Cardinal invites young people to ‘farm aura’ with Christ
Cardinal Fernando Chomali of Santiago comments on the rising trend of "aura farming" among Latin American Gen Z, describing it as a cry for visibility and belonging. He urges young people to replace social‑media "aura farming" with purposeful service, encouraging study, faith, and building a just society. The cardinal highlights the Franciscans of Recoleta’s daily soup kitchen in Santiago, calling it a tangible way to "farm aura with Christ.". The piece links the trend to broader concerns about youth loneliness and the need for community support.
23 days ago
Cardinal Fernando Chomali of Santiago, Chile, has reinterpreted the youth trend of “aura farming”—performing actions that appear cool or impressive—as an opportunity to encourage young people to pursue Christian service, personal formation, and social justice.
The expression originated in video-game language, where “farming” involves repeatedly collecting points toward a goal. On social media, particularly TikTok, “aura farming” describes behavior intended to increase someone’s perceived coolness, style, or impressiveness.
The trend has expanded beyond the internet. Young people have organized gatherings and competitions centered on distinctive poses, facial expressions, gestures, and ways of walking, with spectators judging who projects the strongest “aura.”
Chomali described the trend as a sign that many young people want to be seen, heard, valued, loved, and acknowledged. He connected it to broader concerns about youth loneliness and compared it with the “therian” trend, in which some people psychologically identify with animals.
Rather than dismissing the trend, the cardinal urged young people to redirect their desire for recognition toward constructive goals. He said that approaching life with hope and joy, studying seriously, and preparing both body and soul to serve others represented a better form of “aura farming.”
Chomali linked the idea to building a more just society, encouraging young people to think ambitiously and contribute to their country.
He also used the phrase to praise the Franciscans of Recoleta in Santiago, who provide daily meals for about 150 people. Describing the soup kitchen as orderly and welcoming, he highlighted the stories of people who lack homes or families but receive food served with love by the friars and volunteers.
For Chomali, this practical service embodied “aura farming with Christ”: gaining meaning and recognition not through appearance or performance, but through compassionate action and commitment to the Church.
Explore how Catholic youth ministry combats digital isolation
Catholic youth ministry combats digital isolation not by rejecting technology, but by using it as a bridge toward authentic relationships, spiritual accompaniment, parish belonging, and concrete service. Its goal is not simply to increase online interaction, but to lead young people from fragmented connectivity into communion with Christ and with one another.
Digital platforms can connect people across distance, yet they can also produce loneliness, comparison, artificial identities, and shallow forms of belonging. The Church therefore avoids treating “online” and “offline” as completely separate worlds. The Dicastery for Communication describes contemporary culture as “onlife,” in which digital and physical spaces are intertwined.
This means youth ministry must meet young people where they actually live: in schools, families, parishes, friendships, and digital networks. Pope Benedict XVI regarded new media as a resource capable of encouraging “encounter and dialogue,” while insisting that digital outreach must remain connected to prayer, witness, and the sacraments.
A central cause of digital isolation is the experience of being seen only as a profile, statistic, or consumer. Catholic ministry counters this through personal listening.
The Dicastery for Communication distinguishes between monitoring online behavior and truly listening. Christian listening requires what it calls “the ear of the heart”: attentiveness, hospitality, and openness to the whole person.
In practice, this means that youth ministers should:
Pope Francis similarly stresses that young people need to be accompanied personally, since each person is unique and deserves advice appropriate to his or her human and spiritual maturity.
Online interaction can be intermittent and easily abandoned. Youth ministry offers a more stable form of belonging through parish groups, Catholic schools, movements, retreats, service projects, and regular worship.
John Paul II described the Church as a community where young people can share joys and worries, support one another, pray, and celebrate the Eucharist together. He urged parishes to recover “real relationships” and to become living, fraternal communities.
The parish is particularly important because it provides continuity across generations. John Paul II called it a “fraternal and welcoming family home” where believers receive both sound doctrine and the Eucharist.
Thus, effective digital youth ministry should not end with online content. A parish social-media account, livestream, or group chat should ultimately invite young people into:
Catholic youth ministry addresses isolation at its deepest level by presenting Jesus Christ not merely as an idea, but as the living Lord who calls each person into friendship and mission.
Pope Francis identifies several basic certainties that youth ministry should continually proclaim: God is love, Christ saves, Christ lives, the Holy Spirit gives life, and Mary loves young people as a mother. These truths challenge the insecurity often intensified by digital culture, where identity can depend on approval, visibility, or popularity.
Christ offers an identity received as a gift rather than constructed through self-presentation. Pope Francis warns that false or carefully manufactured online identities can obscure authenticity; discernment helps young people become “real” before themselves, others, and God.
Prayer is therefore not an escape from social problems. It creates the interior freedom needed for genuine relationships. Benedict XVI teaches that young people should maintain a daily relationship with Jesus through prayer, Scripture, the sacraments, and belonging to the Church.
Digital isolation is often reinforced by passive consumption: scrolling, watching, reacting, and comparing without taking responsibility for others. Catholic youth ministry combats this by giving young people an active role.
Pope Francis says that young people should not merely be placed in activities designed by adults. They should participate in dialogue, planning, and decisions, and should recognize themselves as full members of the Church.
This can include entrusting young people with responsibility for:
Such participation changes young people from consumers into disciples. They discover that their presence matters and that the Church needs their gifts.
Digital communication cannot replace the need for trustworthy human guides. Christus Vivit describes a good mentor as someone who listens actively, does not judge, recognizes personal limitations, and walks alongside young people rather than controlling them.
This accompaniment is especially important for young people who are socially isolated, struggling with faith, or unsure of their vocation. Pope Francis describes discernment as both synodal—journeying with others—and personal. It helps young people resist the individualism in which each person constructs a private reality based on personal preferences and “likes” or “dislikes.”
Youth ministry should therefore train priests, religious, parents, lay leaders, and mature young adults in:
The Church acknowledges a shortage of qualified companions and calls for the formation of both consecrated persons and laypeople for this ministry.
The strongest antidote to isolation is often self-giving love. Catholic ministry invites young people to encounter those who are poor, sick, excluded, elderly, or forgotten.
John Paul II urged young people to begin serving concretely in their families, schools, youth groups, and parishes, refusing to build barriers based on social status, age, language, culture, or religion. Likewise, he taught that happiness is found in giving oneself out of love for others.
Service transforms relationships in two ways:
A digital group that organizes a food drive, visits the elderly, supports migrants, or assists a struggling family becomes more than a virtual community. It becomes an instrument of charity and evangelization.
Catholic youth ministry should neither demonize technology nor assume that online contact automatically creates community. Digital tools are valuable when they lead to truth, friendship, prayer, and mission. They become inadequate when they substitute for embodied presence, sacramental life, or personal responsibility.
Pope Francis cautions that youth projects must not isolate young people from their families and wider communities. Instead, they should strengthen them and send them toward encounter, generous service, and mission.
Catholic youth ministry combats digital isolation through a carefully integrated approach:
The Church’s aim is not merely to make young people less lonely online. It is to help them discover that they belong to Christ, to the Church, and to a human community in which their lives can become a gift.