(OSV News) — All across the United States, pilgrims are preparing to travel to Seoul, South Korea, for Pope Leo XIV’s first World Youth Day — as the successor of Peter — Aug. 3-8, 2027.
WYD 2027 will be the 18th event of its kind. It convenes every two to three years on the international level, with local events held by dioceses on the other years.
The 2027 international event will be the first WYD to take place in mainland Asia, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Philippines was the host country for WYD 1995.
The U.S. was among the five largest delegations participating in the most recent WYD, which occurred Aug. 1-6, 2023, in Lisbon, Portugal. In the closing ceremonies, Pope Francis announced that the next WYD would be in Seoul. After he was elected, Pope Leo affirmed the theme that Pope Francis selected to guide WYD 2027: “Take courage! I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
The future Pope Leo, then-Archbishop Robert Prevost was among the estimated 1.5 million people who attended World Youth Day in Lisbon. At the time, he was prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and accompanied Pope Francis.
According to U.S. organizers, the history of Seoul, the popularity of Korean culture in the U.S. and the opportunity to see the first American pope are driving stateside interest in the event.
Korean martyrs
Unlike Portugal — where Catholics make up roughly 80% of the population — Catholics in South Korea are a minority. Their population reflects years of persecution in South Korea and in Asia as a whole.
In North Korea, it is a crime to be a Christian or even to own a Bible. Before Catholicism was decriminalized in South Korea in 1886, about 10,000 Catholics were martyred in the country. One of the martyrs was St. Andrew Kim Taegon, the first native-born Korean Catholic priest, who is one of the patron saints of WYD 2027.
Neil Albaña, associate director of young adult and campus ministry in Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, visited Korea in 2025 and saw preparations for WYD already underway.
“(Catholicism) is not very commonplace” in Korea, he said in a WYD Sneak Peak meeting hosted by Verso Ministries March 11. “They struggle with a lot of loneliness and pressures from the world. I think the Catholic Church’s presence there (during WYD) is going to be a very beautiful witness to everybody there — not just the Catholics there, but for anybody that might be searching and longing as well.”
Father Kapaun’s footsteps
A group of WYD attendees from the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, will follow the footsteps of Father Emil Kapaun, a chaplain in the Korean War from Kansas whose cause for sainthood is currently being investigated. The priest, who died in a Korean POW camp on May 23, 1951, was declared “venerable” by Pope Francis on Feb. 24, 2025, recognizing his heroic virtues.
Scott Carter, who has been working as the coordinator for Father Kapaun’s cause for 11 years and is helping to organize the diocese’s WYD trip, said that the history of the South Korean martyrs “is very much rich and alive.”
The group from Wichita — which is expected to be about 60 young people, chaperones and priests — will visit the sites where Father Kapaun risked his life to administer the sacraments to the dying on the battlefield and where he celebrated Mass. From the border, they will look into North Korea, where Father Kapaun ultimately offered his life for other prisoners of war.
“I’m excited to experience the Catholic tradition in Korea because even though as Americans, the Korean experience isn’t our own, as members of the body of Christ — the communion of saints — the Church experience is part of our heritage,” Carter said. “The beauty of how laypeople brought the faith into Korea and the courage of the martyrs there is really going to be a big highlight for the Church around the world and for us as well.”
K-pop culture
Joseph Rodriguez, who co-founded the pilgrimage-centered travel agency Vocatio, is helping groups from seven dioceses and 27 parishes and ministries across the U.S. to plan their WYD 2027 trips, for a total of about 2,000 pilgrims. Rodriguez said that many youths are drawn to the trip because of the popularity of Korean culture.
“Korea is very much in the group consciousness because of K-pop and K-drama. There’s an awareness of Korean culture that didn’t exist five years ago,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez, who had attended six WYDs when Vocatio launched in 2021, said that his experiences at WYD helped form his love for his faith.
“This impact of pilgrimage is more than travel itself,” he said. “Our lives really are a pilgrimage. We’re going towards a destination, we’re not here forever. A physical pilgrimage is a microcosm of that. It helps us on such a deep level spiritually to reorient us. It’s so easy to get caught up in routine, work and normal worries, but pilgrimage puts everything back into its proper perspective.”
New life to a young Church
Andy Baker, who has served for seven years as the coordinator of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, said that Bishop Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez of Palm Beach has “built a flame of excitement” around WYD 2027. The diocese, which is planning the trip in partnership with JMJ Youth Pilgrimages, anticipates having 715 registrants.
“One of the things that we know young people desire most from their church is community and a sense of belonging. This event is being used to create that community in our parishes, giving new life to and desire for ministry to the young church,” Baker wrote in an Aug. 11 email to OSV News.
“The self-evangelization of the Korean Church of yesterday,” he continued, “could be a juxtaposition of the young Church today — self evangelizing through digital platforms and formation opportunities outside the normal campus boundaries of a parish.”
Fruits of WYD
Bishop Edward J. Burns of Dallas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, said that WYD invigorates the faith of young people and sometimes draws them toward a religious vocation.
“The fruits of World Youth Day have been an extraordinary blessing to the Church ever since Saint John Paul II gave this great gift to the Church. It truly is a gift that keeps on giving,” Bishop Burns wrote in an Aug. 19 email to OSV News.
“The pilgrimage begins long before anyone boards an airplane for Seoul,” he said. “It begins in our parishes, schools, universities, campus ministries, young adult communities, and families, where young people are accompanied in their relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Anna Dougherty writes for OSV News from Texas.
