ASIA/SOUTH KOREA - The Church in mourning for the death of Cardinal Nicolas Cheong Jin-suk, the "Pastor of the last"

Seoul (Agenzia Fides) - Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, died at 10:15 p.m. on April 27 at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital at the age of ninety. This was confirmed to Agenzia Fides by Fr. Young-yup Hur, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Seoul. The Cardinal will be remembered for being a "Pastor of the last", a person extraordinarily close to the disadvantaged people in the community. While serving as Bishop in Cheongju, he was determined to help raise the "Kkottongnae", meaning "Flower Village", the largest Church-run social welfare center in South Korea, where children and adults with physical and mental disabilities stay. Pope Francis visited the "Kkottongnae" during his apostolic visit to Korea in 2014.
During his episcopal service in Seoul, he stressed the "dignity of human life" as a guideline for his priestly and episcopal ministry. In fact, he founded the "Committee for Life" in October 2005 and started a series of ecclesial groups called "Dignity of Human Life" in the Archdiocese. Cardinal Cheong was born in Seoul in 1931. He was ordained a priest on March 18, 1961 and went to Rome to study canon law at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. He was Bishop of Cheongju from 1970 to 1998. In April 1998, he was appointed as the Apostolic Administrator of the Pyongyang Diocese as well as the Archbishop of Seoul succeeding Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan (1922-2009 ). Pope Benedict XVI elevated him to the rank of Cardinal on March 24, 2006. He was Archbishop of Seoul for 14 years, until 2012. Once he retired (in 2012), Cardinal Cheong devoted himself to writing books, resulting in the publication of 58 texts, including "The Great Mission: Collaborators of the Savior (2019), "We Have been Healed Through His Wounds "(2015) and" Annotated Code of Canon Law ", a commentary on the Code of Canon Law in 15 volumes, all in Korean.
This monumental work, written over a period of 15 years (1988- 2002), still constitutes a precious resource for the Korean Catholic Church as it provides translations and annotations to the new Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1983 by St. Pope John Paul II. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 28/4/2021)

Share:

cardinals

---

---

local churches

---

---