On September 16, Pope Francis received Korean pilgrims who were in Rome for the installation of a statue of St. Andrew Kim Taegon in an external niche of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The saint “invites us to discover the vocation entrusted to the Korean Church, to all of you: you are called to a young faith, to an ardent faith that, animated by love of God and neighbor, becomes a gift,” the Pope said during an audience in Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace. “In this sense, with the prophecy of martyrdom, the Korean Church reminds us that one cannot follow Jesus without embracing his cross and that one cannot proclaim oneself a Christian without being willing to follow the way of love to the end.”
The Pontiff then spoke of the importance of the laity, of fostering peace, and the 2027 World Youth Day in Seoul, “in preparation for which I wish you to zealously devote yourselves to spreading the Word of God.”
The Pope also praised Korean Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy—“he is good”—and urged Korean dioceses to send priests as missionaries abroad. “Please, ‘chase them away,’ send them to the missions, because if not, there will be more priests than people, and this will not do: let them be missionaries elsewhere.”