SEOUL, South Korea — Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, South Korea’s first Roman Catholic cardinal, to whom Catholic and non-Catholic South Koreans turned for consolation and support during the era of military dictatorship from the 1960s through the 1980s, died Monday. He was 86.
Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, photographed in 2006.
Cardinal Kim died at St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul, said Lee Hee-yeon, an official with the Archdiocese of Seoul, according to The Associated Press.
From the pulpit of Myeongdong Cathedral in central Seoul, Cardinal Kim boldly criticized the military dictators who governed South Korea for three decades. He dismissed what he described as their “despotic” rule, and he advocated fearlessly for democracy. Pope Benedict XVI said he was deeply saddened by the death of Cardinal Kim, who was the longest-serving cardinal and a beloved spiritual leader in South Korea.
President Lee Myung-bak, a Protestant, called Cardinal Kim’s death “a great loss to the nation.” Chung Se-kyun, head of the Democratic Party, the main opposition, called the cardinal “a big guiding star in our nation’s modern history.”
Cardinal Kim was archbishop of Seoul from 1968 until 1998, and he was also in charge of the Diocese of Pyongyang in North Korea from 1975 until 1998. He regretted that he was never able to travel to Pyongyang, once a center of Christianity in the Korean Peninsula, because the Communist government there opposed a visit.
He was born in 1922 in Daegu, in central South Korea, and was the youngest of eight children. His father was a crockery salesman and his grandfather, a convert to Catholicism, died in prison during bloody persecutions of Catholic converts in Korea during the 19th century.
He was ordained in 1951 during the Korean War and was named a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1969.
During his time as cardinal, the number of Catholics in South Korea increased more than sixfold. But his influence went beyond the nation’s five million Catholics.
When South Korea’s authoritarian leaders tolerated, if not encouraged, the kidnapping and torturing of dissidents and the beating and jailing of students calling for democracy, Cardinal Kim was often a lone voice opposing the brutality. He became a moral force whose support was sought by dictators and opposition leaders.
When President Chun Doo-hwan visited him shortly after taking power in a military coup in 1979, the cardinal chastised him, comparing his illegal seizure of the government to “an outlaw gunfight in a Western movie.”
The Myeongdong Cathedral served for decades as a haven for student activists, migrant workers and labor leaders, among others. “You can step on me, then the priests and nuns behind me, before you can take away the students,” he told a police chief in 1987 when Mr. Chun’s government sought to arrest student activists seeking refuge in the cathedral.
“Cardinal Kim’s presence among us was a great consolation during the harshest time of our nation,” said Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, the archbishop of Seoul.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/
Stephen Kim Sou-hwan dies at 86; outspoken S. Korea cardinal
Kim had been suffering from pneumonia for several months and was recently hospitalized, the Yonhap news service reported
Known for his warm, wry smile, Kim was appointed cardinal in 1969 by Pope Paul VI and went on to become an advocate for democracy in this East Asian nation that is home to 4.5 million Catholics.
A spokesman for South Korean President Lee Myung-bak today called Lee's death a "national loss."
He was born in the city of Daegu in 1922, one of eight children, and attended high school in Seoul. He studied philosophy at Sophia University in Tokyo in the early 1940s and at Catholic University of Korea from 1947 to 1951.
After serving briefly as a parish priest and as a secretary in the Archdiocese of Daegu, he traveled to Germany to study sociology. At 46, he became the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.
Kim was an advocate of the poor and took an active part in social and democracy issues, opposing the violent suppression of labor unions. He called for Japan to take greater responsibility for the damage it caused in its 35-year colonial rule over Korea, which ended in 1945.
During the 1987 demonstrations, as he gave refuge to student activists, he brazenly told the government: "If the police break into the cathedral, I will be in the very front. Behind me, there will be reverends and nuns. After we are wrestled down, there will be students," according to his website.
Along with serving as archbishop of Seoul for three decades until 1998, Kim led the diocese of Pyongyang in North Korea from 1975 until 1998, though he was never able to travel to the country, which remains at political odds with South Korea.
john.glionna@latimes.com
- wikipedia dictionary -
Stephen (Stefano) Kim Sou-hwan (May 8, 1922 – February 16, 2009) was a senior Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and the former Archbishop of Seoul, South Korea.
He was born in Daegu, modern-day South Korea, and attended high school in Seoul. He studied philosophy at Sophia University in Tokyo from 1941 to 1944, and at Catholic University of Korea in Seoul from 1947 to 1951, when he graduated. After serving briefly as a parish priest in Andong and then as a secretary in the Archdiocese of Daegu, he traveled to Germany to study sociology at Münster University from 1956 to 1963.
Kim was raised to the rank of Cardinal-Priest of San Felice da Cantalice a Centocelle by Pope Paul VI in the consistory of April 28, 1969, having become the Archbishop of Seoul in 1968 after being the Bishop of Masan since 1966. At the age of 46, he was the youngest member of the College of Cardinals at that time. He received the Mugunghwa medal in 1970, and participated in the two conclaves of 1978.
In 1998, Cardinal Kim retired as the Archbishop of Seoul, shortly after serving as President-Delegate of the Special Assembly for Asia of the World Synod of Bishops. on the death of Franz Koenig in 2004, he became the senior member of the College in terms of service, as he was the first of the three surviving members elevated in 1969 on the list of that consistory. However, in the ceremonies of the sede vacante on the death of Pope John Paul II, the title of protopresbyter (Senior Cardinal Priest) to which Cardinal Kim was entitled was enjoyed by Eugenio de Araujo Sales, another 1969 cardinal who was Kim's junior as cardinal but senior as a priest and as a bishop, and discharged certain ceremonial duties of the office.
Having reached the age of 80 in 2002, he did not participate in the ensuing conclave as he was no longer eligible to vote in papal elections. At the Papal Inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI he did discharge the duties of the Cardinal protopresbyter.
He died on February 16 2009 6:12pm, at the age of 86