Oh Hyun-Joo is the 17th South Korean ambassador to the Holy See
Oh Hyun-Joo, a Catholic, is the new South Korean ambassador to the Vatican. (Photo: CPBC)
South Korea has first time appointed a Catholic woman as its ambassador to the Holy See.
Oh Hyun-Joo, who was deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has been appointed the ambassador to the Holy See, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Jan. 4, reported Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation (CPBC).
The ministry said that Oh’s expertise in areas of multilateral diplomacy and international development cooperation as a member of South Korea’s permanent mission to the UN would be an asset in her new role.
“Ambassador Oh is a Catholic and a female diplomat who can manage bilateral issues in celebration of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties with the Vatican this year,” a ministry official said, according to a report by Yonhap news agency.
Oh is currently at the Vatican City to attend the funeral of retired Pope Benedict XVI, which Pope Francis will officiate in St. Peter’s Square, media reports said.
Oh is the 17th South Korean ambassador to the Holy See. She was born in 1969 and joined the Korean foreign services in 1994.
She was baptized a Catholic in 2003 at St. Joseph Korean Parish, Archdiocese of Newark, in the US while she was serving as the second secretary to the United Nations.
Oh has served as consul to Chengdu, counselor to Geneva, special assistant to the President of the United Nations Human Rights Council, and director of development cooperation.
The first ambassador from South Korea to the Vatican was Shin Hyun-Joon, who was appointed in 1974.
The Vatican has to its credit around 20 female diplomats from all over the world.
However, Africa was the first continent to send a female ambassador to the Vatican.
The Vatican accredited Bernadette Olowo from Uganda on Jan. 23, 1975, thus making her the first-ever female ambassador to the Vatican.
The diplomatic relations and exchanges between both nations have played key roles in each other’s history.
The first apostolic delegate to South Korea, Bishop Patrick James Byrne played a key role in the Maryknoll mission in Northern Korea in 1923.
In 1947, he along with Archbishop Montini (late Pope Paul VI) and Archbishop Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII), the Apostolic Nuncio, actively supported getting South Korea recognized as the only government of the Korean Peninsula through behind-the-scenes negotiations with representatives of each country.
Bishop Byrne was arrested by the communist regime of North Korea during its invasion of South Korea in 1950.
Bishop Byrne died of exhaustion and pneumonia the same year at Ha Chang Ri village near the Manchurian Border during his “death march” with around 700 prisoners of war.
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