Fabio de Melo is the most influential religious on the internet – 06/28/2023 – Tech

Social networks rose in the country along with his clerical ordination, at the beginning of the 21st century. His relationship with them began to get serious years later, when a young man who had accompanied him as a pianist created a Twitter account for him. Then my friend Guilhermina Guinle came and suggested: why not Instagram?

The online savvy meant that in 2023 Father Fabio de Melo, 52, was appointed in a Datafolha survey as the most influential religious in Brazil. Of the 1,500 people interviewed in a virtual poll, from May 2nd to 9th, 16% cited him, twice as much as second place, Marcelo Rossi. Next come Pastor Claudio Duarte, Pope Francisco and Silas Malafaia. The margin of error is three percentage points.

The digital pilgrimage began when Melo was already popular for merging priesthood and singing. He learned the power of networks, for better or for worse, on Twitter, where 8.5 million follow you.

His cyber personality was born more serious. At first it was as serious as possible. A university professor of theology and philosophy, he also wanted to be respected and go beyond the “pretty little priest who showed up and sings too” label.

One day, Melo found the public’s apathy funny at a musical award and joked: that’s what gave trust in an audience with famous people. The comedian Marcelo Médici reposted the post, and the cleric gained several followers from outside the Catholic bubble.

Over time, he says, he learned to balance humor and spirituality. She didn’t want to limit herself to being the class clown. “I understand every speaking space as an opportunity to build a bridge between people and the Gospel.” He says the height of his virtual presence came during the pandemic. He even participated in masses that added up to 700,000 people live at the time, he says.

His evangelizing words are sometimes mixed with social criticism. That’s what he did when he repudiated the racism suffered by the player Vini Jr.

Sometimes it lands on gossip sites and generates headlines like “Priest Controversies That Boiled the Web.” This was from 2017, when a portal reproduced a selfie dressed as a sailor that Melo posted and deleted. The site also mentioned fake news that he would drop his cassock after falling in love with a woman.

The priest even considered giving up the clerical life. He broke his vow of chastity and everything. But he was still a seminarian, and the romance ended because the girl moved to another city, explaining that he was born to be a priest, as biographer Rodrigo Alvarez tells us in “Humano Demais”.

As the internet’s favorite religious, he is under scrutiny. He was accused of fatphobia and apologized for posting video of an obese man falling over another on the beach.

Politics is swampy ground. He says he has already positioned himself in the past, but today he avoids declaring preferences. He finds himself in a crossfire: he is attacked both by “conservatives who think I’m too modern” and by “leftists who think I’m conservative”. He has a more peaceful view of himself. “Modern on the outside, old on the inside.”