Should the church encourage Catholic influencers?

On this bonus episode of “Jesuitical,” Ashley and Zac speak with two digital evangelization experts who helped create the Vatican’s study group report on the digital environment as part of the Synod on Synodality. Kim Daniels directs the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, and José Manuel de Urquidi runs the Evangelization Lab. Both were synod delegates, along with then-Cardinal Robert Prevost (the future Pope Leo XIV), at the global sessions of the synod in Rome in 2023 and 2024.

They discuss:

00:00 What are the Synod Study Groups?

7:10 How Pope Leo has shaped synodality

15:16 How influencers challenge church jurisdiction

28:30 Accompanying digital evangelizers

33:40 Converting to real communities

Links:

Study Group 3’s final report on the Digital Environment

The Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

Evangelization Lab

Coverage of Pope Leo’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas”