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French missionary Bishop Rene Dupont who made Korea his home dies at 95
Rene Marie Albert Dupont, a French-born bishop serving in Korea, speaks during an interview with Yonhap News Agency in the county of Uiseong, North Gyeongsang Province, June 12, 2023. Yonhap
By Lee Hae-rin
French-born missionary Bishop Rene Dupont, who devoted over 70 years of his life to the poor and underprivileged in rural Korea and contributed to human rights movements in the country, died Thursday. He was 95.
The bishop had been receiving treatment at a hospital in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, after undergoing emergency surgery for a cerebral infarction earlier this week.
Born in 1929 in Orleans in north-central France, Dupont entered seminary to become a missionary in 1950. He was ordained a priest in 1953.
He was dispatched to Korea in 1954, shortly after the 1950-1953 Korean War.
During his seminary years, he worked for the poor and underprivileged in rural areas. He said in interviews with local media that his teenage experiences with World War II helped him understand and sympathize with war-shattered Korea.
In his early years of priesthood in Korea, Dupont started pastoral work in Daejeon, where he chose the Korean name “Dubong” and served poor farmers, leprosy patients and people with disabilities as the head of the Korean branch of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.
Between 1969 and 1990, he served as the first bishop of Andong, the smallest Catholic diocese in Korea. Many of the people he served were refugees who settled in the southeastern area to avoid authoritarian persecution, leading to his involvement with local democracy movements.
He organized the Catholic Farmers’ Movement to strengthen the local community and improve farmers’ rights, while also contributing to expanding women’s opportunities for education by establishing schools.
In 1973, he established Damian Clinic for leprosy patients in Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, which includes a hospital and vocational training center for people with disabilities. He also built the Andong Farmer Center for the local community, which served a pivotal role in the region’s movements for farmers’ rights.
Notably, in 1978, he actively defended Oh Won-chun of Andong, a farmer who was falsely accused of violating emergency measures and was kidnapped and assaulted by police under the authoritarian regime of former President Park Chung-hee.
Pope John Paul II, left, and Bishop Rene Dupont of Andong Diocese, Korea, meet in Vatican City in this undated file photo. Korea Times file
The government at the time tried to force Dupont to leave the country voluntarily for his role in supporting Oh and bringing attention the situation. However, then-Pope John Paul II said if the Korean government expelled the bishop, the Vatican would not recognize anyone else as the head of the diocese, and Dupont remained in his position.
He resigned in 1990 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age.
He was granted Korean citizenship and a passport in 2019 and received several awards and recognitions, including the Immigrant of the Year award from the Ministry of Justice for his contributions to Korean society.