‘Follow me’

CLIFTON  Throughout the Gospels, the words “follow me” are found as Jesus called his disciples to find new life and joy in him. One of the most prominent instances is when he called two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and told them “follow me.”

Today in the digital age, seeing the word “follow” is associated with social media platforms. It is that small button displayed on Facebook or Instagram pages that allows those who have an interest in a page to stay connected to the page and its posts.

For the past several months, Bishop Sweeney and a social media team comprised of staff members from St. Paul’s Inside the Walls in Madison, diocesan Catholic Charities and the diocesan Communications Office along with several priests have been working together to officially launch the Diocese’s evangelization efforts through social media. The goal is to reach parishes and the faithful who use social media on a daily basis. Already the Diocese’s Facebook page features Bible quotes and feast days of the saints; news stories and photos from The Beacon, and the Bishop’ s articles in The Beacon and Masses celebrated at St. Paul’s in Madison. The Diocese’s Facebook page can be found @patersondiocese. An important audience the Bishop hopes to reach is young people, who are some of the most active users on social media, especially on Instagram. He wishes to inspire them about their faith so they might find and build a close relationship with Jesus. The Bishop’s Instagram account can be found

@bishopkevinsweeney. All are invited to follow or “like” these accounts.

On Nov. 1, All Saints Day, on Facebook and on Instagram, the Bishop and the Diocese’s website, www.rcdop.org, will launch a video which will be the first of an ongoing effort by Bishop Sweeney to evangelize through social media. These short videos will focus on topics relating to the Catholic faith, such as the saints and the sacraments.

“As I thought about some type of social media outreach, I realized that All Saints Day could be a good day to post my first video as Bishop of the Diocese,” said Bishop Sweeney. “I wanted to share a little bit about two of my favorite saints, who both inspired me as a young person and continue to inspire me day by day — to find out who the two saints are, you will have to watch the video.”

The Church has already been using several social media platforms to communicate with Catholics worldwide. Pope Francis has been on Instagram since 2016 and can be found @Fransiscus. The Pope has been on social media since 2012 with Pope Benedict XVI first using Twitter with the handle, @pontifex.

Bishop Sweeney said, “I recently saw a quote from Pope Francis about reaching the people through social media. He said, ‘Com­munication is a means of expressing the missionary vocation of the entire Church; today the social networks are one way to experience this call to discover the beauty of faith, the beauty of encountering Christ.’”

With many users of social media connected several times a day, the Bishop hopes to reach out to people to inspire them to serve and to share a message of hope and encouragement in today’s world. “First, I would hope to accomplish what I hope and pray to accomplish every day — to do the best I can to do with what God is asking me to do day by day in his service. Second, related to the first, I think that one of the greatest gifts that all of us, as Christians can share with others is the gift of hope — this is especially true in difficult and sad times and circumstances. So I will make an effort through social media to offer the hope and encouragement that is rooted in faith and love. Finally, I am in a new role as a Bishop, which leads me to a new interest in social media, in which I do not have a great deal of experience. I guess I could say that I hope to experience and learn some of the newness of the ‘New Evangelization.’”

The Bishop is excited heading into this new direction through social media to reach the faithful and he is thankful to those on the team working alongside him. “Since I first began to take my faith seriously, in my late teens and early 20s, I have found that one of the most wonderful blessings of being active in the Church is the people that God brings into your life. I have found that the longer and more active someone is in Church, the number of wonderful people that you get to meet grows exponentially. My interest in a social media outreach is one example of that, as I reached out for help with this effort, a wonderful group of talented and generous diocesan leaders came together to form a team and I am very excited and blessed to be working with them.”