Influencers are not clergy, scandals aren't reasons to change longstanding discipline

The Scandal of Catholic Influencers Calls for Reflexion
Brian Holdsworth | 16 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3c76-_vUU

1:12 A Catholic influencer SHOULD be unchecked.

Influencer is NOT a part of the magisterium or dicasterium or clergy or monastics.

Whether you do your influencing online or by radio, TV or printing press, you do your influencing at a distance. CSL had letter correspondences with readers, and two of the more famous are with the Gresham children (Catholics) and with a god daughter (I think) named Joan.

There are some things you cannot do at a distance of 100's of km or miles.

That a certain influencer lives a double life may be sad, but it does not in any way, shape or form mean he's abusing those whom he is edifying by his online words. I'm pretty happy not to know whom you are talking about. If it's me, I haven't heard those rumours.

Let's suppose a certain great Catholic Apologist were in fact secretly a Satanist, what's that to us? I mean secretly. If we found out, we might need to pray for him. I might want to renew prayers for JRRT after finding out, through an audio clip by his son Fr. John Tolkien that he was so cordial an ecumenist, friend and host that this led to omitting some basic protections for his own children. Those were not the exact words by Fr. John Tolkien, they are my conclusions from it.

If we were spiritually tainted by receiving instruction or other means of grace, like sacraments, from people not in the state of grace, Lollards would be right, we wouldn't be able to trust even a baptism by a priest who was in mortal sin, even unbeknownst to the parents of the child. And the Hislop crowd would be right, in principle, if a Pope honouring Mary were in the utmost secret of his heart intending to honour Semiramis, that would taint us all. This is obviously nonsense.

Now, I am very probably to a high degree a victim of the kind of thing you are proposing. I am a Catholic Apologist. I am unprinted, therefore outside busking and gifts unpaid, therefore impoverished, still on the street, still unmarried.

1) People have speculated on my not being Catholic, like never having converted. It is true I did not convert after the 1990 new profession of faith, I converted in 1988. While that was still in communion with Monseigneur Lefebvre and while there was no act of profession in "religious submission" even to non-definitive teachings of the merely authentic magisterium. Also 4 years before there was active promotion of Evolution and Geocentrism from the man you call "John Paul II"

2) People have speculated on my not being the author of my blogs, also not true. I'm not sure this has been put to rest.

3) People have pretended Apologetics is a kind of formal ministry which therefore needs approval from the bishop, not true.

4) People have pretended my blogs violate the Trentine discipline of "nihil obstat" and "imprimi potest / imprimatur", a procedure which first of all never meant to apply to blogs, because they are this democratic a medium, which 16th C. printing wasn't. Second, for those who accept the papacy of "Paul VI" this procedure was abolished. Third, I never got a disapproval from Pope Michael I when offering him a link to read. Fourth, I encouraged him to print and in that case he would have had occasion to give the imprimatur. Fifth, he said he hadn't time, not sure if he meant my enture corpus of posts or even just a selection for a printed book, and I replied, he did not contest, in that case I was not bound by the discipline.

5) People have pretended I pretend to be a monk or even to actually assess me as one, and have objected that my blogging doesn't comply with monastic obedience, I didn't wait for an abbot (which I don't have) or the local bishop to order me to write. I am not a monk.

6) People have pretended my blogs are not Catholic as to content. Well, the problem is, no one is stepping up to confront me on anything other than rejecting "John Paul II" through "Francis" and so far not accepting "Leo XIV". Since this concerns only few of my blog posts comparatively, I could have a good revenew from lots of posts that remain.

7) People have probably (I cannot look behind my back) pretended my blogs purport to be prophecy, they simply don't. I certainly do not need the vetting that the Fatima children or St Bernadette Soubirous got. Because I am not making a parallel claim.

8) People have pretended I intend to undermine the faith or funnel people into Islam or Judaism or Evangelicalism. My intentions are strictly irrelevant for the content of my blogs and its orthodoxy.

And NOW you come around, pretty certainly with the approval of your bishop or parish priest if not even on the actual initiative of them. And you say INFLUENCERS need to be checked.

