The strategy of a priest on YouTube: use Shakira’s song and Piqué to claim marriage

Fr. Byron Cadmen, who since 2019 directs an evangelization project on social networks, displays a simple strategy to attract the audience: find hooks in popular culture and everyday reality and use them to speak of God. “For example, when Shakira took out his claim song to Piqué, I took the opportunity to talk about the beauty of the marriage and the care of the children,” he explains in conversation with ACI Press.

In this way, he also captures those who slide his finger on the screen of his phone just to search for “morbidity or entertainment.” And, suddenly, “they meet a priest talking about it. And God acts,” summarizes.

Ordered in 2016, at 26, this presbyter has made the Eucharist and the spiritual life the heart of his digital mission.

“I saw a lot of indifference. I saw lack of closeness, value and love towards the Eucharist,” he explains. Little by little he realized that the key was not to say new things – “all priests announced the same truth” – but how they said.

Thus he began using striking questions to introduce his videos as “Did you know that in communion you are eating God?” Or “if you do this at Mass, you are doing badly” and managed to capture the attention of those who would not seek for themselves a religious content.

Has two profiles on Instagram @un_sacerdote_millennial y @unpadrecito, But where it really triumphs is in YouTube where it launches content that wear keys of the Catholic faith, such as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist or what transubstantiation really means to more complex issues such as mortal sin, liturgy, body postures in Mass or even the new era and esotericism disguised as Catholic spirituality.

Their answers are anchored in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and in the traditional doctrine, but expressed in an accessible and direct language.

“I try to explain things in a way that for them is very understandable, very digestible,” he says. “And from there it has been a constant stop, because doubts and questions never end,” says Fr. Cadmen who will participate next week in the jubilee of influencers in Rome.

Is there the devil?

One of the most sensitive issues that decided to address was the existence of the devil. After hearing in certain theological formations for laity that the devil was just a metaphor of evil, he began to investigate the real perception of the faithful.

The doubts were many: is the demon an angelic person or just a negative force? Is there really? “There I started talking about the devil as a real and spiritual person who seeks to destroy the personal relationship with God. And from there other spiritual issues such as prayer, contemplation, inner life,” he explains.

He has also dedicated dozens of content to clarify misunderstandings about Pope Francis, who frequently, he says, have been instrumentalized or treated with hostility by other channels, both Protestants and Catholics.

“Perhaps, if you look on the Internet, I am from the channel that has made more content to defend or interpret Catholically the words of Pope Francis,” he says.

Unexpected conversions like a Mason

With more than 300,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, this Ecuadorian priest of the community Comunio Santorum, Founded in 1975, he has witnessed some unexpected conversions. One of them marked it deeply: “A Mason, who had already reached the 30th grade, wrote to me in the middle of a live broadcast to thank me. He told me that, thanks to the videos, he had decided to leave the Freemasonry and return to the Church. It was shocking.”

But before being “Catholic influencer”, he was simply a really thirsty young man. “After my encounter with Jesus Eucharist and the Virgin Mary, everything changed radically. I left the vices overnight. With no one to guide me, I began to pray every day. And I kept asking me a single question: ‘Lord, what do you want from me?'”

That silent search took him to the doors of the seminar. Today, in the immensity of the Internet, he continues to ask: “God, what do you want from me?”, While think of opportunities for others to ask him.

“Networks are like a new pulpit,” he says, “but more unpredictable. You never know who you are going to find,” he concludes.