LISBON (AsiaNews): Thirty-two years after Manila, World Youth Day [WYD] is returning to Asia. Pope Francis announced on August 6 that Seoul, South Korea will host the event in 2027, while Rome, Italy, will host a gathering for young people during the Jubilee year of 2025.
The pope made the announcement at the end of the concluding Mass of the great gathering that saw a million young people from all over the world travel to Portugal. “From the western edge of Europe to Far East Asia,” said the pope, is “a beautiful sign of universality.”
As a venue for WYD, Seoul was neither unexpected nor a certainty. Last October, Archbishop Peter Chung Soon-taick of Seoul, speaking on the sidelines of the General Conference of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences [FABC], expressed the desire of the Korean Church to host the next event, hoping that it would be a “turning point” for the youth ministry in one of the many Asian countries facing a demographic winter as a result of sub-replacement fertility levels.
South Korea now has the lowest fertility rate in the world at 0.78 children per woman in 2022, just 249,000 births in a nation of 51 million.
Bringing WYD to Seoul may send a signal to young people, not only in the Church, but other Asian societies.
From the western edge of Europe to Far East Asia,’ is ‘“’a beautiful sign of universality
Pope Francis
For young Catholics in Asia, WYD 2027 is already set to be a historic event. By choosing Seoul, Pope Francis again showed his great interest in Asia, something that has characterised his entire pontificate.
The jamboree will be an extraordinary occasion for young people who live in minority situations in many Asian countries, sometimes directly experiencing persecution and war, to get together with fellow Catholics.
Their parents and grandparents have already had the experience of the record-breaking WYD of 1995 in Manila. In Seoul, 21st century Asia will come together.
The Korean Church will bring the experience gained at the 2014 Asian Youth Day [AYD] in Daejeon, a meeting the FABC promoted to give many of the continent’s young people an experience they might not otherwise have had when the event is held in another, faraway continent [17 and 24 August 2014].
Pope Francis travelled expressly to Daejeon for for the event, which was organised by Lazarus Cardinal You Heung-sik, then Bishop of Daejeon, currently the prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy at the Vatican.
Meeting the young people, the pope entrusted them with the challenge of bringing about peace between the two Koreas, still divided by a highly militarised border along the 38th parallel, a legacy of the Korean War that ended 70 years ago.
A WYD does not start and end in a matter of days; it is a journey. Its preparation is an excellent opportunity to bring young people together around a project. It gives them top billing, and encourages them to invite their peers to live this experience together
Archbishop Peter Chung Soon-taick of Seoul
This matter is especially relevant in Asia today, torn as it is by serious tensions and an arms race across the entire Pacific.
Hopefully, the year 2027, which will also mark the centennial of the start of civil war in China, will be remembered for this new and unprecedented sign of peace brought by young Catholics from all over the world to Asia.
“A WYD does not start and end in a matter of days; it is a journey. Its preparation is an excellent opportunity to bring young people together around a project. It gives them top billing, and encourages them to invite their peers to live this experience together,” Archbishop Chung explained.
Organising a WYD “sets in motion a process” and “even when it is over, it is still nice to share with everyone what was experienced. It provides a missionary opportunity to share the values of the gospel in our society,” the archbishop said.
In the Korean Church, the process has already begun. The group of young people who went up with the flag to Pope Francis immediately after he made his announcement are but a small sample of more than a thousand young Koreans who travelled to Portugal, 150 from the Archdiocese of Seoul alone.
I am very grateful to Pope Francis for choosing us as the next host city
Archbishop Chung
Never has South Korea sent so many young people to a World Youth Day. This is an important sign at a time when the average age of worshippers going to church in Seoul is rising.
“I am very grateful to Pope Francis for choosing us as the next host city. I will be very happy and honoured to be able to meet so many young people from all over the world in Seoul,” Archbishop Chung said in Lisbon, in a statement released by the archdiocese.
“WYD is not only an event for the Catholic Church, but a venue where people of good will come together. We will work closely with the national and local government to make it an event for the good of all humanity,” he said.
Andrew Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung, the retired bishop of Seoul, also travelled to Lisbon to be with young people for the announcement of the WYD in Korea.
“I am grateful to the Lord for this great grace. I hope that the prayers of all the young people of the world will be answered through WYD in Seoul,” he said. “Above all, I hope that it will be a festival of love and joy in which young people pray united for ‘peace on earth’ and no wars.”
