Article Series on Shaping Tomorrow Congress (2-7 August 2024.)

Rome, Italy — The Salesian Dicastery for Social Communication celebrated the Shaping Tomorrow Congress at the Pontifical Salesian University of Rome during the first week of August. The event invited social communication delegates, directors of local Salesian Bulletins, and Salesian media representatives from the Congregation, with over 150 participants from five continents in attendance. We will be offering a series of articles dedicated to the ten lectures from this remarkable event, reflecting on the Salesian mission in the digital era and the unique communication styles of the new generations.

We begin with Sister Xiskya Valladares, a Nicaraguan-Spanish religious communicator from the Purity of Mary Congregation, widely known in the Spanish-speaking world as the “Twitter Sister.” Sr. Xiskya (pronounced “Sis-Kía”) is a 55-year-old religious woman who is also a journalist, philologist, PhD in communication, and co-founder of iMisión. She currently works at the Alberta Giménez Higher Education Center (CESAG) in Mallorca and writes for newspapers and magazines such as El Mundo in Spain.

Sr. Xiskya was invited to the Shaping Tomorrow Congress to talk about “Creators of new languages and paradigms for the Evangelization, especially in the digital environment” and “Good practices of Evangelization in the social networks.”

Sister Xiskya Valladares, one of the women selected by the Pope to vote in the Synod in Rome, is becoming a guru in the digital world. Her influence extends beyond her skillful discussions about what experts call the “Sixth Continent”—the era of the Internet. She actively participates as an authentic digital missionary in the name of the Catholic Church. With 77,500 followers on Twitter—more than many local radio stations could dream of—she is also widely present on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Invitations to interviews and conferences on radio, television, podcasts, universities, Catholic seminaries, and other platforms have become routine for her, showcasing her deep commitment to her mission on the new platforms of the 21st century.

Her journey into the digital world began in 2009, when she opened a Twitter account—now known as X—to send messages to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In 2011, she returned to Twitter during the rise of an Internet movement in Spain, discovering that evangelization could be achieved through digital media. The journey has not been easy, as the Internet also exposes one to intolerance, hatred, bullying, and anticlerical sentiments, which can easily target a religious woman. She supported the Christian communities in Iraq, victims of fundamentalism and persecution, where she spent some time and realized that she could garner support for her mission online.

Her online activity has sparked debate within the Catholic Church. In 2023, she expressed on TikTok, before heading to the Synod in Rome, that Jesus did not ordain women as priests due to the cultural and historical circumstances of the time. “If we are equal in dignity, there should not be problems with having female priests,” she said. These comments attracted significant criticism from conservative sectors, who associated her with efforts to lead the Church towards a possibility that, according to some dogmatic readers, could not be realized. She was interviewed by the conservative online priest known as Sacerdote Millenial to “clarify the polemic,” framing the discussion as a “simple opinion” without delving deeply into theological and historical debate.

Analyzing the messages of Sr. Xiskya in her commitment to establishing the Catholic Church’s online presence, especially during a time of global disenchantment with religion, particularly in Western contexts, we can only admire her courage and loyalty to her faith. “We have to talk to the youth of our time in their own terms. The old speeches are not being heard by a generation that is expressing themselves in languages integrated with digital technologies and the growing influence of artificial intelligence,” she said in one of her two conferences at the auditorium of the Salesian Pontifical University of Rome. She provided examples of religious and diocesan priests who are influencers in the Spanish-speaking world, especially on TikTok, combining spiritual and catechetical messages with the new generation’s languages and semiotics. Most of these religious influencers are men and millennials, engaging in activities like dancing, wearing avatar costumes, and performing with clerical collars, while exhibiting thousands of followers—surely more than those who attend Mass in their parishes. “According to my own research, I see that the phenomenon of influencer Catholic religious people is mostly comprised of diocesan priests, while religious priests—those who belong to religious congregations such as Salesians, Franciscans, Jesuits—are significantly fewer, and the presence of religious women is very limited. This may be because religious congregations, being communities, have a stronger sense of control,” she concluded, inviting religious superiors to consider opening the doors to evangelization and charisms in the digital continent. “Events like this Salesian ‘Shaping the Tomorrow’ are very important because you are a large congregation, present on five continents. Let it be fully present on the sixth continent as well. Imagine how much good it could do for the Catholic faith,” she said.

The Salesians in our charisms of educators of the youth, are directly involved in the digital world and the passing of generations that are more involved on the Internet and virtual platforms. Living and working in Asia, probably the most digital region of the world – just we have to remind that TikTok is from China and is very popular in Cambodia, our young people are meaningful different from older generations in the ways they assimilate information, progress in education and formation and see religions and Faith. In our religious dialogues inside the Asian continent – surprising, no Asian lecturer was invited, the digital world is also an opportunity to encounter others, in the break of communication barriers. What would be the contribution of our religious presence as Salesians and also as members of the Catholic Church for a digital world? Probably, it is not just spreading religious messages or trying to influence the followers of other faiths, but a more holistic proposal of living together in a diverse world, where the message of Lord Jesus is heard as a call for peace, justice, tolerance, acceptance and a real healing and progress of the human being as a creature of God.

Recently, a youth from South America wrote online: “Without Jesus, nobody can arrive in Heaven.” A Buddhist youth replied: “It seems too fundamentalist… what about the Buddhists?” Later, the first youth responded: “You also have your own ‘Jesus,’ who is Buddha.” While theologians debate in strict dogmatic terms, these are the types of conversations that the new generations are having across the globe. We need more Sister Xiskya’s to open the way.