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R. Kittel: Address to Summit 2022, Session VIIIa
Written by Dr. Robert Kittel, Co-Chair, UPF Asia Pacific
Saturday, August 13, 2022
Address to Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference,
Seoul, Korea, August 11-15, 2022
Thank you, Dr. Song Bae Jin, for your faith and your dedication to promote the ideas, the thoughts, the life and, most importantly, the heart of Father and Mother Moon.
My presentation is on the topic of raising patriotic youth for nation building and a Philippine model. I’m unable to go into the Philippine model because of time, but I would like to recognize two Filipinos. I know one is here. I’m not sure of the other one. They are Ani Andanar, who is the Women’s Federation for World Peace representative in the Philippines, and Maria Lourdes Julianne, nicknamed Girlie. I think she might be attending one of the other concurrent sessions.
Regarding the Philippine model, we are currently working with six government agencies: the National Youth Commission, the National Security Council, the National Task Force to End Communism, the Department of Interior for Local Government, the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education.
The most recent youth movement that Mother Moon has founded was the International Association for Youth and Students for Peace in 2017, collecting together decades of youth work. When I arrived here in Korea, I opened up my email and I was so happy to find that not only are UPF and the Women’s Federation holding general consultative status at the UN, but when Mother Moon established the Youth and Students for Peace, she asked us to apply for consultative status. And on August 10th, we received official recognition from the United Nations ECOSOC that this organization is also now part of the United Nations. The purpose is not to gloat or just to be proud, but to say we can now work more effectively on a global level.
The head of YSP is Koji Matsuda, and the regional head is Ronnie Sidhu Star. They are not able to be here today.
The Youth and Students for Peace was established in 2017. It was registered in 48 countries and is working in more than 100 countries. It brings the passion, power and purity of youth to the culture, and it’s built on decades of education. I will go through the decades of education and let our actions speak for our words.
One of the first organizations that Father Moon established was the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles. It supports students during their college years by providing a network of students committed to discovering and practicing life principles for personal development and leadership skills that they can use to make a positive impact and contribute to society.
Next, Youth Seminar on World Religions (YSWR). The goal is to bring together educated youth to discover the unity of religion and the oneness of humankind. Three years in a row, they toured the religious heritage sites of the world’s religions to study, learn and experience other faiths. The Religious Youth Service (RYS) is an experiential service-learning project to give an opportunity for young people to live together and work together to serve their local communities.
In 1975, Father Moon sent out missionaries to 120 nations in the world: 120 missionaries from America, 120 from Germany, and 120 from Japan. We see here in the picture the original missionary to Africa, Mrs. Cathy Rigney. She is still there. She’s now in a wheelchair. But she won’t give up.
Pure Love Education is a nationwide movement of young people who believe love and sex are too precious to be given away freely and they have decided to prepare wisely for marriage. But they don’t just think about it. They get loud about it.
The Freedom Leadership Foundation, the political organization established in the United States, was active mostly in the 1960s and seventies. Leaders received official invitations from governments around the world to explore and speak out on the social impact of communism. The FLF was affiliated with the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, founded in the 1980s to protest threats to religious freedom. On this foundation, Father Moon initiated a tour of Russian students to America.
In 1990, when Father and Mother Moon met President Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, Father Moon advised the Soviet leader that he should take the teachings of Marxism and Leninism out of the school system and replace them with universal peace education. He then asked him to send students to America to begin this initiative. Thousands came here. Here is a group in front of the Statue of Liberty.
The University of Bridgeport was provided funding in the 1990s to help keep the university from financial closure. Funds were provided through the Professors World Peace Academy. Not only was the university rescued financially, it thrived, ultimately having the most diverse student body of international students of any campus in the United States.
The Unification Theological Seminary offers graduate-level education programs in an interfaith context aimed at cultivating heart, mind and spirit. It bridges religious and cultural divides. It promotes leadership, service and real engagement with the world and provides tools for success in ministry and professional life.
Ocean Challenge offers a unique, hands-on immersion experience of God’s creation for young adults in pristine Kodiak, Alaska. With the ocean as the training ground comes development of character and confidence via seamanship, responsible stewardship of the environment and the cultivation of faith through experiencing God in nature.
As a way to promote sports for peace, Father Moon sponsored professional and youth soccer teams in Korea and Brazil. He established the Sun Moon Peace Competition Cup: “Play Soccer, Make Peace.” Martial Arts Federation for World Peace is another of their investments in youth and sports.
The Universal Ballet teaches self-discipline through dance, as Mrs. Ann Higgins demonstrated to us on the first day of this conference. It’s tough. It takes hours, days, weeks, months and years of training to make motion seem seamless. Yes, God’s spirit moved over the waters. It danced. It created.
Hyojeong means living a culture of heart. Or we can say living in a culture of art. Music is the arrangement of sound into melodies, rhythms and unique harmonies. This beauty does not come by chance or accident. It is created. It is purposeful. And it comes from the heart and has the purpose to create peace and happiness.
The Bridgeport International Academy is a private college preparatory school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, located adjacent to the seaside campus of the University of Bridgeport, where students have the opportunity to take classes at a college level and use their facilities. The New Hope Academies’ private elementary and middle schools raise the next generation of global leaders.
The Generation Peace Academy is a full-time, year-long program enabling high school graduates to receive faith education and leadership training by serving in developed countries for one year and becoming global missionaries.
As was already mentioned, the CAUSA program is being used effectively in the Philippines. It’s still going on. Mr. Bill Lay and Dr. Tom Ward played an instrumental part. The CAUSA educational manual is about the rise of communism and how religious communities should respond to it.
Aewon provides a helping hand and a willing heart and a healthy second chance to orphans and needy and disabled children.
The Wonmo Pyongae Foundation, meaning Eternal Parent and Peaceful Love, is a nonprofit organization established when Father Moon passed away. Mother Moon sold the helicopter that they used and donated the funds for scholarships for children. The goal is to create peaceful, loving families as one family under God.
So my question is, why? Why did Father Moon spend decades and tens, hundreds of millions of dollars for the youth in the fields of education, religion, politics, art, ocean environment, every field of human study? Why did he do that? And it continues today through Mother Moon. We heard of the three headaches of God. Father Moon said the most serious social problems, youth problems and family breakdown, are the other two of the headaches that have to be solved.
How does Father Moon solve these problems? Very simple, but actually very difficult. With the heart of a parent and the shoes of a servant. It’s that simple and that powerful.
I conclude with the logo of the program that Mother Moon initially started in 2017 called Youth and Students for Peace. You’ll see in the logo two letters, the initials H and J. Dr. Jin could spend three or four days explaining what they mean. I’ll try to do it in a few lines.
Hyojeong is a Korean term meaning filial heart. It integrates the internal qualities of selfless love found in filial piety and extends it into public mindedness. A filial individual cultivates good citizens in the community, loyal patriots in the nation, and responsible, peace-loving, global citizens. To emphasize the importance of hyojeong, filial heart, in raising young people and patriotic youth, she put those initials in this logo herself.
I’ll just share a personal story of my own. Last night I got up at 3:00 in the morning for a Zoom call for my nephew’s funeral in America. And he was gay. Some of my own children have asked, what’s wrong with same-sex relationships? What’s wrong anyway? Well, now I have a very clear answer. It’s not just a sexual thing, it’s a lifestyle choice. And with that choice comes many consequences. To put it shortly, he died young. He died suffering. And he died alone. Unnecessarily, if he had made the right choices.
Thank you very much.
To go to the World Summit 2022 Schedule page, click here.