Lays and priests with hundreds of thousands of followers overlook more and more on social networks. With good results, but also some risk: like that of adapting the contents to the needs of sponsors
They were 1,100 and from 146 different countries, in recent days in Rome, to listen to the words of Pope Leo XIVwho urged them to be as much as possible “communion agents capable of breaking the logic of division and polarization; of individualism and agacentrism “. We are talking about the Catholic influencers, find themselves precisely in the Vatican for the Jubilee dedicated to digital missionaries, which was convened for 28 and 29 July. Okay, but who are these influencers, and what do they really distinguish from the rest of the category?
Let’s start by saying that digital missionaries are both secular and religious, even if undoubtedly – for obvious reasons – to attract more attention and followed are priests. It is estimated that, only in Italy, over 500 Italian priests are today with a significant online presence, with peaks of visibility in the most felt liturgical periods such as advent and Lent. Among the most followed priests, we find: Don Cosimo Schena -Only on Instagram followed by almost 460,000 people -Don Alberto Ravagnani -250,000 followers -Don Roberto Fiscner -246,000 followers -, father Jefferson Merighetti -followed by 119,000 -, Don Ambrogio Mazzai -from 105,000 -, Don Giuseppe Fusari – from 63,000.
Following, there are dozens of other very popular priests and also present on Facebook and Tiktok. Each of these priests has its own communicative style: there are those who make more playful and cheerful content, those who focus more on dialogue and interaction with followers, those who practice cycling and those who instead the gym, in short, really there for all tastes. However, among the influencer priests also remember similarities: for example, many of them are also authors of books. Some have also written more than one book, in reality. Which, if on the one hand it does not represent a novelty (in the history of the Church numerous saints – fortunately, to be added – have left us works), on the other, given that not all the priests are actually very equipped writers, feeds the suspicion that behind so much production there is the initiative of very remote publishing cases when it comes to limestone emerging or possible authors.
But let’s go back to digital missionaries, some of whom actually succeed in their evangelization work with concrete results. “A boy wrote to me saying that, also thanks to my videos, he found the courage to follow his vocation,” for example he declared the aforementioned Don in a recent interview Mazzaiadding: “These results leave the mark more than one hundred likes.” Like the Veronese priest, others have obtained a sequel not only virtual but also in faith. However, it must be said that the debate is open on the vast scale of digital missionaries. Last year, for example, a book was published – significantly entitled Influenciadores Digitais Católicos -, the result of a study by a team of five researchers together by Monsignor Joaquim Giovanni Mol Guimarãesauxiliary bishop of Belo Horizonte, in Brazil, and is already rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais.
Well, analyzing Brazilian priests not with thousands but with various millions of followers, this study group has made a very severe analysis. Which, first of all, asks to distinguish between the true “digital evangelizers” and the influencers. The latter, in fact, according to the investigation promoted by Monsignor Manyalthough they profess Catholics in fact “try to adapt the religious message to economic interests, through monetization and sponsors who end up interfering in the published content”. Then there is the problem of the actual content: how many self -styled digital missionaries really promote the Gospel?
Analyzing two priests many followed and known – the reverends Patrick Fernandes And Fábio de Melo -, the study wanted by Many He saw as “in 90% of the posts these two priests present themselves as individuals, not as part of an institution or an idea”. In fact, even looking at the Italian panorama the feeling is that – for a don Mazzai Which has obtained, thanks also to Providence, of course, the vocation of one of his followers – the feeling, we said, is that in the many posts of priests (we allude to those who enhance the birds of gym, the biceps, the tattoos, the impeccable hairstyle and so on) the vanity has the better of evangelization.
In this regard it does not seem a coincidence that Pope Prevostto the Jubilee of the digital missionaries of the past few days, has addressed a very explicit appeal so that they are “centered on Christ“, Breaking the logic” of individualism and agacentrism “. Just as he had done, a true saint and evangelizer comes to comment: the blessed Carlo Acutisstruck down by leukemia in 2006 at 15 years and who will be canonized on September 7, who had decided to guide his work on the web entirely to the dissemination of eucharistic miracles. Of course, unfortunately Acutis He died before the social era, even if from what he knows he is hard, here, imagine him in winking poses …
However, it would be wrong to be too critical of digital missionaries, which should not necessarily be considered as alien or distant figures. Illuminating, in this regard, a Polish study released in 2022 on Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies – edited by Michal Wyrostkiewicz, Joanna Sosnowska And Aneta Wójciszyn-Wasil of the Catholic University Giovanni Paolo II of Lublin-he found how, for some influencers Catholics (from 100,000 to 1 million followers), there are several micro-influencers (from 1,000 to 100,000 followers) and, above all, many micro-influencers (from 1,000 to 10,000 followers). It means that basically every Catholic, even little known, can do its part on social networks. The courage to profess such is enough and, instead of aspiring to be testimonial, try to be credible witnesses. Which is then the most important thing.
