Worshippers attend an in-person service at the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul on Jan. 24, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Church organizations are reluctant to penalize pastors who have committed sexual crimes, a civic group has claimed.
The Korean Christian Alliance for Church Reform said that among 80 pastors who were convicted of sexual crimes between 2013 and 2022, only one of them has been penalized by church organizations.
The data is based on the responses to official inquiries made by the civic group to some 60 church institutions where the 80 pastors whose sexual crimes have been made public through the organization’s investigations and church gazettes have been affiliated.
Seven institutions demonstrated their intent to take necessary steps to penalize seven of the criminally charged pastors.
Six institutions, however, said they were reluctant to penalize the other seven pastors, mostly because they had either left or retired from the institution or had moved to a different affiliation.
The remaining 46 institutions failed to disclose any information about the penalties for 65 pastors.
Despite the church order that stipulates the penalties for sexual crimes committed by pastors, the institutions lack the will to put them to justice, critics said.
Others pointed out that churches are in a blind spot of the legal system, as they are excluded from the list of children or youth-related agencies that restrict the recruitment of sexual criminals.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
