Catholic social media is hooked on sizzle—those viral dunks, trad aesthetic flexes, and snappy hot takes that light up feeds like a firecracker. I’ll confess, I get a dopamine rush from a well-placed zinger too, but let’s be real: it’s not enough. This fast-food approach leaves us hungry for steak—the slow-cooked, soul-nourishing mystery of the faith. What if we flipped the script? What if we traded the spectacle for a feast, serving up a radiant mystery that’s magnetic yet meaty? Drawing on Pope Leo XIV (Cardinal Robert Prevost before his election four days ago), media theorist Marshall McLuhan, Fr. John Hardon, S.J., and G.K. Chesterton, plus the fiery symbolism of Pope Leo XIV’s coat of arms and St. Ignatius of Loyola, I want to map a path to authentic Catholic storytelling. Buckle up—it’s time for a hearty meal.
The Spectacle Problem: A Warning from Pope Leo XIV
Just over a decade ago, Pope Leo XIV (then-Bishop Robert Prevost), an Augustinian leader, dropped a bombshell at the 2012 Synod of Bishops, his words ring truer than ever. He warned that Western mass media’s glitzy spectacle seduces the public with anti-Christian lifestyles, making them seem humane while casting the Gospel as cold or cruel. Here’s the gut-punch:
“Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel. […] The sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and artfully engrained in the viewing public, that when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel by comparison to the ostensible humaneness of the anti-Christian perspective.”
Leo XIV wasn’t just venting—he was diagnosing a crisis. Media’s sizzle dazzles, but it crowds out the quiet, transformative mystery of faith. Catholic social media often falls into the same trap, chasing clicks with snarky “owns” or liturgical flexes. It’s fast, it’s flashy, but it leaves us spiritually malnourished. His solution? Pivot to mystery—something that sparks awe and invites participation, not just passive scrolling.
Sizzle vs. Steak: The Catholic Social Media Dilemma
Leo’s warning isn’t just for secular media—it’s a wake-up call for Catholic creators too. You’ve seen it on social media: Catholic accounts gunning for the next viral moment—a meme that slays, an infographic that pops, or a thread dunking on a heretic. It’s sizzle, and yeah, I laugh and chuckle at a good takedown. Just like I enjoy it when the appetizer tray passes by. but where’s the steak? Our faith isn’t fed by a string of dopamine hits; it needs slow-cooked meals meant to nourish. Yet we’re stuck in the spectacle game, mimicking the media Leo XIV warned about, serving emotional sugar rushes when souls are starving for doctrinal meat.
Think of those heart-wrenching ads for starving children, wide-eyed and desperate for food. That’s how many seekers approach faith today—hungry for truth. What do they find online? Sizzle. Catholic entertainment? More sizzle. Even “faith-based” films or books often feel like secular stories with a cross slapped on. It’s not what they deserve. This isn’t just a vibe check—it’s an evangelization crisis. Lean too hard into sizzle, and we risk Leo’s feared caricature: a faith that feels ideological, harsh, disconnected. The antidote? Radiant mystery—a way to present the faith that’s captivating and substantial, like a perfectly grilled ribeye with all the fixings. (And trust me, I’m drooling just thinking about ribeye.)
McLuhan’s Lens: Hot Media, Radiant Mystery
Enter Marshall McLuhan, the 20th-century media sage who declared, “The medium is the message.” He meant that how we communicate shapes the message more than the content itself. Here’s the core:
“The medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.”
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw-Hill.
McLuhan split media into “hot” (intense, low-participation, like movies or viral social media posts) and “cool” (subtle, high-participation, like poetry or dialogue). Catholic social media loves hot: polished graphics, loud debates, meme wars. But Leo XIV’s mystery is cool—subtle, participatory, pulling people into the divine.
We have a problem here, though: “Cool” sounds tame, though, like it’s chilling in the corner. It doesn’t have that danger and precarious edge of sizzle. But that’s not true, because the discoveries of the cool often yield more dopamine and greater capacity because they nourish. So I’m going to rebrand it as radiant mystery — a glowing, magnetic force, like a Eucharistic procession calmly progressing down a busy urban street, you have to look. McLuhan would nod: it’s a medium that matches the message, radiating Christ without drowning Him in noise.
Fr. Hardon’s Eucharistic Steak, and Shared Warning of the Media
If Leo XIV sounds the alarm and McLuhan frames the problem, Fr. John Hardon, S.J., serves the steak. He spoke and wrote often about our duty to effectively and truthfully use all media in the new evangelization.
Ensuring that the media we consume and share as Catholics aligns with the true teachings of the Church is paramount. Fr. John Hardon, S.J., a staunch defender of orthodoxy, emphasized this in his writings and talks. He believed that to be authentically Catholic, one must “know the truth, live the truth, and suffer for the truth“, a principle that extends to the realm of media. He was particularly critical of modern media, warning that “the modern media are engaged in a Luciferian conspiracy against the truth“. These statements underscore the necessity for Catholics to be vigilant in discerning and promoting media that upholds the Church’s teachings, ensuring that the truth of the faith remains undistorted and vibrant. (read the whole article online right now: Hardon, J. A. “What Makes Catholic Materials Really Catholic?” The Real Presence Association)
He insisted that the new evangelization isn’t about spreading facts (or sizzle) but living the mystery of Christ, especially through the Eucharist:
“The mystery of faith is not merely a set of truths to be believed but a reality to be lived, a divine life shared through the sacraments.”
Hardon, J. A. (1975). The Catholic Catechism. Doubleday.
“The most effective evangelization is to make the Eucharist the center of our lives, for it is the mystery of Christ’s presence.”
Hardon, J. A. (1998). Theology of Evangelization. Sapientia Press.
