Catholic influencers, the Vatican's big bet to revitalize the Church: How does the strategy work?

Since 1300, when Boniface VIII convened the first Jubilee in history, a wide variety of groups have made pilgrimages to Rome: workers, seminarians, families, businesspeople, movements, members of the armed forces, politicians, athletes, young people, musicians, artists, and others.

But for the Jubilee of 2025, a mega-ecclesial event convened by Pope Francis inviting Catholics to give "signs of hope," more than a thousand Catholic influencers from over 100 countries also traveled to Rome for the first time. They participated in the first Jubilee dedicated to them, dubbed "digital missionaries," which concluded on July 29.

Considered the Catholic Church's major undertaking, this two-day event brought together all those who evangelize in the digital world, sharing the Gospel message on social media, blogs, channels, and apps.

“Some say that the Church's big bet is on influencers, but I would say, on the other hand, that the influencers' big bet is on the Church… Only the Church, the institution, hadn't realized the great, profound, beautiful, and widespread love they have, people who have been carrying out this digital mission for ten or fifteen years,” Argentine Monsignor Lucio Ruiz, a social media expert who was the driving force behind this unprecedented initiative, which proved more than successful, told La Nación.

“The question is, why do influencers undertake this digital mission? Because it's normal: when a Christian loves, wherever he is, he preaches Jesus. It's not a strategic project; it's the naturalness of the love that believes, and when you love and believe, you give it, and you give it naturally. Now what we're doing, as the Church has always done with its missionaries, is welcoming them, training them, accompanying them, sending them out, giving them a context so they can be strong in the Church and live in the Church and work with the Church, so that they don't remain snipers or lone rangers,” said Ruiz, deputy leader of the Dicastery for Communication.

"So, the point is not to bet on them, but to welcome them into the life of the Church: none of them came to create an account now, but rather they are the fruit of many years, and so now it was about bringing them all together so that they feel loved, so that they feel like a family, so that they support one another, so that they feel inserted in the Church, so that they can have the formation, the recognition, the accompaniment of the Church-Institution," he clarified.

Ruiz emphasized that it was Pope Francis' openness that made this first Jubilee of Influencers possible. "This is the most genuine fruit of the synod's theme of broadening the horizon, in tune with the heart of the Gospel and with Francis' call to be an outgoing Church, also in the digital world."

In this sense, we must recall his neologism, which called for "Samaritanizing" the digital realm: bringing humanity, hope, and charity to the networks, which means becoming a neighbor and tending to suffering, like the Good Samaritan in the parable, because attention to the suffering of others is key to the mission, because it makes God's mercy present," he stated. "The Church's objective in the digital world is not to generate content, but to provoke encounters. To lift up those who have fallen, to give hope to those seeking meaning, to safeguard the value of the first proclamation," he emphasized.

Among the participants in this first Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Influencers was Pablo Licheri, a systems graduate who in 2014 created the Mass Schedules app, which is used to locate Catholic churches and find their Mass times. It is currently available in nine languages and has been downloaded by two million people.

“We wanted to put technology at the service of the Gospel: if we are 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, imagine what we can do if we also use our cell phones to get closer to God!” said Licheri, who created the app after a spiritual retreat where he understood “the incalculable value of each Mass and the need to facilitate access to it.”

Upon receiving the digital missionaries in audience on July 29, Pope Leo XIV reminded them that their mission is to "nurture a culture of Christian humanism" and that "it is not simply a matter of generating content, but of creating an encounter between hearts." He also called on them to go "repair the networks."

“Jesus called his first apostles while they were mending their fishing nets. He also asks this of us; indeed, he asks us today to build other networks: networks of relationships, networks of love, networks of free exchange, where friendship is authentic and profound. Networks where what has been broken can be repaired, where loneliness can be healed, regardless of the number of followers, but rather by experiencing in every encounter the infinite greatness of love. Networks that open space for others, more than for themselves, where no 'filter bubble' can drown out the voice of the weakest. Networks that liberate, networks that save. Networks that allow us to rediscover the beauty of looking into each other's eyes. Networks of truth. In this way, every story of shared good will be the knot of a single, immense network: the network of networks, the network of God,” the Pope said.

“Be agents of communion, then, capable of breaking the logic of division and polarization; of individualism and self-centeredness. Focus on Christ, to overcome the logic of the world, of fake news, and of frivolity, with the beauty and light of truth,” he asked them. And he thanked them “for all the good you have done and are doing in your lives, for the dreams you pursue, for your love for the Lord Jesus, for your love for the Church, for the help you provide to those who suffer, and for your journey on the digital path.”

The first Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Influencers was part of the broader Youth Jubilee, for which half a million young people from 146 countries registered.

Sixty-eight percent of the participants were from Europe, but “many young people were from countries currently at war,” such as Lebanon, Iraq, Burma, Ukraine, Israel, Syria, and South Sudan, Bishop Rino Fisichella, senior official at the Dicastery for Evangelization and responsible for organizing the event, said days before the event.

According to Fisichella, the Youth Jubilee was "the most anticipated moment" of the Holy Year, "because it attracts the greatest number of people," and 270 parishes, 400 schools, 40 after-school centers, Civil Protection centers, sports stadiums, and families were mobilized to welcome the pilgrims.

For his part, the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, noted that for this occasion, "the largest technological installation ever created for an event in Italy" was created, with a 500-square-meter control room responsible for supervising the pilgrimage area, which spans more than 500,000 square meters.

From July 28 to August 3, the "papa boys"—a term coined during the Jubilee of Youth in 2000, when two million young people invaded Rome during the reign of John Paul II—participated in nearly 70 events in various parts of Rome, including debates, talks, and performances.

The event, for which a security plan was deployed that included 4,000 officers and thousands of volunteers, concluded with a large open-air mass.