SPOTLIGHT 26/02/10 Lay woman weighs Korean Church’s evangelization challenges

[성기화 요셉]

Anna Yoo Hye-sook is the first woman to lead the bishops' evangelization office, traditionally manned by priests

Professor Anna Yoo Hye-sook is lay theologian from Daegu Catholic University in South Korea. (Photo: Catholic Times of Korea)

By UCA News reporter

Published: February 25, 2026 10:51 AM GMT

Updated: February 25, 2026 11:17 AM GMT

The first laywoman to lead the Catholic bishops’ Conference of Korea’s evangelization committee says evangelization should aim to restore the value and dignity of human existence.

“Evangelization must not simply be a matter of spreading the faith, but must be carried out with the goal of restoring the value and dignity of human existence," said Professor Anna Yoo Hye-sook, lay theologian from Daegu Catholic University.

Yoo was appointed secretary general of the bishops’ conference’s National Committee for Evangelization and Mission on Feb. 10. She is the first lay person to hold the position traditionally manned by priests.

Among her major responsibilities are overseeing pastoral works related to the Korean Church’s evangelization and missionary activities.

Apart from being a theologian and academic, Yoo has been involved with various activities of the Korean Church in the past years.

“I hope to contribute even a little to the evangelism of the Korean church,” she noted.

Yoo says her appointment is not just a change in position, but also shows how the Church should follow the synodal process and make it participatory with active involvement of various stakeholders who can share responsibility for the Church's mission at structural and practical levels.

“Even in the synodal process, the expansion of lay and women’s participation was understood not as a simple matter of functional supplementation or efficiency, but as an element that enriches the church’s discernment capacity through joint participation in the discernment of the Holy Spirit,” she added.

She says she has an important role to play in strengthening the awareness that “living a gospel life in everyday life, especially by laypeople, is missionary work.”

Korean Church faces challenges as the society confronts rapid secularization, individualization, disconnection from relationships, and a loss of meaning, she said.

“Just as the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World suggests that the Church must share in the joys and hopes, sorrows and anguish of the world, evangelization must likewise begin from a position of solidarity with the world,” she added.

“Therefore, the language of mission today must be the language of accompaniment, and it must be the ‘embodiment of the gospel’ achieved through the ‘witness of life,’” she added.

According to official data, the Catholic Church in South Korea has an estimated 5.6 million members, accounting for about 11 percent of the country's population of about 52 million. 

Overall, Christians make up about 30 percent of the population, making Christianity the most widely practiced organized religion in the country.

Once considered “a receiving Church” for its reliance on foreign donations and missionaries, the Korean Church in the past few decades has become known as “a sharing Church” that sends missionaries and donations around the world annually.

This story is a translated and edited version of a Korean-language report first published by the Catholic Times of Korea on Feb. 25, 2026.