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Organ donor drive honors cardinal

Seoul archdiocese seeks pledges to commemorate Kim
Organ donor drive honors cardinal
A passer-by fills in an organ donation pledge form at the on February 16
Published: February 17, 2011 02:37 AM GMT
Updated: February 17, 2011 06:00 AM GMT

To commemorate the second anniversary of the death of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, Seoul archdiocese’s social arm has held a one-day drive to sow “seeds of hope” for people in desperate need of new organs. The One-body One-spirit Movement (OBOS) established by the late cardinal in 1989 yesterday spearheaded the “Sowing Seeds of Hope” drive to collect organ-donation pledges. OBOS volunteers and staff members took to the streets of Seoul to recruit more donors and to raise money to help support terminally ill children and patients waiting for organ transplants. “We mounted this campaign to remember Cardinal Kim and to give a message of hope for transplant patients and the poor and alienated,” OBOS deputy director Father Augustine Minn Kyoung-il said. “As Cardinal Kim sowed the seeds of hope in us, we followed his last wish by carrying out this campaign,” he added. The highly-respected cardinal who died on February 16, 2009 aged 86, donated his corneas on his death, sparking a surge in organ donation pledges. In 2009, 34,079 people promised to donate their organs which almost matched the 34,432 pledges made over the past 20 years and last year, there were 36,569 pledges. “On holidays, Cardinal Kim visited the poor and the alienated while he was archbishop of Seoul. We should follow his model as Christians,” Father Minn said. Meanwhile, Seoul archdiocese held Masses at Myeongdong Cathedral and at his tomb in Yongin Catholic Park Cemetery to mark the Cardinal’s death anniversary. Related report Cardinal Kim's death anniversary to be marked KO13315.1641

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