The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has called out “toxic” social media influencers and celebrities such as MMA fighter Conor McGregor for “hijacking” the faith and using religion to influence their followers.
Archbishop Eamon Martin also shared his thoughts on ways to engage young people in the Catholic faith and how the church could compete with the “negative and dark side” of the online world.
He told The Sunday Times it was important it was to have more “positive role models within the faith” to “out-influence the negative influencers”.
Archbishop Martin was asked about religious posts from celebrities like McGregor — who last month lost a High Court civil rape case in Dublin — and if they were affecting young men.
“Sadly, it has been the case for many, many years. We don’t have to look beyond our own country to see how sometimes religion or denominations can be used to foment discord rather than harmony,” he told The Sunday Times.
“You will often find that religion is hijacked by groups for their own purposes and the message of Christianity is distorted in particular dimensions.”
In response to queries on Sunday by the Irish Independent, a spokesperson for Dr Martin said the archbishop was not referring to any Irish individual in his response to the question, nor did he mention anyone by name in his answer.
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Last month, a jury found McGregor (36) had assaulted Nikita Hand after she took a civil case against him alleging she was raped by him on a night out, and awarded her €250,000 (£207,000) in damages. The jury did not find his co-accused James Lawrence had assaulted her.
A judge ordered that McGregor pay his own and Ms Hand’s legal costs, which will come to more than €1m (£830,000).
Conor McGregor
Since the jury’s verdict, McGregor has written angrily several times on social media, including one post in which he hit out at what he said was a “kangaroo court”, leading the judge in the case to say he was considering taking action against the fighter for contempt.
In a recent post, the fighter said: “I am in amazing spirits! God has chosen me, and I accept! Thank you to all those who … are supporting me in my fight … As God as my witness.”
In another, he simply stated: “Fight evil with the cross.”
Archbishop Martin said that, while most people were able to see through the use of religious sentiments, it is important to clarify the church’s message.
“I think that it is important sometimes for the church to point and say, ‘Well, that is not what we teach’,” he added.
“Most people are well aware of the Christian gospel and the message of Jesus Christ — a message of harmony, reconciliation, forgiveness, love, charity — it is not a message of the kind … that sometimes you are referring to,” he said, adding that it is now a reality that the “cult of the celebrity” has moved into the world of social media, but that not all was negative.
He cited positive examples including US actor Mark Wahlberg, the American bishop Robert Barron who has 1.77 million subscribers on YouTube, and Guilherme Peixoto, a Portuguese priest and DJ who weaves homilies into his sets.
“Rather than cursing the darkness, you light a light. You light a candle and, therefore, to have very prominent Catholic thinkers in the digital continent, out there on the digital highways, unafraid to express their faith is one way of letting young people see there are others out there also,” he said.