Does social media jive with religious communities?
When a religious superior rejects our service, I take note.
We at Vocation Promotion work hard to attract good vocation candidates to religious communities with social media. If this method doesn’t work, or is not appropriate, I want to know about it.
Just recently, a superior of large men’s monastery objected to our Come & See Vocation Promotion Program because it did not reflect the beauty and interpersonal communication that makes up the monastery. He said that social media is impersonal, and religious life is personal. Therefore, it won’t work, if I understood the argument.
But how else can you reach people in today’s world?
But how else can you reach people in today’s world?
We found 49 young ladies last month who took our “Is Jesus Calling You” vocation quiz for one of our communities. Something is working here, wouldn’t you say? Will they not work out for some reason?
Let’s take a time machine back to the days of an earlier technology – ink on parchment. Imagine the early Christian community in Corinth. A knock comes at the door.
“I’ve got a letter from Paul the apostle for you.”
“We don’t want it.”
Why the Corinthians might reject Paul’s letter
“What?! Why don’t you want to read Paul’s letter? It has a lot of encouragement and plenty of sound teaching on how to conduct your assemblies. How to grow in charity.”
“Sorry, bud. It doesn’t reflect the beauty and personal quality of our community. Ink and parchment are impersonal.”
“But this is how he communicates.”
“Nope. We’d rather have Paul here himself. Then we could really relate to him.”
“But he’s under house arrest in Rome right now. And last month he was shipwrecked. He’s a kind of guy who gets tied up a lot. With these letters, we can circulate them among many of the churches and reach thousands of believers.”
“Nope. Go away.”
Then and now
I guess history might have been different.
We at Vocation Promotion think that the Church must use what Vatican II called the “modern means of communication.” If I recall correctly, the late eminent theologian, Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., said that Inter Mirifica, which deals with modern communication, was the least read among the sixteen Vatican II documents.
We think that social media meshes with religious communities, and consecrated life.
So let’s pick up that cell phone, and tap out that email.
Religious communities should indeed recruit candidates with Facebook, Instagram, enewsletters, texting, and so forth. Then when the men or women join the community, it’s OK to limit or eliminate it. There’s no need for all that distracting and impersonal social media once they are in the doors.
But until they get there, send out those letters using technology that they follow.
Related:
- Inter Mirifica (Vatican II Decree on the Media of Social Communications)
- Get our free book, “How to Attract Vocations Using Social Media”
