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<\/a>As a boy attending minor seminary in a town near Toledo, Spain, Gregorio Hidalgo could not have imagined that he would wind up as Father Goyo, a priest in Los Angeles. But that was only the beginning. He also became a social-media star.<\/p>\n
Meet @FrGoyo, the Twitter Priest<\/h3>\n
As @FrGoyo<\/a>, he has 92K Twitter followers. They come for his words of wisdom and faith<\/a>, but also for his stories of the extraordinary things that can happen to a priest during his ordinary day.<\/p>\n This might mean calling the wrong person<\/a> (who turned out to be someone who really needed it), or sheepishly pulling out a Rosary at the gym<\/a>, only to find that his fellow exercisers had them as well.<\/p>\n He says:<\/p>\n I hear a lot of priests that [have this happen to them], as well. They are not as annoying as I am, and tweet all the time. But yeah, a lot of priests go through the same thing I do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Last month, Father Goyo was the featured guest at the monthly Prayer and Pasta gatherings at Family Theater Productions<\/a>, the Catholic production company in Hollywood, where I am the Social Media Content Manager and Blog Editor<\/a>.<\/p>\n He came to talk about his life and his new book about it, \u00a0Prodigal to Priest: A Journey Home to Family, Faith and the Father\u2019s Embrace\u00a0<\/em><\/a>(it\u2019s also\u00a0on Amazon<\/a>).<\/p>\n I recorded our conversation, so quotes from him here come from that.<\/p>\n Like many young Catholics, Father Goyo fell away from the Faith when he went off to college and then moved to Los Angeles. There, he worked as a teacher and a singer\/songwriter, and generally enjoyed himself.<\/p>\n But back in Spain, his devout mother continued to pray for him. After a conversion experience while watching the funeral of\u00a0 St. John Paul II in 2005, Goyo began a slow and halting journey back to the Church of his childhood.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all laid out in his book, and in much shorter form, in this Twitter thread<\/a>\u00a0(summarized in one page\u00a0here<\/a>, by the ThreadReader app). You can also click here<\/a> to see part one of this post, over on the Family Theater Productions blog.<\/p>\n His Tweets have not only garnered him followers, but frequently, they\u2019re written up in Catholic blogs. I did it, in 2015<\/a>, and Aleteia<\/em> also regularly covers him (like here<\/a>).<\/p>\n But, he\u2019s had to learn to tone down his naturally combative personality, if he wants to win hearts and minds on social media.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s one story (Father Goyo admits that, in person, he uses way more words than on Twitter).<\/p>\n And don\u2019t get me started with humor. Humor is the worst for priests, and the best for priests. I made so many mistakes that I learned from that, and I was lucky that nobody called the pope on me.<\/p>\n But well, one time they called the archbishop, and he called me and he said, \u201cWhat are you posting?\u201d I said, \u201cI posted a joke.\u201d And he said, \u201cSomebody found it offensive. Could you take it down?\u201d And I said, \u201cNo.\u201d I told him no.<\/p>\n This is when I used to be bad. And I said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not taking it down.\u201d And he said, \u201cWhy?\u201d I said, \u201cBecause it is my private Facebook.\u201d And he said, \u201cYeah, but you\u2019re a public persona.\u201d<\/p>\n This is what I started realizing. And he said, \u201cAnd you are representing not just you.\u201d And that\u2019s what happens in our social media. We are not representing ourselves only. Whether we like it or not, we have our name, and we have a little intro right there. That intro right there represents something else than just us.<\/p>\n You are representing somebody. Whatever you put in there, you are representing. So yeah, I\u2019m very prideful. Somebody said humility, I\u2019m not humble at all. I\u2019m from Toledo. I have to fight. And I told the bishop no, to his face. I said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not taking it down. Who do you think you are?\u201d He said, \u201cI\u2019m your bishop.\u201d And I said, \u201cOK, I\u2019ll take it down.\u201d Seriously.<\/p>\n But in my mind, and this is the problem with social media, my mind is, \u201cWhy did this create such a thing? It\u2019s not a bad picture. It\u2019s not a bad joke.\u201d It doesn\u2019t matter if it is a bad joke or a bad picture, because it\u2019s doing is, I\u2019m creating another roadblock for someone to hear the real message. Which is not the joke, it\u2019s about Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s the problem with social media, our pride. My pride, I\u2019m going to say it, is so big that sometimes I\u2019m like, \u201cOK, just bite it and let it go.\u201d And that\u2019s the difficulty right there, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sometimes, Father Goyo reveals on Twitter that priests are also human beings who like a good movie.<\/p>\n I remember I went to the movies one time when I was in Simi Valley, and I was with the youth minister of my parish. And I had my collar, of course, so I could hear, this was very funny. I could hear the kid behind me telling his mother, \u201cMom, there is a priest in front of us.\u201d And the mother said, \u201cYeah, they let them out of the church from time to time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But not everyone is happy to see a priest out and about in the world.<\/p>\n I went to Target, I was having my collar. I went to Target, and I was going to buy a toothbrush. It was around Christmas, and this woman was carrying a cart full of presents. And she bumps into me, and she said, \u201cDon\u2019t you push your Christmas on me.\u201d<\/p>\n My answer to her was like, \u201cI just came to buy a toothbrush. You are the one buying presents for Christmas.\u201d And she was really mad at me, but I posted that. And instead of reading the whole thing, people are like, \u201cYou go to Target?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cYes, I go to Target.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As for favorite superheroes, Father Goyo named Superman. Asked what movies he likes, the answer was not exactly something pious and uplifting.<\/p>\n See, I like zombies a lot. I like zombies. I don\u2019t know why. I like vampires and zombies. I find them very entertaining. I think they\u2019re hysterical.<\/p>\n Yeah, I don\u2019t go for mystery. I go for horror, zombies, vampires, and all of that. I don\u2019t know why.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But if he posted that on Twitter \u2026<\/p>\n If I posted on Twitter tonight, \u201cI watch zombies,\u201d or vampires movie. \u201cOh, you are such a bad priest. How dare you? You are horrid\u2026\u201d Huh? What are you saying?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Maybe in a future post, I\u2019ll reveal what Father Goyo said about demonic possession and exorcism \u2026 and it might not be what you expect.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an appearance he did on EWTN\u2019s Life on the Rock<\/em>, which aired days after he visited FTP:<\/p>\nFrom Prodigal Son to Tweeting Priest<\/h3>\n
Father Goyo, the Archbishop and That Joke<\/h3>\n
Priests Are People, Too<\/h3>\n
Father Goyo on Superheroes, Zombies and Vampires<\/h3>\n