Double Wedding for Two of Fifteen Kids

“With 15 children, Mrs. Bernadette Reeves has mastered the art of organization,” said the article in Melbourne, Australia's The Age [Jan. 10].

“Those qualities were brought to the fore yesterday as she added the final touches to the double wedding of daughters Kathleen, 29, and Helen, 24.

“Two brides, two grooms, eight bridesmaids, eight groomsmen, and a flower girl stretched across the front of St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in North Melbourne as testament to the organization that went into yesterday's wedding.

“Making the event easier for Mrs. Reeves was that she too was part of a double bridal party at the same church 43 years ago.

“Only one of the Trentham-based Reeves clan was unable to attend to watch sisters Kathleen and Helen marry respective partners Dean Crewther and Rodney Smith….

“According to the brides’ mother, there were many similarities to the day she and her sister Margaret married in the same church. ‘Even some of the faces are the same,’ Mrs. Reeves said.”

According to the article, Mrs. Reeves was pregnant for 135 months out of one 22-year span. Her children range in age from 19 to 41.

“The father of the brides, Mr. Alan Reeves, looked relieved,” said the report.

From the Blood of the Martyrs

Korea may be living proof of the maxim that triumph springs from the blood of the martyrs.

“The recent election of Kim Dae Jung means that South Korea for the first time will have a Roman Catholic president-a reflection of the stunning growth of Christianity in one of Asia's most religiously diverse nations,” read a report in The Washington Post [Jan. 15].

“Kim is one of the first Catholics to lead an Asian nation, with the exception of the predominantly Catholic Philippines. In his New Year's address, he alluded to the deep Catholic faith that has influenced his career, calling South Korea's economic crisis and his election ‘God's will,’” reported the article.

The paper quoted Kim crediting God with preserving him despite attempts on his life and years of imprisonment by South Korea's military dictators in the 70s and 80s.

“I have been imprisoned, I was sentenced to death, but I always believed in my cause and trusted in God,” he is quoted saying. “I thank God for what I have accomplished … I try to practice God's words, ‘Love thy neighbors.’ And I'm trying to make a just society, which I think is also God's message.”

According to the article, “the first priest it [the Catholic Church] sent was met at the border and beheaded… In the next 100 years, an estimated 10,000 Catholics were killed, usually beheaded, and their bodies were thrown into the Han River” until the end of the 19th century and an increase in trade with the country.

Pope John Paul II has canonized 103 Korean martyrs, according to the article, so that now Korea has more canonized saints than any non-European nation.

The Catholic Church is the single largest religious organization in Korea, according to the article, though Catholics only make up 7% of the population. Buddhists there are split into thousands of different sects, and the Protestants into more than 400.