NO THANKS!

[above disappeared on renewing the page.]

1:50 I have been an online influencer since 2001.

One very much fought back against.

I had always wanted to be a writer, not just novelist (which I'm not yet) and poet (which I am in shorter formats), but an essayist. Since my teens, before there was internet.

I got a chance while in a situation where I also had to defend my faith in the deeply un-Catholic and in fact anti-Catholic (though usually not overtly so) Sweden.

Those I were defending myself against have since then used what you would call "the Church" to help them keep me back.

So much for "sought after carreer" and "might want to" ... in my case.

But back to what you were saying about the youngsters ...

2:10 You have just insulted St. Justin Martyr.

An influencer, more precisely an apologist in writing. You have also insulted saints qua saints, except those who lived the most recluded and socially retired lives and those whose public influence was simply a function of office (emperors, popes and so on).

You have insulted the memory of Carlo Acutis, whom I find probable is a saint, even if he was in communion with the wrong Pope.

No, "Catholic influencer" is not contemptuous to Catholic ears.

And when it comes to Catholic influencers who are not canonised and didn't die that recently, you have insulted the judgement of Pope Pius XI who decorated Chesterton and Belloc with the order of St. Gregory the Great.

2:26 What do you mean by "aims of celebrity"?

Chesterton had no beef getting himself a celebrity by wearing cloak, broad hat, like Spaniards prior to Carlos III, and by making jokes about his corpulence.

If you mean rock star celebrity or film star celebrity, you may have to some extent a point, but that's not the exact kind of celebrity a Catholic influencer is looking for. I presume. I have not heard of Catholic influencers rocking and moving about like Elvis the Pelvis, not even myself as an adult. In fact one of my poems or songs contains the line "are you lonesome tonight" not as a pick-up line, but as an appeal by a divorce victim .... specifically as an act of reparation (for myself and the soul of Elvis Aaron Presley) where he used that line in a bawdier way.

2:37 "lifestyle brand" ... Belloc actually did show up Catholicism not just as a doctrine, but as a lifestyle, a subculture. He did promote "pilgrimages are a thing" in a time when Protestants and Secularists who dominate the Engish speaking world weren't doing them (Santiago de Compostela was revived later, starting under Franco actually, so Franco helped to reverse a totalitarianism initiated by Lewis XIV).
"not sceptical enough" (about self) ... mistrust of oneself is a good thing in the spiritual battle according to Scupoli, but as content providers may provide other content than spirituality, that's not a concern for for instance apologetics
"own narcissistic vulnerabilities" ... sorry, has your Church converted to the religion of Jordan Peterson?

If your priest regularly uses the word "narcissist" in order to endorse the kind of aura that clings to it, I suggest you treat him as a very discredited Catholic influencer. Narcissism as understood by shrinks and Pride as understood by Catholic moralists only very partly overlap. No one in his right mind can say Mozart didn't enjoy being a music star (though not Elvis the Pelvis!), but also no one can pretend his pride went beyond the venial sin of vanity. As far as we know, and apart from what corruption he suffered behind the closed doors of Masonic lodges.

3:04 Good works or good workmanship have always involved an opportunity for seeking fame.

And some have always been chosen by some because providing better venues for achieving fame.

I am not very familiar with the Kardashians, I can honestly say you are wrong about them, apart from reality shows, they have actually made TV, as in being producers or actors, not sure which, and design, and fashion models started with Marie Vernet, wife of the tailor Charles Frederick Worth, both of whom died before 1900 when my grandfather was born.

3:14 gaining influence over other Catholics

The saints are actually a fairly big bunch. And lifestyle promotion of devotion to certain saints is a thing since St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (we celebrate Our Lady of Carmel today!) promoted devotion to St. Joan of Arc who at this point wasn't even canonised yet. St. Joan was canonised in 1920, and St. Thérèse was influencing for her (if only in the Carmel to her own knowledge) at a date before WW-I, because in WW-I, she was already being invoked herself as protector of French aviators.

Congratulations to your nice attack on a very Roman Catholic habit that Protestants and especially Puritans (less so Pentecostals obviously) disapprove of.

