The Korean War ended seventy years ago, but memories of the victims are still fresh. Amongst those who died was Columban martyr Fr Jim Maginn. Fr John Boles visited Korea to learn more about his story.
Panmunjeom must rank as one of the world’s most bizarre tourist attractions. Every morning, convoys of brightly coloured sightseeing buses wend their way up to carefully positioned lookout points.
From these, visitors can feast their eyes on the gun emplacements, barbed wire fences and minefields of perhaps the most heavily fortified border on earth – the Demilitarized Zone (or DMZ) – which divides North and South Korea.
Tourists can also see the hut where on the 27th July 1953, an armistice was signed which brought to an end the Korean War. The conflict, which left some three million dead, finished almost where it had started some three years earlier, at the infamous 38th parallel.
The victims included several Columbans, among Fr Jim Maginn. His is a truly remarkable story.
Columban martyr: Fr Jim Maginn (1911-1950)
Jim was born in the USA but grew up in Northern Ireland. He joined the Columbans in 1929 and 1936 was sent to Korea, a country which had been under Japanese occupation since 1910. The timing of his appointment turned out to be unfortunate, for just five years later, on the 7th December 1941, Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbour and entered the Second World War.
Jim was promptly arrested as an enemy alien and spent the next four years in confinement, only regaining his freedom at the war’s end.
After recovering from his ordeal, Jim returned to his pastoral duties in Korea, and in 1949 became pastor of a new parish in the coastal town of Samcheok, not far from the newly established border between North and South Korea.
This frontier had been agreed upon by the victorious allies in 1945, with the government in the North being supported by Stalin and, later, Mao Zedong, and that of the South by US President Truman.
Once again, the timing of Jim’s appointment was less than fortuitous.
Fr John Boles near the DMZ, overlooking the river Imjin, where the Korean war began in 1950.
Scarcely a year later, on the 25th June 1950, the North Korean leader Kim Il-sung launched a surprise invasion of his southern neighbour. South Korean forces were quickly overwhelmed, and soon the North Korean army was bearing down on Samcheok.
Much of the local population prepared to flee. Jim was urged to join the exodus, but he steadfastly refused, declaring it to be his duty to stay and accompany those of his flock who were unable to escape.
After the war was over, the parish of Samcheok commissioned an official testimony of what happened next, based on eyewitness accounts. It affirms that Jim, “divided the parish money among the believers, telling them to use it when necessary. On 1st July the Communist Army took over Samcheok and on 2nd July, Fr James was arrested, having celebrated Sunday Mass.
Monument to martyred Fr Jim Maginn at Samcheok.
The Communists came unexpectedly, and he asked them to wait while he went into the church to pray in front of the altar. As the soldiers pushed him out of the church with their rifle butts he told them, “I’m not going to flee, if I’d wanted to flee, I would have done so before this, so take me as I am.” Saying that he walked out of the church with dignity.
He was detained at the local police station. Some hours later, John Kim Su-song, a teacher at Samcheok High School, was also arrested and detained.
Jim and John Kim spent two nights together, often the targets of verbal and physical abuse on the part of the authorities. The remainder of the account comes from John Kim’s testimony.
“On the night of 4th July, Fr Jim was taken away by the Communists. Anticipating his death, he blessed John Kim who was in the next cell, saying to him, ‘Let us meet in heaven, John; never deny the Faith’, and walked out. That night Jim was shot, martyred at the side of a little stream.”
The villagers secretly marked his resting place.
By October the tides of war had changed. Douglas MacArthur’s audacious amphibious landing at Incheon sent the North Korean army scrambling back across the 38th parallel. Samcheok was liberated and, in October 1951, Jim’s body was exhumed and buried in a place of honour beside Chuncheon City Cathedral.
However, the parishioners of Samcheok held dear the memory of their murdered parish priest, and down the years continued to celebrate his life and sacrifice.
Columban Superior General Fr Tim Mulroy at the site of Fr Maginn’s makeshift grave.
In March 2023, seven decades after the end of the Korean War, the parish invited Columban representatives from all over the world, led by our Superior General Fr Tim Mulroy, to attend one of its regular memorial services for Jim and to visit the site of his original makeshift grave.
It was a moving occasion for all concerned, bringing home, once again, confirmation of how evil people can kill the body, but the spirit of the martyr – be it Jesus or Jim Maginn – lives on forever.
