Welcoming Remarks by Kevin Cardinal Farrell Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life

Welcoming Remarks by Kevin Cardinal Farrell

Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life

Second International World Youth Day 2027 Preparatory Meeting 

At the Incheon Nest Hotel on Monday, September 14, 2026

Good morning and thank you all for your presence here today. Especially, I would like to take this moment to thank His Excellency, the Archbishop of Seoul, for all his welcome and his kindness and generosity in accepting to put on, in prayer, this World Youth Day event, which is so important for the universal Church and for the Church in Korea.

I would also like to thank the Apostolic Nuncio who is here in Korea, Archbishop Giovanni Gaspari, who is with us here today. We thank him for all of his assistance, as well as all of the bishops who are here present today. I thank you all.

This is an important occasion for us all—not just for the youth, the young people that will come to this event next summer, but for everybody in the world and in the Church today. It is not just World Youth Day. It is an expression, a living expression, of the Word of God from the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the mission that we all have.

World Youth Day—if I could recall for a few moments why we are here. First of all, I remember the day that I went to Pope Francis in Rome at that time, several years ago, with all my papers, as usual, to present to him the three candidates for World Youth Day of 2027. He listened attentively. The first one, he said, “That’s okay.” The second one—so I have to present three candidates—the second one is, “That’s fine.” And then he told me… I have given a lot of thought to this. He said to me—which I immediately thought that he wasn’t accepting any one of the three possibilities—and he said, “No, I would very much like if World Youth Day would take place in Korea.” That is why we are, why I’m here today. So, we ask His blessing from above for this project.

It is also important to understand why Pope Francis thought about this, as he vaguely explained to me that day. In the first place (I’m not sure if everybody knows - I’m sure the people from Korea understand this but from the rest of the world we do not) it was in the eighteenth century that Christianity first came to Korea. It did not come through missionary priests.  It did not come through sisters who dedicated their lives to come and to create new mission territories for the Church. No, it came from a group of young scholars in Korea who set out to find a better way of living in their lives. And what happened? What happened is that they found the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And from that moment on, they began to preach, they began to teach what the Gospel said about how we should live our lives each and every day.

How we wish that the world today would have that same experience, and understand that if we look for peace, if we look for love and fraternity among all peoples, we need to find it in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

So, it is important that we recall this moment in the history of the Church in Korea. It is also a Church that has suffered greatly through hundreds of years of persecution. And today—thank God—it is one of the most fervent parts of the Church in the world today.

So, we thank you all. And this World Youth Day is to put on display what we have learned, and what young people two centuries ago brought to this nation. So, we thank the people of Korea. It was in the nineteenth century that it finally took root in all of the society of Korea. So, we thank you in a very special way.

And we think and look forward to World Youth Day in 2027, where young people from every nation, language, and culture will come together as one family to listen and to hear the Word of God, but to live it in our everyday life. It is not a class, a lecture of theology, a lecture on Christianity. It is expressing the faith in the reality of what we live and experience each and every day of our lives.

The Church in Korea, as I previously said, has a unique role to play in this event, since they will share the gifts that they have received from God—the gift especially of living the Gospel in adverse circumstances—and the many gifts that they have to share with the community. We also invite all of you from all nations, all cultures, even religions, to express the goodness of what you believe and how you believe it. Especially, we ask all of the Catholic churches present here today that they make an extremely strong effort to make this one of the most important World Youth Days.

Seldom in our lives have we lived such a problematic time in the world today. We seek peace above all. We seek love and harmony among all people. As young people, we can do this once again. All of the recent popes have spoken about this: that the future depends on the young people of the world today. I can say, we’ve had our moment. And now, at this time, for the young people of the world to take over and to guide us—guide us not necessarily by taking an active role, but guide us by the way you live your lives, and by the way you express your beliefs, with love and care for each and every one.

And so I ask you—I ask all of the delegates who are here today—to pay special attention during these months. World Youth Day is a pilgrimage, and it begins today. Today is the beginning of the pilgrimage which comes to a culmination next August. 

So, it is a pilgrimage that begins today. What does that mean? It means, basically, that we must begin the preparation in our dioceses, in our parishes, all across the world. It is not just that we come to experience, for one week, a time of living together, as it were, and living our faith as one Church. It is a time of preparing our souls and of encouraging all Christians in our communities, in our homes, in our families, to live the faith. And this pilgrimage will eventually come to its culmination here in Rome, (oops) here in Seoul.

Finally, our Holy Father Leo XIV has expressed great interest in what happens here today, and what will happen here in a few months’ time. He asked me, in a special way, to convey to you all his special prayers, his blessing, and his intentions, as he calls us to this great task which World Youth Day has been held in many countries across the world over these past few years. Dare I say that this, because of the historical context in which we live, will be one of the most important days, and one of the most important World Youth Days, that we have experienced.

Thank you all, and God bless you all!