BERLIN (AP)--Cardinal Johannes Joachim Degenhardt, archbishop of Paderborn, died Thursday of heart failure, a spokesman for the archdiocese said. He was 76.
Degenhardt died at his residence in Paderborn, in western Germany, archdiocese spokesman Thomas Schaefers said. The cardinal's death was ``sudden and unexpected.''
Degenhardt, viewed as a conservative, was appointed cardinal last year by Pope John Paul II. In a telegram of condolence, the pontiff expressed ``deep sorrow'' at his death.
As archbishop of Paderborn he was one of the first German bishops to halt participation in a program to counsel pregnant women, a step that is required before they can obtain abortions in Germany.
Degenhardt's speeches and publications emphasized that the needs of human beings must be placed above those of the economy. He was known as a staunch opponent of abortion as well as an advocate of political cooperation in Europe and tolerance between Germans and foreigners.
In 1992, he made headlines by removing the right to celebrate Mass from priest Eugen Drewermann, who challenged the virgin birth and other basic church tenets.
Drewermann, who was also a psychoanalyst and best-selling author, argued that the virgin birth was just historical symbolism and that Jesus did not institute any of the sacraments. He also supported remarriage in church for divorced Catholics as well as marriage for priests, and refused to condemn abortion as a sin.
Degenhardt was born in 1926 in Schweim, in the Paderborn archdiocese.
In 1941, at the age of 15, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo for three weeks for his work as a youth leader in the Catholic group Bund Neudeutschland, or New German Union, which was banned by the Nazis.
Upon his release he was forced to leave school by the Nazis for his ``political unreliability'' and began a business apprenticeship.
Degenhardt was briefly imprisoned by the Allies at the end of the war because he worked for the German air force, but was released in 1946 and returned to school.
Degenhardt studied philosophy and theology at the universities of Paderborn and Munich, and was ordained a priest in 1952.
He did parish work for seven years in Brackwede, near Hannover, and was appointed prefect of the Collegium Leonianum, Paderborn, in 1959. During this time, he also completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Wuerzburg and was an assistant professor of theology in Bochum, near Duesseldorf.
He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Paderborn in 1968 and was ordained bishop later that year. He was elevated to archbishop of Paderborn in 1974.