Seoul’s auxiliary bishop, Mons. Paul Kyung Sang Lee, said that young Koreans want San Carlo Acutis to “be proclaimed employer” of the World Youth Day (WYD) of 2027.
The prelate, which is responsible for the organizing committee of the WYD Seoul 2027, told the VATICAN AGENCY FIDES that “Carlo Acutis is already a reference and a source of inspiration for young Koreans.”
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“He is well known and, also with a view to the World Youth Day in Seoul in 2027, we will continue to propose it as a contemporary example of holiness, especially because he lived evangelization in the digital world. Young Koreans expect that Patron of the WYD will be proclaimed,” he said.
The bishop said that the more than a thousand young Koreans who participated in the Jubileo de la Juventud, in Rome, “visited the sanctuary of plundering in Assisi, where Acutis’s body rests.”
In addition, the Canonization ceremony of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, held on September 7 in the Vatican, “was broadcast by Korean Catholic channels and followed by a large public.”
“We remember that the Holy Family donated an Acutis relic, which is now in the chapel of the building where the organizing committee of the WYD of Seoul is. Our young people often go to the chapel to ask for their intercession. They feel it as one of them; he is a millennial holy,” he said.
He also indicated that a sculpture of the saint has been installed in the courtyard of the headquarters of the South Korean Episcopate, the CPBC Catholic Peace Broadcasting and Peace Newspaper, in Jeodong (Seoul).
“The presence of Acutis there reminds us of all that the media can be channels to spread the Gospel,” he said.
For his part, the president of the Youth Pastoral Committee of the Korean Episcopal Conference, Mons. Kim Jong-Gang, said that “for our young people, born and raised in a digital environment, the canonization of Carlo brings great hope and a sense of challenge”, because he tells them that “even in adolescence, God can be put to God in the first place and grow on the spiritual path through prayer and the sacraments.”
San Carlo Acutis is “a missionary figure adapted to the digital era” that “urges young Koreans to take advantage of their digital skills as evangelization tools,” he said.
In that sense, he stressed that several South Korean dioceses are organizing catechesis and study encounters to know about the life and testimony of faith of the Italian saint.
The BMJ Seoul 2027 will take place from August 3 to 8, 2027 with the motto “have value, I have defeated the world.”
South Korea will be the second Asian country to host a World Youth Day. The first was the Philippines in 1995, with the event held in the capital of Manila.
According to a 2023 report Help to the needy church, 11.3% of the more 51 million South Koreans are Catholics.
Eduardo Berdejo
Professional in Social Communication of the National University of San Marcos in Peru, I have more than 20 years of experience in Catholic digital journalism. As part of ACI Press, I have been sent to cover the trips of Pope Francis to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, in addition to the Synod of Sinodality in the Vatican in 2023.