WYD Seoul Calls on Asian Digital Missionaries to Help Reach More Young People

The organizers of World Youth Day (WYD) Seoul 2027 are calling on Asian digital missionaries to help bring the event’s message to millions of young people who may not be able to travel to South Korea.

Stephanie Sun, who leads global communications for the WYD Seoul 2027 Local Organizing Committee, said the challenge is not simply to bring as many young people as possible to Seoul, but to ensure that the WYD experience reaches those who will remain at home.

Speaking during the First Asian Catholic Digital Missionary Assembly in Quezon City, Metro Manila, on September 12, Sun said distance, cost and other barriers will prevent many young people from attending the August 3–8, 2027, gathering.

“The question is not only how many young people we can bring to Korea,” she said, but “how far the WYD experience can travel to the people who are already there.”

She challenged digital missionaries to see themselves not merely as an audience that Seoul needs to reach, but as the people who can help WYD reach others through their own languages, cultures and communities.

Sun said a livestream can reach large numbers, but it cannot sit with a struggling teenager, answer a question in a local language or understand the realities of a particular parish or community. Local digital missionaries can do those things because they are already trusted by the people they serve.

“That is the difference between reach and witness,” she said.

The Seoul gathering will be held under the theme “Take courage, I have overcome the world,” from John 16:33. Sun said the Korean Church understands courage through three concrete responses: seeking truth, practicing love and building peace.

Peace has particular significance in Korea, which remains divided. Fighting on the Korean Peninsula stopped with the 1953 armistice, but no peace treaty has formally ended the conflict.

She also noted that Seoul 2027 will be the first WYD held in a culture where Christianity has never been the majority religion. It will be the second WYD in Asia after Manila hosted the event in 1995.

Sun said the role of digital missionaries has developed significantly in recent years. WYD Lisbon 2023 included the first dedicated Mass for Catholic influencers and digital missionaries, while the 2025 Jubilee in Rome brought together Catholic influencers under the theme of digital mission.

For Seoul 2027, organizers are planning a dedicated gathering and festival for digital missionaries during WYD week. Registration is expected to open in October 2026.

Sun also urged Asian digital missionaries to help shape the communications strategy rather than simply receive material from Seoul. Organizers want to identify trusted voices in different countries and languages, understand what works locally and co-create content that can travel across Asia.

The WYD theme song, released in August, illustrated that approach, she said. Its reach grew as young people shared it, learned it and made it their own.

Likewise, the WYD Cross and icon have been traveling across Asia and through South Korea since 2024, moving from one diocese to another.

“The cross does not wait in Seoul for pilgrims to arrive. It goes to them,” Sun said.

She called on digital missionaries to consider who remains unreached, what can only be done locally and what support they need from Seoul.

Sun said the partnership should begin before WYD 2027, with online meetings planned for early 2027.

“We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard,” she said, echoing Acts 4:20, the biblical inspiration for the Asian digital missionary assembly.

Not everyone may be able to travel to Seoul, she added, “but all should speak.