3:27 Do you take the words in Matthew 26:52 as a ban on becoming military?

The Catholic Church doesn't.

Now, bearing arms is one way of getting fame, as d'Artagnan shows, and on that Saint Thomas says, if you want to become a general because a general is famous, that is wrong, but if you want to become a general because you have a good plan, that is not wrong.

In cases of mixed motives, Catholicism has not held that the mistrust of self needs to prevail at the expense of the good motive.

4:11 No, I don't think so.

An Apologist is not a pastor. As Apologist, it is my duty to give an objectively convincing argument and try to get it out, it is not my duty to evaluate if it would alienate some.

A pastor (from Pope to Father confessor for the youth group) needs to balance the opportunity of improving a soul with the risk of alienating it. An Apologist is, by contrast, concerned with the debate. He's not even a missionary. He is strictly speaking not exactly evangelising. He is removing obstacles to accepting or retaining the faith, insofar as those obstacles are of an intellectual, and sometimes of a cultural emotive nature.

The souls are God's business. Not mine. And God's appointed servants in clergy. Still not mine.

4:21 If you compare the surgeon to a father confessor or a missionary, compare the apologist to the guy who produces or washes the surgeon's tools.

A far smaller responsibility.

5:01 What was he saying, again ...

Be ye not many masters, my brethren, knowing that you receive the greater judgment
[James 3:1]
Nolite plures magistri fieri fratres mei, scientes quoniam majus judicium sumitis
[James 3:1]

In that culture "magister" meant someone who taught in the same classroom or sometimes privately.

If you are the person that young people need to have as a common reference, in order for the classroom situation not to break down, there are qualities you need that you do not need as a writer. I can teach up to 12 people, but not even 20, let alone 30.

And please note, my most natural carreere other than writing would be precisely teaching. I think St. James is counselling me to write. According to a Medieval opinion the actual same James who is celebrated on July 25 and who is buried in Santiago, as confirmed by Pope Leo XIII (the identification, like that of St. Philomena based on visions of Sister Maria Luisa di Gesù, is partly due to approved apparitions).

5:16 Search my blogs if you see scandal.*

If you do, tell me.

5:24 Morally upright is mentioned by St. Paul in the qualifications for bishop and deacon.

Whatever you may think or imagine about my life is less relevant than if I tried to be a bishop or deacon.

Again, an Apologist is not clergy.

5:55 should probably start applying to the laity as well

For catechist, fine. Again, does not apply to Apologist.

This is not an admission of living an abject life, though I could live better if I had money for my writing and a wife. But I mention this because some may imagine things about my life.

6:02 No, pastoral rule is NOT required reading for an apologist who is not even a speaker.

Could some profit from it? Sure. But is it needed? No.

7:02 Apologetics is not per se Exorcism.

7:41 As to preparation, certainly not for exorcism, but for apologetics.

After I quit as a teacher, no public scandal involved, just not renewing the contract that was anyway for one term, since I adn't gone teachers' academy, and since I was, as mentioned, useless in the classroom, and after a "to work" transition that didn't lead to work, by Summer 1996, I start reading St. Thomas Aquinas for some parts that recur in my Apologetics very intensively, and by end of 1999 or first half of 2000 I had read The City of God as well. I am a somewhat competent scholastic on Christian metaphysics, and I'm at least a decent amateur in Patristics.

If Chesterton was prepared, I am more so, on his actual admissions, when he wrote the biography of St. Thomas Aquinas.

8:03 Fine. You have anti-Catholic family members who are used by other anti-Catholics against you.

I have anti-Catholic family members whom I sometimes suspect of using what you would call "the Church" against me. And then "the Church" uses my colleagues including you.

8:26 First, I do not think marriage is a "vocation" in the normal sense of the word.

It's the default.

Second, you are offering me a catch 22. I cannot practically get married because I have no revenue from my writing. You say I shouldn't write as long as I'm not married.

I certainly don't even intend to get consecrated or ordained.

If some "Catholic authorities" in your Church are trying to foist that on me on account of my being an Apologist that is a very major scandal. In fact, an equal reason for me to not take them for the Church that Jesus founded, because they do not have the grace of their state or purported such.

