RIP Curial Cardinal Emeritus Paul Josef Cordes - Death of the Co-inventor of the World Youth Days at Age 89

German Cardinal Cordes dies at the age of 89. Pope Francis has mourned the passing of Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, who passed away March 15th in Rome.
Emeritus Curia Cardinal was co-inventor of the World Youth Days of the Catholic Church in the 1980s - From 1995 to 2010 he headed the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", which is responsible for charitable issues
Curial Cardinal Emeritus Paul Josef Cordes is dead. The German cardinal, who is also considered the co-inventor of the Catholic Church's World Youth Days, died on March 15th in the morning at the age of 89 in Rome, as the Archdiocese of Paderborn told the news agency Kathpress confirmed. From 1995 to 2010, Cordes headed the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", which was responsible for charitable issues, as president. Previously, from 1980, he was vice president of the then Pontifical Council for the Laity. Cordes has been a member of the College of Cardinals since 2007.

In a telegram sent to his family, the Pope affectionately remembers the German Cardinal, "who served the Lord and the Church with fidelity and generosity, attentive to the needs of the youth and the needs of fragile individuals.”

The Pope recalls with gratitude Cardinal Cordes’ “diligent service" to the Holy See, "first as Vice President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and then as President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, where he tirelessly witnessed to the Pope's paternal solicitude for the poorest."
Those close to Cordes said that the cardinal had been in a hospital in Rome for a week. He will be buried in his hometown of Kirchhundem in the German Sauerland. Cordes continued to live in Rome after his retirement as Curial Cardinal in October 2010.

The now-deceased cardinal made a name for himself early on as a co-founder of the World Youth Days, for which he developed the key concept. During the Holy Year of 1983/84, the idea of ​​a world meeting of young Catholics arose in the San Lorenzo youth center near the Vatican, which Cordes directed. In 1984, around 300,000 young people from all over the world came to Rome for the international youth meeting, which was initially planned as a one-off event.

Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) then made the meetings a permanent institution. The International World Youth Days, which take place every two to three years in a different metropolis, are today the largest Catholic events in the world.

As head of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” Cordes coordinated aid activities of the Catholic Church from 1995 to 2010. He regularly traveled to crisis regions and disaster areas. He also spoke to politicians to make help possible.

Before his appointment to Rome, Cordes was a consultant for the German Bishops' Conference and, from the mid-1970s, auxiliary bishop in Paderborn. Cordes had studied theology in Münster and Lyon. In 1971 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the priestly service under the then professor of dogmatics and later Bishop and Cardinal of Mainz Karl Lehmann (1936-2018).