Next World Youth Day returns to Asia after PH hosting in 1995

Lisbon, Portugal—Seoul in South Korea will host the next World Youth Day, a major Catholic youth festival, in 2027, Pope Francis said Sunday at the close of this year’s event in Lisbon.

“The next World Youth Day will be in Asia. It will be in South Korea in Seoul,” the pontiff told the faithful assembled to celebrate a Mass at a park on Lisbon’s eastern outskirts.

“And so in 2027, from the western border of Europe, it will move to the Far East, and this is a beautiful sign of the universality of the Church.”

The Philippines was the last Asian country to host the Catholic festival in 1995.

The crowd of around 1.5 million flag-waving young pilgrims from around the globe erupted in cheers at the announcement.

World Youth Day, which is in fact a week-long Catholic jamboree, features a wide range of events, including concerts and prayer sessions.

This year’s edition, initially scheduled for August 2022 but postponed because of the pandemic, was the fourth for Francis after Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Krakow in 2016 and Panama in 2019.

Created in 1986 by John Paul II, it is an opportunity for the Vatican to galvanize young Catholics at a time when secularism and priest pedophilia scandals cause some to abandon pews.

Pope Francis visited South Korea in 2014, in what was the first trip to Asia by a pontiff in 15 years.

The country is one of Roman Catholicism’s few strongholds in Asia.

About 11 percent of South Korea’s population of around 52 million people are Catholic, a figure that has grown in recent decades.

In his homily, Francis thanked the youth for taking part in the festival, calling them “the hope of a different world.”

He also urged the crowd to extend their “affection and prayers” to those who could not come “because of armed conflicts and wars.”

“There are many of them in our world. In thinking of this continent, I feel great sorrow for beloved Ukraine, which continues to suffer greatly,” he added.

The pope, who now uses a wheelchair or walking stick to get around, met with the thousands of event volunteers on Sunday afternoon before flying back to Rome.

This was his first foreign trip since he spent nine nights in hospital after undergoing hernia surgery in June.

Charlotte Bordas, a 26-year-old who came from Mont-de-Marsan in southwestern France, said she was moved to see the pope had made the trip despite his health problems.

“We see he’s really tired, weakened, but he still took the time to come to see us, talk to us, and it is particularly touching for me to see him,” she told AFP.

The pope met 13 victims of clerical abuse at the Holy See’s diplomatic mission in Lisbon during his first day in Portugal.

“The meeting was held in an atmosphere of intense listening and lasted more than an hour,” the Vatican said.

He also met 15 youths from war-torn Ukraine’s delegation, visited a community center in Lisbon’s impoverished Serafina neighborhood and prayed at the shrine of Fatima north of the Portuguese capital.

“It has been an extraordinary moment of joy, of energy, with remarkable speeches by the Holy Father, with very important messages,” Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa told public television RTP before Sunday’s Mass.

Francis has received an enthusiastic welcome throughout his visit to the Catholic-majority country, with well-wishers lining the streets to see him go by. AFP

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