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AT THE START of this week, the Catholic Church marked a first in its nearly 2,000-year history when it welcomed social media influencers to the Vatican.
On 28-29 July, the Vatican hosted the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers as part of its wider Jubilee Year celebrations.
Jubilee Years happen every 25 years within the Church and the theme of this Jubilee Year is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.
The Church said it wants to highlight the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of Covid-19 pandemic, and the climate crisis and has enlisted an anime-style character called Luce as the Jubilee Year mascot.
The Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers was open to people who “evangelise in the digital environment, sharing the message of the Gospel on social networks”.
However, many news outlets have reported it as having been a meeting of “hot priests” in a bid to increase the faith among a younger generation.
The Telegraph claimed that the Vatican has turned to “hot priests” to spread the faith and the Daily Mail said that “hot priest influencers are drawing young people to the church in their droves”.
Over in the States meanwhile, the New York Post said that Vatican was hoping that “hot priest influencers” would be able to “spread the word of God to younger faithful as numbers slump”.
Vatican to host ‘hot priests’ influencers who spread word of God to younger faithful as numbers slump https://t.co/zX0TNawbAK pic.twitter.com/dtdgFToiom
— New York Post (@nypost) July 27, 2025
Some priests who might be classified as “hot” did indeed attend but it is not the case that the Vatican “hosted” or “turned to hot priests”.
JD Flynn is the founder and editor of The Pillar, an online news site covering the Catholic Church.
“Whatever you think of the Jubilee for Influencers,” he said, “this is a gross mischaracterisation of it.”
The Jubilee was open “to all who evangelise” and included workshops on the “challenges and opportunities of the Church’s mission in the digital age”.
It began with Monday Mass in parishes around the Vatican and continued with a series of conferences, reflections, and roundtables.
Father David Vard, aged 33, is a priest from Newbridge in Co Kildare, who serves in the Parish of Stradbally, Co Laois.
He arrived in Rome on Tuesday, as the Jubilee for Catholic Influencers was coming to an end.
He is in Rome for the Jubilee of Youth, which ended today.
While some people within the Church aren’t enthused about the Jubilee of Catholic Influencers, Fr Vard remarked that “that’s where people are meeting each other and interacting”.
“Another priest once said to me, ‘social media is a good and bad place with good and not so good people, but like any town or village, it also needs priests and religious, so that’s where we need to be.’
“If you open TikTok or Instagram and a video comes up talking about Jesus, that can’t be a bad thing and it might then become more real to them, so I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be on social media.”
When asked about the “hot priest” angle many news outlets have taken, Fr Vard said he’s not sure where it came from.
“To be honest, I think maybe it got lost in translation,” said Fr Vard.
“They wanted online figures who can ‘attract’ people to the faith by being articulate on social media, and all of a sudden people are talking physically attractive people and about ‘hot priests’ and the priest from the TV show Fleabag.
“But it’s grabbing headlines and people are talking about it so that’s good, and maybe we can use it to our advantage.
“But it’s not about the person and how they look, it’s about how they get across their message.”
Meanwhile, over the course of the Jubilee of Youth, up to a million people came to Rome for the event and Fr Vard said it is rejuvenating to be at such a gathering.
“We had Mass on Tuesday evening and Pope Leo XIV made a surprise appearance.
“I was sitting among hundreds of priests and the average age was probably around my age, priests in their 30s, and then the Pope arrived and we were like school boys running to greet him.
“I think in Ireland, priests are seen as the ‘old man’ – you can’t have fun, you can’t do anything.
“And we’re all there, just so excited to see the Pope and all these young people who are so excited about their faith.
“We need more of that, and we priests are human too and we get excited and passionate about things and I think it was good to celebrate that.”
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