'Everything for everyone' set for epitaph of late Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk

SEOUL, April 30 (Yonhap) -- "Everything for everyone," the pastoral motto of late Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, will be on his tombstone, a Catholic church official said Friday.

Cheong, who was given the title of cardinal in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, died Tuesday night at the age of 89. He served as the Catholic Archbishop of Seoul for 14 years from 1998.

Father Heo Young-yeop, the spokesperson of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, said in an online press conference that Cheong's motto will be inscribed on the tombstone in Latin, "Omnibus Omnia."

Cheong started to use the phrase when he was appointed as Catholic bishop in Korea in 1970.

Heo said Cheong's body, now laid in a glass coffin for mourning at the Myeongdong Cathedral in central Seoul, will be moved to a wooden coffin later in the day in preparation for the funeral on Saturday.

The three-day mourning will finish at 10 p.m. Friday, with a cumulative 31,000 people having paid tribute to the late cardinal for the past two days, he added.

Cheong's funeral Mass will take place at the Myeongdong Cathedral at 10 a.m., presided over by Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, the incumbent Catholic archbishop of Seoul.

Complying with tight social distancing, only 230 people, including 80 Catholic priests, will attend the funeral, according to the Archdiocese of Seoul.

He will be buried in a Catholic cemetery in Yongin, on the southern outskirts of Seoul, where many celebrated priests, including Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, are entombed.

brk@yna.co.kr
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