10:19 Interactions were from start and remain the core or even heart of my Apologetics.

Some aren't very monetisable. These comments could probably not get printed, since understanding them takes watching your video. But interacting with your video has at least shown you are among my enemies, as to my plans of getting a decent life as I see it. In order to make them understandable in print, I'd need to borrow larger chunks of your video than copyright rules of fair use would allow, unless you allowed it. So, this post per se is not very monetisable.

But online (i e readable for free) it has its use as a debunking of your very full scale, though oblique attack.

10:30 "a narcissism factor which goes against every virtue the faith insists that we aim for."

So sorry, but the actual Catholic faith does not insist that we abandon all that Jordan Peterson could label narcissism.** Are you buying into his perversion of moral theology because you are Canadian, or because your priest and bishop have converted to his religion?

Again, the sin of pride does not consist in narcissism, of every shade. And narcissism does not destroy the virtue of humility or lead to mortal degrees of pride.

10:56 In my current situation, as homeless and unmarried man without income, I have lots of things that are even more overwhelming than social media.

The exact same guys who want to limit my exposure to social media have also hijacked log-ins for toxic debates that for three days, once even with two ladies for a whole month heaped abuse after abuse on my intellect and repeated points I had refuted. AND when I am offline, they have their methods of getting at me too.

My blog is actually actively marketed by me in the neighbourhood, and some who have no response to me on their own will consult a far wider readership I have abroad.

A girl I used to see sometimes, probably put up to it by someone with your views, required me to stay offline an entire day to be worthy to just maybe see her five minutes in the evening, while the other people going by do not necessarily respect either my sleep or my working on sewing or my reading. I have pricked my finger with the needle because of people passing by when I was sewing who surprised me with a loud "bonjour" just to take me "out of myself" or "out of my bubble" ... it's on social media that I find a relative coherence. See known faces. Hear discourses that fit in or don't fit in with what for instance yourself has said on other occasions.

11:57 The one thing you should really look for when searching instruction is "are they knowledgeable" ... I am that. Frankly, arguably more than you.

"Are they" or "is he" or "is she mature" is a question one should ask lots less, not just about social media figures, but about people in general.

Toxic and manipulative narcissistic networks feed on people being on the watchout against the immature, against the narcissists (namely when the word means vanity) and so on, that watching out helps to isolate people.

One should obviously be on the lookout against toxic and manipulative people insofar one finds warning signals going off. But not to the degree of every beggar or every business proposal being evaluated as a risk of manipulation. (I fall between the two categories, btw).

12:09 I have time to debate.

You seem bent on demonising that. Which frankly helps to keep me single because it helps to keep me poor. And of recently, helps to destabilise the kind of friendships I had with Catholics online.

They cannot reasonably be replaced by a sacristan who thinks I'm so immature that I need him as a kind of mentor or otherwise I need some other kind of mentor. Being around people with such plans for me is frankly very toxic. Especially as his approach to Catholicism involves pretty much dogmatising Evolution, gulping in the fake news that Church Fathers weren't Young Earth Creationist, pushing out Young Earth Creationism to Protestants, hinting at my insincerity of Catholic confession because I don't make a sign of the Cross every time I mention my mother who has died ...

He is a fairly stable man. So far he has also been pretty stably patronising to me, pretty stably avoiding subjects on my blogs, pretty stably very probably telling the youth in the nearby parish to do so as well. I don't feel a need for stable men at all costs, and especially not at the cost of being infantilised by them.

12:19 "healthy limits" "falling prey to" ...

You are presupposing kind of an entire moral theology about the use of social media. And I don't find it in the Church Fathers. Feel free to show me otherwise.

13:39 I'm not a speaker for audiences, and I don't offer personal advice.

14:43 Fewer conferences, perhaps?

When it comes to "unequal relation" it has been years by now that you, Heschmeyer, Lofton, Horn, Akin*** and probably a few more have been alterted to the fact that I consider myself your colleague, albeit so far less successful in making a living.

