{"id":58572,"date":"2025-08-09T14:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/?p=58572"},"modified":"2025-08-09T14:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:00:07","slug":"how-pope-leo-xiv-can-influence-the-catholic-churchs-new-social-media-missionaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/learn\/how-pope-leo-xiv-can-influence-the-catholic-churchs-new-social-media-missionaries\/","title":{"rendered":"How Pope Leo XIV can influence the Catholic Church\u2019s new social media missionaries"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n Pope Leo XIV waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter\u2019s Square for his Angelus address on July 6, 2025. \/ Credit: Vatican Media<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

Vatican City, Jul 28, 2025 \/ 13:09 pm (CNA).<\/p>\n

The Vatican welcomes more than a thousand social media influencers to Rome this week for an event intended to shape a new generation of Catholic missionaries \u2014 those sharing Christ on the internet. An active social media user, Pope Leo XIV is ready to help the Church navigate the fraught world of internet evangelization.<\/p>\n

Before becoming pope, then-Father Robert Prevost identified social media\u2019s potential for evangelization, but he warned about the anti-Christian messages dominating Western media and the tendency to exalt exhibition over the mystical.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Church needs to be sophisticated, if you will, also in terms of the use of the social networks that are available to us,\u201d Prevost said in a 2012 interview with Catholic News Service (CNS)<\/a> a Roma.<\/p>\n

The Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers July 28\u201329 is two days of prayer services, workshops, and talks from Church leaders. The event, with the participation of over a thousand popular Catholic social media users from around the world, will culminate in a music festival. Pope Leo is also expected to make an appearance.<\/p>\n

Father Lucio Ruiz, No. 2 at the Vatican\u2019s communication department, told EWTN News that since 2018, the Vatican has recognized the activity of what they now brand \u201cdigital missionaries \u2026 people who loved Jesus and the Church and who dedicated themselves to seeking out suffering and spreading the Word [online].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were alone, they had no training. The Church didn\u2019t know or recognize them. And everywhere they asked for the Church\u2019s accompaniment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

So the Vatican\u2019s Dicastery for Communication started organizing online prayer meetings with thousands of these so-called digital missionaries, Catholics with large social media followings, called \u201cThe Church Listens to You.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now, they are meeting in person for the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers for spiritual and academic preparation \u2014 what the Church calls formation \u2014 something Leo identified as an important need for the new evangelization.<\/p>\n

From spectacle to mystery<\/h2>\n

In the 2012 interview with CNS, Prevost said he did not think \u201cturning away from the media would be the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our real challenge is in formation. Our challenge is in preparing people to become critical thinkers,\u201d he said following the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization, a gathering in which hundreds of Catholic bishops and others gathered to discuss how to share the good news of Jesus Christ in the modern era.<\/p>\n

Prevost, who took part in the synod as the then-prior general of the Augustinian order, told CNS thinking about how the Church should evangelize in a media-saturated environment \u201cis a complex question with a more complex answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people in the Church recognize today the need for the media,\u201d he said. \u201cSo this isn\u2019t meant as sort of a blanket elimination of the media in terms of the usefulness that the instruments of modern communication can have for the Church and for announcing the message. But one thing that was repeated numerous times in the synod was that the whole concept of the new evangelization needs to begin with a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nella sua own short address<\/a> to bishops at the synod, Prevost called out \u201cmass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality,\u201d including the normalization of \u201cbeliefs and practices at odds with the Gospel, for example: abortion, the homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia.\u201d <\/p>\n

If the Catholic Church is going to successfully counter these messages, he said in the Vatican\u2019s New Synod Hall, \u201cpastors, preachers, teachers, and catechists are going to have to become far more informed about the context of evangelizing in a world dominated by mass media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvangelization in the modern world,\u201d he concluded, \u201cmust find the appropriate means for redirecting public attention away from spectacle and into mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Digital missionaries\u2019<\/h2>\n

Almost 13 years later, the popularity of social media has skyrocketed \u2014 giving almost anyone a public platform \u2014 and priests, religious, and laypeople talking about Catholicism on the digital stage are wrestling with some of the same issues identified by the future Pope Leo.<\/p>\n

Father Heriberto Garc\u00eda Arias, a young priest from Mexico with 2 million followers on TikTok, told EWTN News that social media is self-referential, because \u201cthat\u2019s how social media works. If you want your message to get across, you have to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Father
Father Heriberto Garc\u00eda Arias with a group of young people. Credit: Photo courtesy of Father Heriberto Garc\u00eda Arias<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But he said he tries to keep Jesus the focus of his content, even if it is a temptation to do otherwise: \u201cIt\u2019s not something you overcome all the time,\u201d he acknowledged. \u201cIt\u2019s a struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda pointed out another potential stumbling block for online influencers, faith-focused or otherwise: the algorithm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say no, I\u2019m not going to do this, I\u2019m just going to do it differently, without filters, without music, without that, it won\u2019t get through\u201d to reach viewers, he said.<\/p>\n

