The Martin Moriz Square in Lisbon became the venue for the first world meeting of digital evangelizers and missionaries at the Catholic Influencers Festival on 4 August 2023.
“The Church Listens to You,” digital missionaries responding to Pope Francis’ call for the consultations and conversation around the Synod of Synodality to be inclusive of the digital world, organized this initiative.
Many young Catholics have taken advantage of the various digital platforms to embark on the mission of spreading the Gospel. Of course, there are questions concerning the motivation behind the so-called ‘social media influencers.’ Some border on the addictive lure of the social media clicks with its psychological impact that is metric related. In addition, there are the financial gains from followership, adverts, impressions and engagements. Still, this does not diminish the positive impact social media influencers can have in the evangelizing mission of the church today.
The African Synod Digital Youth Faith Influencers (ASDYFI), a group of over 200 young people from 50 African countries, emerges as a specific response of the African Catholicism to Pope Francis’ request. The online dialogue between the pope and young people in Africa on 1 November 2022 further strengthened the general request for a synodal dimension to digital evangelization.
The event was organized by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN), the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, the communications department of the General Secretariat of the Synod, the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University and Loyola University Chicago.
It took a synodal character and was intended to produce a synodal effect. It was clear that the challenge before ASDYFI is to ensure that the young social media influencers could collaborate in their evangelizing mission rather than work in silos.
However, transitioning from individual influencing to a collaborative, synodal approach requires some formation and training. PACTPAN in partnership with other institutions, including the Dicastery for Communication, immediately took it up. Inaugurated on 9 February 2024, the 6-month online training project offers 7 course modules for a selected set of 100 young people from 52 African countries. The young people want to take advantage of “the tools and knowledge necessary to effectively use digital platforms to spread the faith and the word of God.”
There are similar initiatives beyond Africa. One example is the 2024 EWTN Summer School. It will equip young Catholic content creators from around the world with knowledge and skills that would help them witness to the Gospel in a more efficient way through the new media.
Overall, we are now witnessing the extension of synodality to the new media as a digital form of the people of God ‘walking together’. In this way, one does not evangelize through social media without carrying along other faithful. Together with them, one discerns the direction in which the Holy Spirit is taking the church.
There is a double awareness here. The first is the idea that mission represents belonging to a community of faith. That community communicates their reception of the Gospel of Christ to others through digital media. At this level it is still a matter of ‘one-of-others’ for the other.
The second awareness takes a more profound dimension where the ‘one-with-others’ shares the message of joy, love, peace, holiness, forgiveness, and salvation. This double awareness should underline the appreciation of the digital media as a veritable channel of Catholic mission of evangelization executed in a synodal manner.
I shall by way of conclusion tease out the implication of this for the understanding of the digital space.
- The digital space as a platform for the celebration of the Catholic faith
This takes the form of trends during popular celebrations such as Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost. Some of these coincide with celebration by other Christians. At other times, people come to social media to announce their baptism, confirmation, marriage. Or they ask for prayers for themselves or others. Priests and lay persons have also taken to these platforms to teach the faith and to describe its beauty. Some groups even hop on to social media to sing Catholic hymns! It is their way of keeping alive the nostalgia about their faith. They do this with a community that is Catholic irrespective of where they are on the face of the earth. Another example is the daily morning rosary space hosted by Nigerian Catholics on X. They bring together an average of 1000 people, lay and ordained, daily from across the world. To pray! Most interesting is the complete absence of apologetics. They just pray the rosary with a short reflection on the reading of the day. - The digital space as a place of ecclesial mission that transforms the influencer into a community representative
The Catholic social media influencer is not self-focused. He or she reflects and represents the community of faith. We have seen how encounters with Catholics who celebrate their faith ignited the interest of people in search of meaning in life to consider the Catholic faith. More still, the digital platform brought together young Catholics to demonstrate what the Catholic faith stands for. Some of those who have previously been lukewarm in their faith find it reignited by others. We have seen new communities emerge with missions that transform lives. An example is the FaithChat Platform of the Nigerian-British priest James Anyaegbu, popularly known as the ‘Tik-Tok priest.’ Father James mobilizes his followers to feed the poor both in Scotland, where he works, and across various countries in Africa. - The digital space as a forum for critical conversations that challenge the practice of the faith
Sometimes very difficult conversations that point out what people think or feel about the faith appear on social media. They provide an important opportunity for mutual accountability. A huge conversation followed the General Secretariat of the Synod’s 2021 publication of some pictures and logos for the Synod on Synodality. This showed the ‘culture war’ in the church, particularly in the West, between the so-called liberals and so-called conservatives. More interesting were conversations surrounding the quality of the art of the Synod. The question was whether this met the quality of Catholic art over the centuries. Similar debates followed the 18 December 2023 publication of Fiducia Supplicans by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. In all of these, notwithstanding the shallow nature of some of them, the often-difficult conversations provide a learning and discerning moment for the church in its mission of evangelization.
Going forward, the church in Africa needs to confront herself. She has to assess the appropriateness of the chances digital Catholicity provide in advancing mission in a synodal manner. PACTPAN is taking the lead in this regard. Yet, it might be important to think of ways of collaborating, exchange and strengthening of capacity in this regard.
Those in contexts outside Africa, are you up for the challenge?