by CHRISTINE GOUNDER
CHRISTCHURCH — A 48-year-old South Korean man remains banned from his church because of allegations he is a North Korean spy.
Eugene Chang was accused of spying for the North Korean government after he appeared in a mockumentary, which argues that the world is controlled by corporates who use consumerism, religion and pop culture to prevent people rising up against their corrupt rulers.
The satirical film, called Propaganda, was posted on YouTube and purported to have come from North Korea, but was in fact made by Kiwi filmmakers.
The controversy over the film and Mr Chang’s involvement flared last month about the time all eyes were on North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and his threats of nuclear war against South Korea and the United States.
Mr Chang, a Christchurch demolition expert, played a North Korean psychology professor in the one and a half hour long film and narrated the story, which was voiced over in English.
As the professor, Mr Chang accuses the Catholic Church of supporting the Nazis, protecting child abusers and claiming Catholicism is the ideal choice for terrorists, the Mafia and the IRA.
Via Propaganda, he also claims Catholicism protects the pope, “the richest man in the world, who travels to Africa pleading for an end to poverty, despite never using his own riches to help his most desperate followers”.
Mr Chang, who has been in New Zealand for 12 years, claims he has been ostracised and banned from the Korean Catholic Church in Riccarton, after someone saw the film on YouTube and told the Korean Embassy he was a North Korean spy.
But the chaplain of the church in question, Fr Matthew Kim, said Mr Chang was controversial well before the mockumentary. He said relations became strained even more after the release of the film.
Fr Kim said members of his congregation came to him saying they were offended by the mockumentary criticising the Church and felt uneasy with Mr Chang.
“You have to understand that North Korea is a very sensitive issue for South Koreans. Many have lost families to the Korean War, and North Korea is always threatening South Korea. That is why they are not comfortable.
“I don’t believe he is a North Korean spy. Even if he was, it wouldn’t matter to me, because I am a priest.”
Mr Chang claims he was also refused communion at the Korean church, but Fr Kim said this is not true.
“He was never refused communion, but was told to go to the front because the assistant at the back only serves communion to the choir, and sometimes women and children.”
Because of the escalating tensions in the church, the Bishop of Christchurch, Bishop Barry Jones, asked Mr Chang to attend another church.
“Eugene is not banished from the Catholic Church,” said Bishop Barry. “He is welcome to attend any other Catholic Church, but the Korean one, until things get sorted out.”
Bishop Jones said the decision was made in the interest of the congregation.
“I’m thinking of the good order of the Mass. Korean people are very devout and when they come to Mass on Sundays, just like everyone else, just want to say their prayers, worship God and go home without being upset by anybody or anything.”
Bishop Jones said he understands why the Korean community are offended by the Propaganda film: “I’m not surprised, it’s anti-Western society and anti-Catholic.”
Mr Chang said the controversy was fanned by the local Korean paper, the Korea Review, which was the first medium to run the story, followed by The Press and TV3’s current affairs programme, Third Degree.
However the editor of the Korea Review, Ho Chang Lee, said the article, in fact, cleared Mr Chang’s name and verified that the film was fiction.
And while Mr Chang has downplayed concerns about him starring in the film, his fellow Koreans in Christchurch can’t understand why he agreed to pose as a North Korean.
Korean Society of Christchurch president, Judy Yun, said South Korea is constantly under the threat of war from North Korea and, with escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula, the community’s reaction is understandable.
“We, as the first generation, are educated and raised in Korea and still feel a strong bond to our home country. That’s why we couldn’t welcome Eugene’s decision to join this film hailing North Korea, even after it was explained it was a fake.
“After causing a lot of trouble and upsetting the community, the filmmaker and Eugene said ‘It’s just satire. Get over it.’ We don’t think we can say ‘cool’.”
A judge on the Tribunal of the Catholic Church for New Zealand, Msgr Brendan Daly, said no one has the right to slander the pope or try to destroy his reputation.
He said this is clearly stated under canon law, the legal system of the Catholic Church.
“Canon 220 states: ‘No one may unlawfully harm the good reputation which a person enjoys, or violate the right of every person to protect his or her privacy.’”
Catholics are also not allowed to promote animosity against the pope.
Canon 1373 states: “A person who publicly incites his or her subjects to hatred or animosity against the Apostolic See or the ordinary because of some act of ecclesiastical authority or ministry, or who provokes the subjects to disobedience against them, is to be punished by interdict or other just penalties.”

Questions over nature of the film
by PETER GRACE
AUCKLAND — Canon lawyer Msgr Brendan Daly, who commented from a canon law point of view on the Christchurch Korean Catholic community controversy, has no doubt that the film at the heart of the ruckus is genuine propaganda (see story this page).
Msgr Daly said that just watching the first five minutes, then skipping forward to 20 minutes and watching another five minutes, should make that clear to a viewer. In fact, he said, a Korean seminarian who watched the Christchurch actor (Eugene Chang) who has been shouldered out of the Korean community, had said, “He’s not from the south. He’s got to be from the north [because of his accent]”.
NZ Catholic is not so definite that the film is straight-out propaganda.
The film comes across as propaganda and that, after all, is its title — Propaganda.
Our reservations are:
• It would seem unusual to title a propaganda film as exactly that.
• A university professor is introduced at one point, but he is Mr Chang.
• Although the narration is professionally delivered in a wholly serious tone, some claims are amusing, even comical.
• There is a great deal of text in the film, and no one in the NZ Catholic office reads Korean.
• Mr Chang wrote in an email to Msgr Daly that the film has been entered in the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, and will be entered in the festivals in Berlin and at Cannes. It doesn’t seem likely that a polemic would qualify.
• The film was made with support from the New Zealand Film Commission. The film-makers are New Zealanders Slavko Martinov and Mike Kelland.
Mr Martinov was reported in February as saying that Mr Chang translated the script and was invited to play the part of a North Korean psychology professor.
The film can be seen on You Tube at www.YouTube.com/watch?v=jGxbOVscHPs