(RNS) — Clad in a black clerical shirt and collar, Fr. David Michael Moses steps out of a black Jeep, a small smile plays on his lips and his bright green eyes catch the camera. The video, with more than 8 million views, is one of many that have earned him nearly 1 million followers on Instagram. “I’m a Catholic priest,” he quips. “Of course I always ask if it comes in black.”
At 31, Moses has become a familiar face to hundreds of thousands across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. In the next shot of the video, Moses is seated. “I am a Catholic priest,” he continues in the style of the popular TikTok trend. “Of course I tell the story about dating my high school girlfriend and somehow connect it to the readings.”
Ordained a diocesan priest in 2019, Moses is currently the parochial vicar of Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Spring, Texas, but most people know him online for his short, humorous videos, some of which have garnered over 50 million views.
His playful graphics and clickbait-style headlines draw viewers into videos that combine humor, relatable stories and basic Catholic teachings. On YouTube, he posts longer-form videos, like a “Priest Reacts” series, where he responds to news and pop culture, as well as videos like “My Journey to the Priesthood” and “What Protestants Get WRONG about Mary.”
In a more sentimental video titled “A Day Behind Bars,” the camera follows Moses through the chapel of a local prison, where he spends the day hearing confessions and performing Mass for inmates. Soft guitar music plays as the video captures prisoners’ hands raised in prayer. After the service, Moses shifts the mood and spins into a breakdance before picking up a guitar to play. The inmates clap and cheer. The video, posted four months ago, has 40,000 views. Many of his video descriptions include a familiar sign-off: “Be sure to subscribe if you find the content helpful! God bless!”
For Moses, social media isn’t a tool — it’s a mission field. While the parishioners he serves in Spring show up to church each Sunday, he said he sees his online presence as a way to reach those who wouldn’t normally step through the doors of a parish. As one friend put it to him, “People won’t let you into their homes, but they let you into their phones.”
“ The reason I use social media is because I’m going after the lost sheep,” Moses said. “I’ve found along the way that humor is such a universal language.”
Courtesy of David Michael Moses
Inspired by Christ’s parable of the Good Shepherd, who leaves the 99 to seek the one lost sheep, Moses says he believes he is called to a digital evangelization, which requires meeting people where they are.
While attending a Seek Catholic youth conference in January, where approximately 20,000 young Catholics gathered to worship and socialize, Moses said he met numerous people who had seen his videos. “The most common thing I got was: My atheist friends send me your videos,” Moses said. “I was really pumped to hear that.”
On Instagram, where he has the largest following, users flood his comment section with laughter, heart-eye emojis and praying hands, thanking him for his uplifting content. One account wrote: “I’m not religious, but this is funny.”
After using humor to draw in his audience, Moses says he hopes they’ll stay for his more serious videos on prayer and Catholic teachings — and many do. Nearly 60,000 people have viewed his YouTube video titled Pray With Me, in which Moses sits in front of the camera and leads a 16-minute recitation of the rosary.
Since he began posting regularly on Instagram in 2021, he has become a prominent voice in the growing community of priests leveraging digital platforms for evangelization.
“Some of the earliest YouTube videos I remember watching in high school were Fr. Mike videos,” Moses said. “I have pretty vivid memories of seeing Ascension Presents.”
Fr. Mike Schmitz is a Catholic priest and popular social media personality who built a sizable following (more than 1 million subscribers) through preaching, teaching and engaging in online evangelization via Ascension Presents, a media platform where he creates videos and podcasts aimed at young people.
In a recent post, Moses collaborated with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, a Franciscan friar and host of a video series on Ascension Presents. The video features the two playfully listing “things Catholic priests can’t eat,” leading to the unexpected punchline — outdoor furniture. The video has 1.2 million views.
With the rising popularity of Catholic clergy online — Moses is gaining thousands of followers every week — questions are emerging within the Church about how priests should navigate digital spaces. “A change in media technology imposes itself on all of our social and cultural institutions,” said Brett Robinson, a media theorist and director of the Notre Dame Office of Church Communications.
Photo courtesy of David Michael Moses
At a recent media summit, where hundreds of priests, theologians and prominent Catholic voices gathered in Rome to discuss the evolving intersection of faith and digital media, Robinson said he observed widespread conversation about the emerging role of the priest influencer.
“We’re hearing from the priests themselves who fall into the trap of thinking, ‘I have a bigger audience online than I do in my local parish,'” Robinson said. At a time when weekly Mass attendance is declining and Catholic churches feel increasingly empty, social media offers the chance for a much larger platform. “That’s the new challenge — this was not an option even 20 years ago.”
While he acknowledges the temptation to prioritize his growing online audience over parish ministry, Moses said he views his digital presence as an extension of his pastoral work — and he sees influencing others as an inherent part of that vocation.
“The loaded term ‘influencer,’ I’d be hesitant about labeling myself that,” Moses said. “But to actually be someone who influences, I’m all for that. That’s why I became a priest.”
Fr. Victor Perez, a longtime friend, fellow priest in Houston and Moses’ spiritual guide, recalls starting to post videos on a dedicated Facebook page during the COVID-19 pandemic, which gained some attention at the time, but he has since deleted it.
“I just didn’t really like it that much,” Perez said. Perez, who is 45 years old, said the influx of notifications and messages was overwhelming, and the amount of time he spent maintaining the page was difficult to manage. “God has a different path for every person, you know, people have different gifts,” he said.
Perez first met Moses when he was a seminarian and Moses was a young altar server at St. Paul’s the Apostle Church in Nassau Bay, Texas. “I think he’s being creative with his content. I think he’s also always been obedient to the bishop and putting his parish first.”
Fr. David Michael. Courtesy of David Michael Moses
At his parish in Spring, Moses hears daily confessions and leads Mass. He is on call to anoint the sick and dying, writes homilies, visits local elementary schools and regularly performs weddings and baptisms for the community.
Time management is Moses’ biggest challenge as he balances his in-person duties with posting online. To help manage, he relies on two friends who assist with shooting, editing, scheduling and posting his content, which he says gets scheduled weeks in advance.
Moses has also stopped using direct messaging on Instagram.
“I get online just to check,” Moses said. “My name is on everything, so I want to be very careful. It can be such an addictive and dangerous thing, so I think it’s good to have a little bit of separation.”
Despite Moses’ frequent use of platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, he uses the analogy of social media as a “bad neighborhood.”
“I wouldn’t recommend my family live in a bad neighborhood,” Moses said. “But I do believe there should be a priest in every bad neighborhood — someone who understands the culture, speaks the language and is able to minister to the people there.”
This article was produced as part of the RNS/Interfaith America Religion Journalism Fellowship.