The Disturbing Celebrity Priest Phenomenon, by Kennedy Hall

By Kennedy Hall, Crisis Magazine, May 30, 2025

Kennedy Hall is the author of multiple best-selling books. He is a freelance author, audiobook narrator and host of the podcast Mere Tradition with Kennedy Hall. He is married with six children and lives in Ontario, Canada. He can be contacted through, and his work can be found at www.kennedyhall.ca.

The danger of the celebrity priest extends far beyond the obvious danger to the priestly vocation, but in certain cases, a danger to the souls who attach themselves to him.

In this article, I write about the trend of Celebrity Priests. So, I should define terms before continuing. When I refer to a Celebrity Priest, I do not mean a priest who happens to be well-known because of his virtues. Instead, I am referring to a trend of famous priests who are well-known not just because they have something good to say but because they are marketable as influencers and media figures because of good looks, youthfulness, and other attributes that facilitate viral media content.

Like most moderns, I spend more time than I should scrolling through various social media. For me, that means looking for videos to watch or listen to on YouTube and things to read on Twitter—I still can’t naturally call it 𝕏. Now, I don’t want to go to Hell, so I stay away from TikTok and other more absurdly flashy and epilepsy-inducing social platforms. Also, I am under the age of 40 and not a woman, so I don’t use Facebook. …

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