새방골 성당

History & origins

According to the Archdiocese of Daegu's account of the shrine, Catholics began living in the Saebanggol area around the time of the Gyeongsin Persecution of 1860, and a larger Catholic village developed after the end of the Byeongin Persecution. Father Robert Kim Bo-rok, a missionary who traveled through Gyeongsang Province, moved his residence from Sinnamugol to Saebanggol at the end of 1888 while preparing for the mission in Daegu, and later moved to the Namsan mission station. For this reason the archdiocese connects Saebanggol with the predecessor history of the Daegu parish that eventually became Gyesan Cathedral Parish.

The present Saebanggol Parish was formally established on November 20, 1963 according to the official archdiocesan directory, with the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as its patron. In 2008, on the 120th anniversary associated with Saebanggol's missionary history, a bust of Father Robert Kim Bo-rok was unveiled to commemorate that early period.

In 2019 the Pilgrimage Shrine Committee of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea designated Saebanggol Catholic Church as a Catholic pilgrimage site, and in 2022 the church underwent remodeling followed by a blessing Mass. These developments show how the memory of a nineteenth-century Catholic village and missionary base has been preserved and reinterpreted within the pastoral space of the modern parish.