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Pope urges Korean priests and religious to ‘bear witness to reconciliation’
In a meeting with Korean priests and religious, Pope Leo expresses his hope that those attending the 2027 Seoul World Youth Day will receive the faith of the Korean martyrs and “carry it out onto the roads of the world”.
Vatican News
May you be “witnesses of hope” for the young people who will attend the 2027 Seoul World Youth Day, and “artisans of peace” in a divided peninsula.
That was Pope Leo XIV’s prayer as he addressed Korean priests, religious sisters and religious at an audience on 5 October in the Vatican.
The Pope’s words were addressed to the 170 or so people present, many of whom are involved in organising the upcoming World Youth Day.
The faith of the martyrs
In Rome, the Pope said, the faith they had received in Korea “can receive a new missionary impetus. You have come from far away, it is true, but here you are at home.”
Indeed, the Pope recalled, Korea was “once a land of mission, but has today become a homeland of missionaries”, rooted in the memory of the faith and sacrifice of the Korean martyrs.
Women religious from South Korea listen to Pope Leo’s address (VATICAN MEDIA)
“Memory gives rise to mission,” the Pope said, “and mission opens the way to hope”.
“The next World Youth Day will make all this visible,” Pope Leo stressed. “Young people from every part of the world will arrive in a land where the Gospel took root through the witness of the martyrs. I would like it to be a great encounter between memory and the future: the martyrs hand on the faith to the new generations, and young people receive it in order to carry it onto the roads of the world.”
Listening to young people
Pope Leo’s invitation to all those involved in preparing the event was: “listen to young people, walk alongside them and help them discover that following Christ does not diminish freedom, but brings it to fulfilment; that faith does not restrict life, but opens it to a greater horizon”.
He urged them to prepare for World Youth Day with enthusiasm, keeping Jesus’ words in their hearts: “Take courage: I have conquered the world!”
The Korean martyrs, the Pope said, understood this well: “their hope did not depend on favourable circumstances, but on the certainty that Christ had already conquered”.
“The Church in Korea grew through the witness of the martyrs,” including Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon, Saint Paul Chong Ha-sang and others, Pope Leo said. “Throughout its history, the Korean people have shown extraordinary strength of spirit: they have endured persecution, wars, poverty and division, knowing how to rise again and look to the future.”
Women and men of reconciliation
Pope Leo urged his listeners to cherish and nurture their friendship with Christ, which “opens us to fraternity”.
The fact that they come from different dioceses, institutes, congregations and experiences, he said, enables them to “make this diversity a resource for synodality”.
A synodal Church, Pope Leo continued, recognises in the other “a brother or sister and a companion on the journey, never a rival”. This, the Pope said, is particularly important in a region such as the Korean peninsula, which “still bears the painful wound of division”.
Let us continue to work and pray, the Pope urged, “that new paths of encounter may open up and that the Gospel of peace may be proclaimed freely in every part of the Korean peninsula and throughout the world”.
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