He is one of these 2.0 priests who have transformed social networks into a new ground for evangelization: Matthieu Jasseron, alias Father Matthieu, said goodbye on TikTok so as not to risk becoming “a guru”.
“After three years on the networks, it seems to me that it is time for me to stop,” says the star priest of TikTok, whose iconoclastic approach has attracted 1.2 million subscribers on this popular social network. young people, in a video posted Wednesday.
“If you have given me to live a thousand times more than anything I could have imagined, (…) I also believe that this media position sometimes flatters in me a pride which is not always very adjusted,” adds- he, smiling in his office decorated with a cross and a statue of the Virgin.
This “perhaps even reveals a somewhat ‘guru’ dimension which it seems to me that we should be wary of”, he adds, while in the background the song’s piano theme plays Where is my mind (“Where’s My Mind”) by the Pixies.
“With all my heart thank you”
Iconoclastic country priest, Father Matthieu launched in spring 2020 on TikTok from his parish in Joigny (Yonne). In his videos, he answered questions from the faithful without taboo, at the risk of shaking up Catholic doctrine and attracting the wrath of the most conservative who called him a “heretic”.
He had also irritated the bishops by publishing a video where, to the question “are we still Christian if we are gay?” “, he replied that “nowhere does it say that it is a sin.” The Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) then affirmed “to disapprove of certain of these videos which distort the message of the Church”.
“I would just like to say goodbye, and thank you with all my heart,” explains Father Matthieu in his farewell video which on Thursday totaled more than 220,000 “likes”.