Ruiz, who has become the Vatican\u2019s point person for digital evangelization, acknowledged social media\u2019s limitations too: \u201cThe timing, the speed, the simplicity of the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, the Argentinian priest said, it\u2019s only a \u201cfirst proclamation\u201d \u2014 what St. Paul VI called \u201cpre-evangelization,\u201d or evangelization \u201cat its initial and still incomplete stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1975 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi<\/em><\/a>, Paul VI already identified that the 20th century was \u201ccharacterized by the mass media or means of social communication, and the first proclamation, catechesis, or the further deepening of faith cannot do without these means.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Church\u2019s use of modern means of social communication is not new; it has embraced novel technologies from the printing press to the radio.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Ruiz insisted that online evangelization is just the traditional missionary activity of the Church, only now, on the digital continent.<\/p>\n

He cited a 2023 report from the Synod on Synodality that said: \u201cIt is up to us to reach today\u2019s culture in all spaces where people seek meaning and love, including the spaces they enter through their cellphones and tablets.\u201d<\/p>\n

esperienza umana<\/h2>\n

In the 2012 CNS interview, Prevost pointed to St. Augustine, one of his sources of spiritual inspiration for advice on spreading the good news. \u201cOne of the reasons the \u2018Confessions\u2019 [of St. Augustine] continues to be one of the widest-read books in the history of the world is precisely because of Augustine\u2019s insight into human experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman experience, [Augustine] says, is precisely where you can find God. And the humanity of Augustine is not something which leads into a kind of personalized, egoistic, it\u2019s-all-about-me-and-only-me world, but quite the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharing bits of humanity on the internet is what another digital influencer coming to the jubilee event said she tries to do in her work. <\/p>\n

Author, speaker, and radio host Katie Prejean McGrady shares snippets of her life as a wife and mom with over 40,000 followers on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Catholic influencers get to be like the great missionaries of the Church \u201cin the places and spaces where people are often trying to just dull their senses and be distracted,\u201d she said in an interview with EWTN News.<\/p>\n

\"Katie
Katie Prejean McGrady in an interview with EWTN News\u2019 Mark Irons on July 25, 2025. Credit: \u201cEWTN News Nightly\u201d\/Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an email ahead of the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers, McGrady told CNA she hopes \u201cPope Leo, who isn\u2019t unaware of the digital landscape, strikes an encouraging and hopeful tone in talking about how we go \u2018on mission\u2019 into these digital spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA pope who is aware of how well (or poorly) these spaces can be used is one, I think, that will be encouraging to those missionaries who are willing to go onto the digital continent and share the Gospel there,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo and Twitter<\/h2>\n

Leo has plenty of personal experience with social media. He opened a Twitter (now X) account in August 2011, over a year before Benedict XVI earned the moniker of the \u201ctweeting pope\u201d with the launch of the official papal account @Pontifex<\/a> on Dec. 3, 2012.<\/p>\n

Leo XIV\u2019s account, with the handle @drprevost, was deleted<\/a> within a week of his election to the papacy, but not before other X users had noted and screenshotted a number of the new pope\u2019s replies and reposts, including a criticism of an interpretation of St. Augustine by U.S. Vice President JD Vance.<\/p>\n

As a prior general, and later bishop and cardinal, Leo\u2019s over 400 tweets and posts<\/a> (saved on a webpage) included many reshares of articles from Catholic news accounts, especially with pro-immigrant and pro-life content, information from the Peruvian bishops\u2019 conference, and posts from the Augustinian order.<\/p>\n

In fact, the now-pope seemed to have identified social media\u2019s potential early on: One of his first tweets after opening the account was a reply to another user that \u201cthe news can be communicated very well here!\u201d<\/p>\n

Digital or real?<\/h2>\n

\u201cIn this culture where new generations come with a different way of thinking, where the digital world is real for them\u2026 these new places require testimony, witnesses, digital missionaries who are witnesses to the Gospel,\u201d Garc\u00eda said.<\/p>\n

The priest underlined that the youngest generations are all on social media, so future priests, cardinals \u2014 even a future pope \u2014 are likely logging on to those platforms too. <\/p>\n

That is why, he added, it is important for Pope Leo to be informed: so he can guide the Church in this new challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, a pope doesn\u2019t come from Mars, and I\u2019ve said it before \u2026 the next pope is watching TikTok right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paola Flynn, Vatican correspondent for EWTN News\u2019 Spanish-language news program, \u201cEWTN Noticias,\u201d and Casey Mann, a summer 2025 intern for EWTN News in Rome, contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/265593\/how-pope-leo-xiv-can-influence-the-catholic-church-s-new-social-media-missionaries<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo XIV waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter\u2019s Square for his Angelus address on July 6, 2025. \/ Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Jul 28, 2025 \/ 13:09 pm (CNA). The Vatican welcomes more than a thousand social media influencers to Rome this week for an event intended to shape a new generation [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":59988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-58572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-news"],"mb":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/christianpure.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/How-Pope-Leo-XIV-can-influence-the-Catholic-Churchs-new-social-media-missionaries.webp?fit=800%2C533&quality=75&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_publicize_connections","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack-related-posts","jetpack_sharing_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58572"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianpure.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=58572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}