Koreas first cardinal, an outspoken defender of human rights, died in Seoul, South Korea, on Feb. 16. At the time of his death, Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan was the longest-serving cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. Born in Daegu in May 1922, the late cardinal was ordained a priest in 1951. After earning a degree in philosophy at the Catholic University of Jochi Daigaku in Tokyo, Japan, he was named bishop of Masan, Korea, in 1966. He was named archbishop of Seoul just two years later. Pope Paul VI made him Korea’s first cardinal in 1969. One of the main focuses of the cardinal’s work was pressing for reconciliation between North and South Korea and for freedom of religion in the Communist North.
