Servant of God Stephen Kim Sou-hwan

Stephen (often rendered as Latin Stephanus) Kim Sou-hwan (Korean: 김수환 스테파노; Hanja: 金壽煥 스테파노; July 2, 1922 – February 16, 2009) was a Korean prelate of the Catholic Church and the Korea's first elevated to the rank of cardinal. He is a former archbishop of Seoul, South Korea. Having been an iconic figure in South Korea's bloody and tumultuous transition from military rule to democracy, he was widely respected across all sections in South Korean society. He is venerated by the Roman Catholic Church having been declared Servant of God by Pope Francis. 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. During Park Chung Hee and his successor's military dictatorship of the '70s and the '80s, the Korean Catholic Church under Kim's leadership was highlighted as a focal point of South Korea's democratization movement. 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.