The New Mission Field Is Digital

The Church celebrated the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers this year – Sarah-Leah Pimentel looks at the state of evangelisation on digital platforms — and how Catholics who are active online are called to witness to the Gospel.

These days, it seems, everyone is a social media influencer. For some, it has become a lucrative career — endorsing products, promoting services, or serving as the public face of brands. In 2024, the global influencer market was worth $247 billion!

Content creators with large followings have the power to shape how we see the world. Many are lifestyle influencers, promoting an idealised image of the “perfect” look, fashion, status, or so-called “glam life” — one that revolves around fun, parties, travel and instant recognition.

Increasingly, politicians are tapping into this influence, using creators and entire social media platforms to amplify their ideologies. Too often, it is less about who is right and more about who commands the biggest share of the online space.

So much of this is antithetical to Christian values. Wealth, fame, power and instant gratification are not the cornerstones of Christian life. Yet, we find some Christian churches buying into this temporal model of success as some kind of “evidence” that those who achieve these worldly standards have somehow been “blessed” by God.

Doing as you preach

Early in his pontificate, Pope Francis — a social media influencer in his own right — tweeted that “the world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love” (June 2, 2013). He reminded us that for the Christian, the attainment of power, wealth and success are not the most important values.

We are called to something different: to permeate our temporal reality with Gospel values of compassion; a right relationship with God, our fellow man and the Earth; seeking the good of the other (even if it means that we have less, so that others may have enough); being less concerned with our self-importance and status; and using the gifts we have received in the service of our fellow human beings.

The late pope didn’t just tweet about a lived Christianity that is countercultural in our modern world — he lived it. He spoke about our duty to care for refugees, and then he went to Lesbos to be close to those who risked everything to try and save their lives. He went even further, by bringing back 12 refugee families from Syria to the Vatican and helping them begin a new life.

He chose not to live in the Apostolic Palace but took up simpler lodgings at Casa Sancta Marta. He saw the homeless people living around St Peter’s Square and created ablution facilities, and converted Palazzo Migliori into a homeless shelter. He washed the feet of prisoners.

Online vs offline values

Influencers are not just digital personalities who post what people want to see. True influencers are coherent and consistent. Their online lives are in sync with their offline reality. Otherwise, if they say one thing but do another, how can we trust their message?

This is the problem with so many online Christian influencers. On the one hand, they might post beautiful prayers, devotions to the saints, and call for greater reverence for the sacraments or Church traditions. These are all good things, and we should all do the same. But then, if you follow their other postings, some of them exhibit values that are anything but Christian. They denigrate people and groups, even fellow believers, whom they consider to be adversaries; they might gaslight those who disagree with them; and some even display all kinds of bigotries.

Sadly, some Christian influencers paint a picture of our faith that confirms what non-believers accuse us of, and which Mahatma Gandhi commented on so succinctly nearly 100 years ago: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Online Missionaries of Hope

During this Jubilee Year of Hope, the Church celebrated a two-day Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers on July 28–29. The website dedicated to this event (www.digitalismissio.org) describes this jubilee as a “milestone for online evangelisation” and wants to use the two days to “celebrate, train and inspire those called to evangelise on digital platforms”, through workshops, pilgrimage, liturgy and a festival.

It describes digital missionaries and influencers as “Missionaries of Hope” who bring the “Good News to every corner, especially in the digital world [by] spreading the light of faith and the Gospel, transforming lives with messages of hope and love”.

This mission is reserved not just for a few social media gurus or especially trained theological experts. If you have a social media account, are active on a messaging platform, maintain a blog, or host podcasts, you have ample opportunity to be a Catholic influencer yourself.

There are a few influencers who have a following of millions of people (Pope Francis had 18,3 million at the time of his death). There are others for whom online ministry is their core mission. An example of that is the youth-focused BustedHalo.com with nearly 25000 followers on X and 79000 followers on Facebook. Most of us, however, might have only a couple of hundred followers, and most of them might be people we know in the real world. Nevertheless, this is our platform where we can spread the message of the Gospel, not just with what we say but also with how we live.

Small acts with a profound effect

St Carlos Acutis, known as the first millennial saint, used his computer skills to bring Christianity to the Internet and share his love for the Eucharist with online communities. But he also served as a catechist in his parish and was fervent in his discovery of the Christian faith. He died when Facebook was still a communication platform for Harvard University students and Twitter (now X) had just been launched. He never knew Instagram, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Discord or the plethora of communication apps that exist today. But his life is an example for us that even small acts can have a profound effect.

As Catholics, we are all called to participate in online evangelisation and be influencers in our small communities. This mission comes with responsibility and introspection.

If we are to be digital missionaries, we need to live consistently in accordance with our Christian values and teachings. If we call for tolerance online, we need to be tolerant in our places of work, at church, and in our communities. If we defend the poor and marginalised online, we really should be doing something in the real world to give dignity or practical assistance to those who live on the margins of society.

We also need to be serious about our own spiritual and theological formation. Do we truly know what the Church teaches? If we are not sure, we have a duty to ask, read and research to better understand the liturgy, dogma, doctrine, apologetics, social justice, human sexuality, or any range of issues where faith touches secular life.

Beyond that, we must ask ourselves honestly: How do I understand this? How do I feel about this? What is easy for me to accept? What is difficult? Where do I need the Holy Spirit and prayer to guide me to a better understanding or a more open heart?

When engaging online, we sometimes don’t know the answer. But our honesty and humility in grappling with difficult issues is itself a form of witness. Stating that we need to discover and learn becomes an opening for discussion and reflection. This is also a powerful form of online evangelisation — encountering others and discovering the richness of our faith together.

Needless to say, posting inaccurate or false information about matters of our faith harms evangelisation; and if we do so knowingly, we are committing a sin.

Standing up for Gospel values

Sometimes we are also called to speak truth to power, to criticise what is wrong and challenge misplaced beliefs. When we condemn what is evil, do we still maintain respect for those who may disagree with us? Can we stand firm in our beliefs without denigrating or belittling others? Can

we remain open doors for dialogue, discussing the complex issues that confront the world, all the while remaining true to the message of the Gospel?

As we celebrate the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers, we can all participate in a Church without borders and make our faith attractive to a world that is weary and searching for meaning.

Sarah-Leah Pimentel currently lives in Cape Town, where she works as a language and media practitioner to track political threats in online communities.

Published in the July 2025 issue of The Southern Cross