By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — Maryknoll Father Gerard Hammond has been named the winner of the Gaudium et Spes Award from the Knights of Columbus for the 84-year-old priest’s missionary work with tuberculosis patients in North Korea.
Father Hammond said he has gone to North Korea more than 50 times since 1995, with all trips coming under the aegis of the Eugene Bell Foundation, named for a Presbyterian minister who was sent to Korea as a missionary in 1895. The foundation — run by the grandson of another Presbyterian minister who served in Korea from 1912 to 1960 — provides food aid, health resources, and teaching, research and consulting services in North Korea.
Living in South Korea for the past 57 years, the priest estimated his mission trips have helped about 250,000 North Koreans stricken with TB, plus another 2,000-3,000 who have a multidrug-resistant strain of TB since he redirected the focus of his work a decade ago.
Something Father Hammond believes is important for Americans to know about North Koreans: “They don’t have horns. The people there are very friendly, meaning I’ve never had anyone really insult me because I was a priest or because I was an American or because I was a Maryknoll missioner.”
North Korea’s government “could refuse me entry if they wished, but I think we came to the conclusion that through the Eugene Bell Foundation, we’re a purely humanitarian organization, so they respect you,” he told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview Aug. 1 from St. Louis, where he was to receive the Gaudium et Spes Award, the Knights’ highest award, during the fraternal organization’s 135th international convention there.
“We trust them and they trust us. Trust is a very important attitude to have when you work with people,” the priest said.
Father Hammond said Maryknoll first had a presence in Korea in 1923. “Our roots are there. And if your roots are in one place, how can you forget the people who are there? How can you abandon them?” he asked. “Even though they (Maryknoll) had to leave the North, they felt they had to be there in some way or some fashion.”
There are five Maryknoll missioners serving in South Korea.