Latest news with #JubileeofDigitalMissionaries
Spectator
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
The Catholic influencers spreading the word of God
Vatican City In an auditorium just outside St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sat solemnly in the front row as a young crowd sang, danced and hopped around to a pop hymn. The cardinal, who is 70, was widely expected to become the pope earlier this year. Instead, he inaugurated the Catholic Church's first social media influencer conference. Around 1,000 influencers attended last week's Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers. In his opening remarks, Parolin described social media as not just an instrument of communication, but 'a way of living in the world'. The division between the real world and the virtual world is thinning, or nonexistent, for many young people, and the Church believes 'digital missionaries' can reach them. Some influencers host podcasts and make short explainer videos on Church history, apologetics and how to pray. Others look more like typical influencers, creating 'day in the life' videos which weave prayer in with studying and relationship advice. The first influencer saint, Carlo Acutis, will be canonised next month. During his life – he died of leukaemia in 2006 at 15 – he made a website cataloguing eucharistic miracles. He's a bit of a celebrity for young Catholics (his relics are currently 'on tour'). At the conference, a Franciscan priest performed a rap single about him: 'Yo, listen up, lemme tell you 'bout a kid/ Carlo Acutis, yeah the bro on the grid.' Grainy camcorder footage of Carlo's life features in the music video. One influencer told me these recordings made her emotional: 'I've been going through old videos of my dad, and it made me feel like he was still here. It all just makes you think, this stuff has the potential to move hearts.' Can TikTok videos move hearts? God works in mysterious ways, but I wonder if rapping priests and videos which play on the same reward pathways in my brain as the non-religious ones are reducing faith to online slop in an infinite 'feed'. Several influencers I spoke to used the word 'addiction' when speaking about social media. Doesn't that make them enablers? 'The Church goes into the places of great infection, of great woundedness,' said Mary Harper, a theologian who creates Catholic fashion content. 'She can't respond to the wound, she can't respond to the illness, until she meets the person there.' Still, while influencer content is offputting or cringey to many people, it has reached others. Soeur Albertine, a French nun and influencer, cited a poll saying that 78 per cent of French catechumens (adults preparing to join the Catholic Church) said they decided to be baptised thanks to social media. After mass in St Peter's, Pope Leo XIV made a surprise appearance to address the influencers. A group of young women shrieked with joy at the top of their lungs. People cried, and filmed themselves crying. You could hardly see him through the flock of selfie sticks and people standing on plastic chairs to get a better camera angle. 'Faced with cultural changes throughout history, the Church has never remained passive,' the Pope told the crowd. 'She has always sought to illuminate every age with the light and hope of Christ by discerning good from evil, and what was good from what needed to be changed, transformed and purified.' It is difficult to see where new technology will lead. Did Gutenberg imagine his printing press would end up splintering the Church? Did televangelists imagine they would turn into hucksters? Can digital missionaries resist the pull towards addiction and isolation? I asked Mackenzie Hunter, a faith and lifestyle influencer, whether being on social media so often took a toll on her soul. 'It would be easier not to be on social media,' she admitted. 'There would be less risk of sin and downfall, but some people are called to dive in.' The Catholic influencers see their talent for creating content as a gift from God, which they have a responsibility to use for good.
Herald Malaysia
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Herald Malaysia
Cardinal Tagle at influencers jubilee: ‘Love cannot be generated by an algorithm'
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle urged Catholic content creators gathered in Rome for the first-ever Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers to 'be discerning' in how they use their platforms, warning against the spiritual dangers of misinformation and manipulation online. Jul 30, 2025 Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, presides over the Mass for the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers on July 29, 2025, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. | Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA By Courtney Mares Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle urged Catholic content creators gathered in Rome for the first-ever Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers to 'be discerning' in how they use their platforms, warning against the spiritual dangers of misinformation and manipulation online. 'You are not only influencers, you are also missionaries,' Tagle said during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on July 29, addressing more than 1,700 Catholic creators from 75 countries who came to the Vatican for the two-day event coinciding with the Jubilee of Youth.'Dear digital missionaries and Catholic influencers: Jesus loves you. Do not doubt him. Accept him as the greatest influence on your life. And through you, may the person of Jesus influence many people, human and digital spaces, so that God's truth, justice, love, and peace may flow to the ends of the earth,' he said. Organized by the Dicastery for Evangelization and the Dicastery for Communication, the jubilee marked a historic first for the Catholic Church: a large-scale Vatican initiative aimed at those proclaiming the Gospel in the digital age. Clergy and laypeople alike, many of them young and active on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, gathered to reflect on evangelization in the digital sphere. Pilgrims could be seen taking selfies under the dome of St. Peter's and exchanging social media handles in the colonnade. 'I've been meeting a lot of people who have content I follow and people who follow me,' 24-year-old American Sophie Chamblee from Indiana told CNA. Chamblee has more than 59,000 followers for her Instagram page, Playground Saints, where she shares cartoon stickers of the saints and posts humorous videos about imaginary conversations between the saints in heaven. 'Everybody here is after the same thing … so we all understand each other in ways that other people can't,' she said. In his homily, Tagle, pro-prefect for the Section for First Evangelization, shared a personal warning about the risks of digital manipulation: a deepfake video of him advertising arthritis medication recently circulated online. 'To influence consumers so that monetary profit may increase, some manufacturers resort to false advertising, even using famous personalities,' he said. 'I discovered videos generated by I don't know who, of me advertising medicine for arthritis.' Tagle, who was considered a papabile in the 2013 and 2025 conclaves, drew criticism ahead of the most recent papal election when a viral video showed him singing karaoke to John Lennon's 'Imagine.' His comments during the homily reflected on the moral complexities of navigating digital fame.'I pose this question: Will we let the water and blood of Jesus poured for love of us to be the true fluid of influence that will wash away all iniquity, falsehood, injustice, prejudice, manipulation, and violence?' Tagle asked the congregation. 'Let the love of God in Jesus and the Holy Spirit prevent various poisonous influences from flowing into human hearts.' Tagle also cautioned against mistaking technological connection for true Christian witness. 'God did not send to us a text message or an email, or a file document. Rather, God sent his Son,' he said. 'Love cannot be generated by an algorithm. Only a divine person with a human heart can love divinely and humanly, effecting profound and enduring change,' he added. As the Mass concluded, the pilgrims received a surprise visit from Pope Leo XIV, who entered St. Peter's to a sea of raised smartphones. Switching seamlessly between Italian, English, and Spanish, the pope emphasized the importance of authenticity and human dignity in digital evangelization. 'Science and technology influence the way we live in the world, even affecting how we understand ourselves and how we relate to God, how we relate to one another,' the pope said. 'But nothing that comes from man and his creativity should be used to undermine the dignity of others. Our mission — your mission — is to nurture a culture of Christian humanism, and to do so together. This is the beauty of the 'network' for all of us.' With artificial intelligence playing an increasingly dominant role in global communication, Pope Leo challenged influencers to examine their witness. 'This is a challenge that we must face: reflecting on the authenticity of our witness, on our ability to listen and speak, and on our capacity to understand and to be understood,' he said. 'We have a duty to work together to develop a way of thinking, to develop a language, of our time, that gives voice to love.' 'It is not simply a matter of generating content but of creating an encounter of hearts,' the pope said.--CNA
