SEOUL (SE): Nicholas Cardinal Cheong Jin-suk, died on April 27 at St. Mary’s Hospital in Seoul, South Korea, Father Young-yup Hur, the spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Seoul, announced. He was 90-years-old.
Cardinal Cheong was the archbishop of Seoul for 14 years, starting in June 1998 and was also named apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Pyongyang, North Korea, in the same year by the late Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan (1922 to 2009), according to a press release from the diocese’s Committee for Communications.
Cardinal Cheong was born in Seoul in 1931 and was ordained to the priesthood on 18 March 1961. He studied at Pontifical Urban University and held a Licentiate in Canon Law, and was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI on 24 March 2006.
The cardinal had particular care for disadvantaged people and communities. When he was bishop of Cheongju, he helped establish the Kkottongnae (flower village), the largest Church-run social welfare facility in South Korea.
As Archbishop in Seoul, Cardinal Cheong took Dignity of Human Life as his motto. He founded the Committee for Life in October 2005 and began a series of Dignity of Human Life movements in the Seoul.
He wrote 58 books during his retirement, including The Great Mission: Collaborators of the Savior (2019), We Have been Healed through His Wounds (2015) and Annotated Code of Canon Law (all in Korean).
In particular, the 15-volume Annotated Code of Canon Law, which the Cardinal Cheong worked on over a period of 15 years, has been a valuable asset for the Church in Korea as it provides translations and annotations of the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1983 by Pope St. John Paul II.
UCAN reported that more than 50,000 people from various religions and walks of life visited Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul, to pay their last respects from April 27 to May 1.
Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung, archbishop of Seoul, celebrated the funeral Mass on May 1.
May he rest in peace.
