Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, South Korea's first Roman Catholic cardinal and widely respected even among non-Catholic as the country's spiritual leader passed away on February 16. He was 86. Cardinal Kim has been suffering from pneumonia, hospitalized with frail health since last year. It was said that he has died peacefully surrounded by family and members of the parish.
President Lee Myung-bak called Cardinal Kim's death a "great loss to the nations" and Pope Benedict XVI likewise said he was deeply saddened.
Not only was he a guiding light and mentor but Cardinal Kim was also a fervent advocate for human rights and democracy, he outspokenly criticized the military dictators who governed South Korea from 1961 to the late 1980s.
In 1987, he allowed dozens of anti-government student activists to take refugee in Seoul's main Cathedral and told authorities who came to arrest them , "You will be able to get to the students only after you get past me, the priests and the nuns."
During the sermon, he blasted the Chun Doo-hwan government who took power in a military coup in 1979 as "despotic".
Leaving a great legacy as playing an important role in critical moments in Korean history, Cardinal Kim's efforts helped launch South Korea, which had been ruled by strongmen for more than a generation, on the road to democracy.
Cardinal Kim was born in the city of Daegu in 1922, one of eight children, and attended high school in Seoul. His family's Catholic faith was considered unusual at the time in the traditionally Confucian Society in Korea. He studied philosophy at Sophia University in Tokyo and the Catholic University of Korea from 1947-1951. He later traveled to Germany to study sociology. He was ordained in 1951 during the Korean War and was named a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1969 at 46 as the youngest member of the Catholic Cardinals. He retired in 1998. During his time as the cardinal the Number of Catholics in Korea increased and his influence went beyond throughout the nation.
While showing devotion to the North Korean churched and their congregations, he established an inter-Korean religious organization in 1995, hoping that religious persecution would one day cease in the North and the two nations would reunify.
Also Kim was advocate of the poor and took an active part in social and democracy issues, opposing the violent suppression of labor unions.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens paid homage to the late Cardinal, when whose body was placed in a glass casket in the main hall of Seoul's landmark Catholic Cathedral.
Kim's eye were donated to two patient who were in need of cornea transplants, as his final wishes.
After Cardinal Kim's death, Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk became as the only South Korean cardinal. Cheong succeeded him as Korea's second cardinal in 2006.
