Questions for Interview
Let me introduce myself. I am Mr. Yeremias Jena, 52 years old. I am a lecturer in philosophy and
Catholicism at the Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia in Jakarta. At the same time, I am also
a catechist in my parish. I myself also do evangelism through my YouTube channel which I name
Pewarta Sabda, which means The Preacher of the Word of God. This refers to the preaching of the
words of the Lord Jesus Himself.
Thank you very much for not refusing to be bothered and willing to be interviewed. The following
are questions that can become material for our discussion and sharing.
1. Please briefly introduce yourself!
I am Leahna C. Villajos, 28 yrs old. A Media officer of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cubao in
Philippines. I am a livestreamer of online masses, I write news and feature articles, I am also
a volunteer or on call reporter in TV Maria Philippines, Radio Veritas 846 Philippines, and
once I volunteered for EWTN Asia Pacific – Philippine Chapter. I have small online coffee
business, I am a member of the Social Communications ministry in my local parish, I am also
a choir member, I am a simple daughter, I am a Catholic.
2. Academically, what is your undergraduate educational background?
3. Since when have you been involved in ecclesiastical apostolic work?
I became involved with church works when I was a 3 rd grader, I think 9 or 10years old. I joined a
children’s choir. Our family is not really religious, my mom only started going to church because I
joined the choir and she needs to accompany me going to the church and fetch me after our
practice. After that when I was 11 or 12y/o I tried to join the altar servers or sacristan, but then
my mother told me to focus only in one church group and so I focused on being a choir member.
And from then, my mother also became close to the church and she started to join the
catechists’ group. Then my 2nd elder sister also joined the choir and the Youth Group.
One summer before I enter highschool, my eldest sister (we are 3, all girls) who has friends from
a different Christian denomination, here in the Philippines they are called Born Again Christians.
So one summer, my mot
Are you directly involved in the media and reporting in Cubao Diocese or have you previously
been involved in a different kind of ecclesiastical apostolate?
- I am one of the regular staff of the diocese and I work on the Media Office. I am the Lay
coordinator of the Media Ministry, I report directly to our Diocesan Media Director.
4. Why do you want to be involved in the ecclesiastical apostolate in the field of communication
media? Is it just because you like media and communication or because you want to share in
spreading the gospel of Christ?
5. In your opinion, is the preaching of the good news of Christ today more effective through
digital media? What is the reason?
1. Based on the official youtube channel of Diocese Cubao, the channel's subscribers have only
reached three thousand seven hundreds of subscribers. Whereas Catholics in Cubao Diocese are
around 1,142,044 people or 88 percent of the total population. Considering that the subscribers
is only about 0.0032 percent, is that an indication that evangelizing through digital media
platforms is not yet very popular in your diocese?
Our Youtube channel just started to become a little bit popular last year during Easter when we
discovered how to do Online Mass in Youtube. The YT channel started on December 2014, and I
am not that an expert in the analytics but looking into the YT line chart we started to grow
subscribers on April 2020 when we started to have daily masses because of the lockdown
brought by the pandemic. Around August we stopped our daily online mass because the
churches are starting to open and we wanted the people to attend the mass physically so we
stoped the online mass. That’s when our subscribers also started to decline.
I think one of the reasons we have less subscribers in YT is because number one, the most
popular social media plarform in the Philippines is Facebook, so we have more followers on FB
and more viewers also when we go live on FB than on YT and 2 nd is that we do not have regular
mass everyday. We only cover now the special diocesan events.
2. What is your local digital media pastoral team doing to attract more people to be involved in
digital media?
3. At a very young age, you are already an important person in evangelizing through digital
media in your diocese. What is your mission?
4. Usually young people your age are more interested in doing anything except serving the
church. And you do the exact opposite. What is your comment?
5. Based on your observations as a young person in Cubao Diocese, does the Catholic Church's
now pay more attention to young people?
6. In your opinion, what should be done so that apostolates through digital media platforms
reach more and more parishioners?
7. What can you say to young people so that they will be actively involved in the life of the
church and hopefully be actively involved in spreading the joy of the gospel?
Finally, can you help me saying this sentence in Indonesian: JANGAN LUPA LIKES, SHARE, COMMENT
DAN SUBSCRIBE CHANNEL PEWARTA SABDA. TERIMA KASIH!
Thank you very much for this interesting and lovely sharing. Let us continue to work together to
spread the joy of the gospel to more and more people. May Jesus bless us! AMEN