I have at times pointed out flaws in your apologetics, and proposed my own solutions as better. Instead of responding to the debate or to the colleague, you have kind of taken a response as if I were either:
a) a newbie needing your advice (negative to my carreere begun before you even began yours, except Akin)
or
b) an audience needing to take more emotional distance.

I'm neither. If I were pursuing a carreere in Academia, which I'm not, I would naturally try to stick around people in the Classics and Medieval departments. And especially with people who had a better position in the carreere, even if they had begun it later. Now, I'm pursuing a carreere in Apologetics. To me that suggests spending some time pretty substantially on online Apologists and sorry, you, Heschmeyer, Lofton, Horn and Akin are.

The sacristan who thinks I'm childish isn't.

14:43 bis
While my presence in the neighbourhood is being poisoned in ways I already described, I just noticed a shrink doing skype sessions (he mentions "vos symptomes" ...)

I think it's neither absurdly narcissistic nor paranoid to conclude some are actively trying to push me out of my sector. Or sectors. Like Chesterton I also do social commentary. Or cultural and historic commentary. And yes, I spend time on both adversaries and allies in those fields as well.

15:00 The Church cannot constantly be changing its rules in response to scandals.

Your suggestion suggests to me, what you belong to is not the Catholic Church.

15:00 bis

In fact, one of my major misgivings about Popes Michael I (departed in 2022) and Michael II is, noticing that social media is a way of influencing, a) they preach informally online (not bad in itself), and b) they seem to imagine the rest of Catholic online influencers shouldn't exist or should act like their employees. I say "seem to" because they have never in fact clearly said so.

"The Pope is chief responsible for preaching and teaching" - true.
"The Pope must use social media for preaching and teacning" - also true. But not quite the same sense.

I suspect they may have concluded, in their heart:
"The Pope is chief responsible for Catholic use of social media, other actors act on his behalf" - not true.

But if I entertained any hope of escaping that by going to "Leo XIV" you tend to dash that. Even apart from me doubting him being able to explain "John Paul II" ...

___________________

Now, I note that all my previous comments have disappeared.

I also note that apart from "having to subscribe" to guidelines, how would you even enforce them?

Suppose a "self proclaimed" Catholic influencer (influencers being by definition mostly self proclaimed, except those who for some reason need it to complement another job, like Donald Trump or Pope Michael II) were faced with these "guidelines" and said "no, I'm not signing this" ... how would anyone react?

By silent marginalisation? Chasing algorithms to bring down someone's viewers? Sounds like an act of piracy to me. Like the piracy I suspect you guys have been pretty involved with. Perhaps beyond passively obeying orders not to engage with me.

By excommunication? Becoming a media influencer is not consecrating bishops without an apostolic mandate.

By refusing to "accredit" an influencer? So far influencers have not needed accreditation in a formal way. Catholic Answers and yourself have probably profited greatly from some informal accreditation, which doesn't raise you to magisterial status, but Robert Sungenis has come pretty far without that from bishops. Perhaps he had it from networks. But perhaps some good content creators actually get things rolling around their work if not their financial affairs in my case, and it means they get along without accreditation.

In fact, there is no single law in the Catholic Church that, even if your Pope were the correct one, forbade my activity (other than occasional promotions of what would in that case be the wrong Pope). Or, if you think § 283 actually makes a total ban on Catholics supporting Young Earth Creationism and Geocentrism, it would be interesting to know if Kolbe Center and Sungenis got a dispensation.

_____________________

* The millstone is mentioned in connection with scandal in all three synoptics. Mt 18, Mk 9, Lk 17. St. John mentions one in Apocalypse, perhaps as application of the one mentioned by Jesus in the Gospel. Apoc. 18.
** The word has two very different uses. The one is is here, Brian refers to vanity, overestimating one's attractiveness. An egregious degree of this could be the song "everybody loves me baby, what's the matter with you" ... but below that degree, it need not be poison. Chesterton labels it a weakness, like overeating. He was aware of his weaknesses. The very different use is when narcissist comes in phrases like "surviving a relationship with a toxic narcissist" ...
*** I also don't disdain Robert Sungenis or Dimond Brothers. While differring from both on issues.