th anniversary mass of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement in 1987, he issued a statement titled "The Torture Death of Park Jong-cheol Was Fabricated," which ignited the June Democratic Uprising.

Father Kim Seunghun [Photo provided by the Catholic Priests' Association for Justice]

On March 1, 1976, the year following the announcement of Emergency Decree No. 9, he delivered a sermon at a joint Catholic-Protestant mass held at Myeongdong Cathedral for the release of detainees and the realization of the March 1 spirit, focusing on the abolition of Emergency Decree No. 9 and the end of the Yushin regime.

He endured several hardships in prison. He was detained in 1979 due to the YWCA sham wedding incident and was held for 54 days in 1980 in connection with the Kim Dae-jung rebellion conspiracy case. In 1982, while serving as president of the Korean Church Social Mission Council, he was also imprisoned over an anti-American statement incident.

Father Kim passed away from natural causes on September 2, 2003. The memorial mass will be jointly offered by the Joy and Hope Pastoral Research Institute and the Catholic Human Rights Committee.

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