Priests across the United States have claimed their social media evangelisation will not be threatened by the potential ban on TikTok. Source: The Tablet.
TikTok, a social media app designed to create and share short videos, has been increasingly used by Catholic priests both to evangelise and to offer glimpses into the life of American clergy through the use of viral internet trends.
Fr Simon Teller OP – Dominican chaplain and Director of Campus Ministry at Providence College, Rhode Island – is known for his ASMR Mass preparation videos, and has amassed views upwards of 11 million.
“In the grand scheme of things, I hope it gets banned. It is a tool that in itself is good, but requires intense discipline to use virtuously,” Fr Teller said..
“Although I would not use it as a consumer, I do use it as a preacher, in part because of its incredible reach, and in part because that is where people are.”
Speaking to the National Catholic Register, Fr David Michael Moses – who is known for his youthful and engaging style towards an approximate following of 325,000 on TikTok – said: “Every bad neighbourhood should have a Catholic church and a priest there. Just like in a bad neighbourhood [such as TikTok], there are souls that need to be ministered to.”
Fr Moses’ content addresses common questions people have about Catholicism, and he said he was not willing to let go of the “lost sheep”.
“There are a lot of lost people of TikTok, and the more lost they are the more we need to bring them back to the Church. Wherever the souls are, that is where we are going.”
The app recently came under legal pressure in the US because its Chinese parent company refused to sell the service to an approved American buyer.
After briefly suspending its US services in January, President Donald Trump granted a 75-day extension to TikTok upon his inauguration, despite the Supreme Court unanimously ruling to ban the app.
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US TikTok ban will not impede social media evangelisation, say priests (By Tabitha Smith, The Tablet)
