GPH Day 2: Singapore Communications Expert Warns — “Engage Online or Risk Irrelevance”

“If the Church is absent from digital spaces, our silence allows false narratives to flourish,” warned Nicholas Lim, renewed communication expert and Director of Social Communications for the Archdiocese of Singapore, calling on the Church in Asia to make effective use of digital communication tools in ministry.

Lim led an Impact Session on “The Relevance of Digital Media and A.I. in Sharing the Gospel in Asia,” held in the Level 1 Ballroom of The Light Hotel, Penang on November 28. The session drew a particularly engaged audience of over 200 participants, bishops, priests, religious, lay leaders, and communications workers from across Asia.

The second day of the Great Pilgrimage of Hope (GPH) featured seven parallel Impact Sessions, each held at different venues of the hotel and coordinated by members of the Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), the official media partner of GPH 2025.

Lim’s session examined emerging digital trends in Asia, the transformative role of AI in the necessary pastoral shift for the Church in a continent that is now the fastest-growing digital population in the world. He challenged the Church to move from merely “using” the internet to “inhabiting” the digital world, seeing it as a pastoral territory and an essential extension of lived faith.

The digital landscape in Asia —challenges and opportunities

Lim noted that Asia is a “mobile-first superpower,” with over 97% of internet users accessing digital content primarily through smartphones, and more than 2.5 billion Asians now online, nearly triple the figure from a decade ago. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital adoption dramatically, with millions turning to online spaces for prayer, education, community, and connection.

He emphasized that the pastoral question is no longer whether to engage online, but how. Among the opportunities he highlighted are unprecedented reach, including remote communities, many-to-many communication that fosters genuine participation, greater access to formation in places where clergy and institutions are scarce, and the amplification of local voices that tell stories resonating culturally and personally.

At the same time, Lim acknowledged pressing challenges such as misinformation, linguistic and cultural diversity, limited resources and trained personnel, and uneven infrastructure, especially in rural regions. He urged dioceses to conduct honest digital audits by asking: Which platforms do people actually use? Who is being reached, and who is not? And is pastoral communication unified, or fragmented?

AI — Servant, Not Master

Lim stressed that AI must remain a tool guided by human discernment, not a substitute for human spiritual care, noting ethical risks such as AI’s lack of empathy and authentic spiritual depth, the danger of fabricated or misleading outputs, and the subtle secular bias that can influence theological content.

He encouraged the Church to build reliable Catholic online knowledge bases so that AI systems draw from authentic sources. He cited Magisterium AI and similar tools trained on official Church documents, showing that, with responsible use, AI can save research time and expand access to formation.

Singapore as a model

The session’s most compelling portion was a case study of the Archdiocese of Singapore’s digital communications ecosystem. It demonstrated how a relatively small Catholic population, just 395,000, can generate massive digital impact.

Lim explained how CatholicSG relaunched in 2014 with only a few thousand followers. Ten years later, the Archdiocese maintains 27 digital channels and 570 subscription streams, reaching Catholics across social media, websites, messaging apps, video platforms, podcasts, and a growing mobile app.

In 2024 alone, the Archdiocese created over 8,000 digital content pieces, generating more than 36.7 million views, nearly 100 times the Catholic population of Singapore.

He illustrated how a single event with the Archbishop might be repurposed into long-form videos, TikTok clips, infographics, articles, podcasts, and parish discussion materials, multiplying its reach.

Singapore’s success, Lim emphasized, was built through:
• sustained strategic planning
• investment in professionals and trained volunteers
• collaboration between parishes and ministries
• alignment with the Archbishop’s pastoral vision
• annual evaluation and adaptation

He urged other dioceses not to rely on isolated or ad-hoc initiatives, but to develop coherent digital frameworks and communications strategies.

The Church’s digital calling: present where people are Lim concluded with a pastoral appeal: the digital world is now a primary locus of human identity, especially for youth. The Church, he said, must not be a mere visitor in this domain, but a resident presence.

Investment in communications personnel and unified digital platforms is not a luxury: “It is not a want, it is a need.”

He reminded participants that technology is only a means: its ultimate purpose is to draw people from digital encounters into living sacramental communion with the Church.

The session ended with a prayerful invitation that Asia’s Catholics may become creative digital engagers bold, discerning, collaborative, rooted in Christ, and fully present in the digital marketplace of ideas where