Preparations are in full swing for World Youth Day 2027 in Seoul, South Korea, where Pope Leo XIV is expected to join young Catholics from around the world for the second World Youth Day ever held in Asia.<\/p>\n
The gathering, which will take place on 3\u20138 August 2027, comes more than three decades after the first World Youth Day in Asia, which drew between four and five million people to Manila with Pope John Paul II in 1995, setting a Guinness World Record for largest attendance at a papal event at the time.<\/p>\n
With one year remaining before the massive international Catholic youth festival, organisers say planning has intensified. Representatives from the Vatican\u2019s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life visited South Korea in July to review preparations and meet with bishops from dioceses that will host pilgrims in the diocesan days before the main event.<\/p>\n
Archbishop of Seoul Peter Soon-taick Chung said the archdiocese has spent the past three years laying the groundwork for the gathering.<\/p>\n
\u2018The year ahead will be the time to complete our preparations and welcome young people from every part of the world,\u2019 Archbishop Chung said in a statement. \u2018We will do everything possible to make WYD Seoul 2027 a celebration of hope and a witness to the hospitality and solidarity of Korea and Seoul.\u2019<\/p>\n
Pilgrimage is an invitation to receive what is unfamiliar with an open heart and a spirit of gratitude.<\/p>\n
Across the world, parishes and dioceses have already started preparing young people to participate in the pilgrimage to South Korea, which despite being the first non-Christian majority country to host World Youth Day, has a unique Catholic history, including the witness of thousands of Christian martyrs who were killed for their faith.<\/p>\n
The parish priest at St Mary of the Cross Catholic Parish in Mordialloc, Fr Michael Duck Young Kong, has been giving talks to the Catholic Youth Australia group and Melbourne\u2019s archdiocesan preparation team on the history and culture of Catholicism in Korea.<\/p>\n
He has also turned to social media to help young people prepare, drawing on his Korean heritage to share language tips and what young pilgrims can look forward to when visiting to one of Asia\u2019s largest cities.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think the first impression many young Catholics will have when they arrive in Korea is the sheer energy of Seoul\u2014its pace, scale and intensity,\u2019 he told OSV News. \u2018Seoul is a vibrant, modern city, and that can feel overwhelming at first, but I actually see that as part of the gift of pilgrimage. It is an invitation to receive what is unfamiliar with an open heart and a spirit of gratitude.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Preparations are in full swing for World Youth Day 2027 in Seoul, South Korea, where Pope Leo XIV…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6866,6864,6865,6310,6868,6869,260,6867,6870,68],"class_list":["post-69410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-archbishop","tag-archdiocese","tag-catholic","tag-child-safety","tag-community","tag-jesus","tag-melbourne","tag-parish","tag-sacraments","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}