"The Poverty of God": The Source of Cardinal Kim Su-hwan's Spirituality and Pastoral Ministry

"Poverty" emerges as a recurring keyword in the life of Cardinal Kim Su-hwan (1922–2009), one of the most revered religious leaders in contemporary Korea. Through close textual analysis of eight selected messages drawn from The Collected Works of Cardinal Kim Su-hwan and key primary sources, this study demonstrates that poverty stands at the very heart of his spirituality and pastoral ministry. Cardinal Kim distinguishes between enforced poverty—rooted in structural injustice that dehumanizes both the poor and the wealthy—and the voluntary poverty of Jesus, characterized by material destitution, freedom from need and possession, and kenosis (self-emptying). His emphasis on poverty rests on three convictions: that the poverty pervading the whole life of Jesus is ultimately grounded in the poverty of God himself; that "the spirit of poverty and love is the glory and witness of the Church"; and that the poverty chosen by Jesus is the path toward human fulfillment and liberation. His lifelong pursuit of following the poor Christ renders him worthy of the designation praecipuus paupertatis amator ("a most excellent lover of poverty")—a phrase attested in the canonization proceedings of Thomas Aquinas—and his spirituality of poverty and its pastoral praxis deserve to be remembered as one of the most precious legacies of the Asian Church in the twentieth century.