Hardon’s vision syncs with Leo’s call for mystery and my (maybe yours, too?) frustration with sizzle-heavy media. The Eucharist isn’t a soundbite. It’s the source and summit, radiating Jesus Christ’s actual presence. Catholic social media should stop chasing trends without ensuring that there is mystery there, i.e. Truth Himself.
Radiant Mystery: A Symbol in Flames
What does radiant mystery look like? Picture Pope Leo XIV’s coat of arms—a flaming heart, pierced and ablaze with divine love. The symbols evokes a mystery that burns bright, drawing souls to God. Then there’s St. Ignatius of Loyola, often depicted in art with a heart radiating flames heavenward, echoing his Spiritual Exercises call to total surrender:
“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will—all that I have and possess. You have given it all to me. To you, Lord, I return it.”
St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, Suscipe prayer (trans. Louis J. Puhl, S.J., 1951).
These flaming hearts aren’t just pretty. They’re powerful, blending sizzle (sensual allure) with steak (transformative depth). Radiant mystery is Catholic social media channeling this: posts that glow with awe, not just spar with attitude. Think of something that draws people to consider what’s behind the post, and you’ve lead them into that path to Jesus. Catholic content (and social media posts) should glow like this—drawing eyes with awe and leading souls to the divine story.
The Flex Seal Fallacy: Catholic Theme Dressing
Here’s where things get leaky. (I know, I crack myself up). Picture a generic action flick where the hero whips out a rosary mid-fight, or a fantasy novel with a magic system vaguely tied to sacraments, but none of it makes sense whether in the superficial layer or in the essence of the story. We see it all the time, and I’m going to call it out here.
This is the Flex Seal approach—slapping Catholic dressing on a secular frame and calling it “evangelization”. It’s that meme: guy slaps tape on a gushing tank and calls it fixed—tempting but useless. Tempting? Sure. Easy? Absolutely. Effective? Not a chance.
This method flops because it doesn’t radiate mystery—it borrows it. The Catholic bits feel like tacked-on props, checked off for “faith-based” cred, not the story’s heart. It’s like a homily that name-drops Jesus but never draws you to Him. The world sniffs out the sham: a “Catholic” story without Catholic essence isn’t transformative—it’s just branded. Seekers don’t get fed, but rather they get a cheap imitation and left with that empty feeling and disappointment.
Chesterton’s True Fiction: Mystery from Within
Contrast that with G.K. Chesterton’s vision of “true fiction” in Orthodoxy (1908). For Chesterton, Catholic storytelling isn’t about pious decals—it’s about seeing the world through a Catholic lens, where life’s mystery points to God. He writes:
“The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. […] Truth, that is, has become untrue, because it is not universal.”
Chesterton, G.K. (1908). Orthodoxy. John Lane Company.
Authentic fiction—fairy tales, novels, films—reflects universal truths: wonder, redemption, good versus evil. It doesn’t need to scream “Catholic!” to carry its spirit. I’m sorry to all the fans of it, and I think it is a tired and worn out trope, but it works because people are so familiar with discussion of it: Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has no rosaries, yet its Catholic imagination pulses through every page. Why? The mystery isn’t a patch—it’s the story’s soul. The Flex Seal crowd treats Catholicism as a genre: add a cross, a prayer, done. Maybe go on Canva and make some AI generated hipster logo for it, too, and watermark every image heavily while you’re at it to show you made it. It’s lazy and it doesn’t work for all the reasons we’re exploring here. It takes work however, and maybe that’s the issue, but we can look at the effects: Chesterton sees it as a worldview, infusing stories with meaning from within. One’s a dead-end shortcut; the other’s a lasting masterpiece.
Where the Paths Split: Shortcut vs. Substance
Here’s the fork in the road. The Flex Seal approach settles for “good enough”—it’s about marketability (ahem, sizzle), not mission (ahem, steak). It asks, “How can we make this look Catholic?” Chesterton’s way asks, “How can this be Catholic?” One patches the tank and calls it fixed; the other builds a tank that holds water because it’s meant to.
The temptation is real: why sweat to craft a story that radiates mystery when you can slap on Catholic dressing and cash in? But shortcuts dilute the faith and starve the soul. A story that merely reflects Catholic themes might grab eyes, but one that radiates mystery captures hearts. The former’s a trinket; the latter’s a treasure.
Choosing the Real Thing
Flex Seal Catholic media is a leaky tank with a flashy patch—functional for a moment, but a sham. Chesterton’s true fiction is a tank built right, holding faith’s mystery naturally. If we want Catholic storytelling that matters—on television, radio, social media, books, in films, anywhere—let’s ditch the tape. A spark’s fine—as long as it draws people to the steak, not just the flash. The work is hard: craft stories where mystery shines from within, not as a label on top. The world doesn’t need more Catholic-themed fluff (we’ve seen too many examples of it in recent years, though, I won’t name names or titles). The seekers out there, to whom we are to evangelize, need stories that glow with truth, this radiant mystery.
Conclusion: A Call to Serve the Steak
Catholic social media doesn’t have to ape the world’s spectacle. We’ve got radiant mystery—a dazzle that sustains. From Pope Leo XIV’s warning to McLuhan’s insights, Hardon’s Eucharistic core to the flaming hearts of Leo XIII and Ignatius, the path is clear. Trade sizzle for steak—stop chasing clicks and start offering the Radiant Mysteries found in Truth Incarnate.
The world’s got enough fast food. Let’s serve a feast.
Want more? Crack open Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, Hardon’s The Catholic Catechism, or sit with the Eucharist. The mystery’s waiting.
This article, From Sizzle to Steak: Serving Up Radiant Mystery in Catholic Media is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/from-sizzle-to-steak-serving-up-radiant-mystery-in-catholic-media/
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