An Italian priest may have changed the face of mass forever after going viral for accidentally turning on Facebook’s video filters while livestreaming his latest service.

Featured Image VIA

As reported by UPI, Paolo Longo, parish priest of the Church of San Pietro and San Benedetto di Polla in Salerno province, livestreamed mass on Facebook to allow parishioners to attend the service virtually amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Here’s how that turned out for him:

Like I said, this is all being reported as though Father Longo turned the video filters on by accident, resulting in his video going viral. But what if it was no accident at all? What if Longo realised that church attendance has been down (even more so now everyone is self-isolating) and has finally clocked the best way to make Catholicism cool again is to make it more Instagram/social-media friendly. Or maybe it was an accident, albeit a lucky one, which no doubt Longo will attribute to god or some kind of divine intervention?

Indeed, this might be the one way to get the Instagram/TikTok/Snapchat generation into church. Not by reading out scriptures and verses, but with short and sweet videos with all kinds of cartoons, balloons and visual effects going on at the same time. If you can transmit the Lord’s word via emoji, even better. I think Paolo Longo may just have a Popeship in his future if this all works out.

For a look at our weekly user-submitted Confessions feature, click HERE. Weirdest readers on the internet.