FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Father Mike Schmitz entered the green room of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale with his characteristic warm smile — and an extra bounce in his step.

The Midwestern priest and the support team for his current speaking tour were just off what they described as a very energetic and large gathering in Clearwater the night before.

He would find a similarly large, sold-out crowd at the main symphony hall at the Broward Center before a final Florida engagement in Jacksonville.

One of the most popular priest-influencers on social media, Father Schmitz was in Florida recently as part of his “Parables” tour, in which he unpacked Christ’s Gospel parables and offered fresh insights.

A priest of the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, Father Schmitz is the director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the diocese as well as the chaplain for the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

The “Parables” tour has included stops in nearly two dozen in U.S. cities in Arizona, California, Louisiana and Florida over the last several months. His last scheduled tour date for this round of appearances is international, scheduled for July 20 in Dublin, although his website says more tour dates for cities in the U.S. and elsewhere are coming.

“On a certain level (young people) are searching for authenticity, for someone or a group being who they claim to be is one massive thing — and that is the case for all of us, right?” the priest asked at his Fort Lauderdale event.

“We don’t respect hypocrisy, in fact it has been the case for generations or even all of human history,” he said. “Even Jesus was leveling a common criticism against hypocrites, saying one thing and not even wanting to live up to that one thing.”

The 2018 Synod of Bishops on “Young People, Faith, and Vocational Discernment” came at a time when the church began to recognize that American Catholic youth increasingly see integrity and authenticity as lived consistency and not just institutional conformity.

The working document for the synod, heavily drawn from direct consultations with young people, said youth want an “authentic” and “credible” Church, whose leaders “speak in practical terms about controversial subjects.”

“And so I think we have to have integrity that who we are is who we claim to be,” Father Schmitz said at the event.

Father Mike Schmitz, a diocesan priest in the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., and a popular priest on social media, poses with young adults from St. David Catholic Church in Davie, Fla., at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Fla., May 20, 2026. Father Schmitz spoke in three Florida cities that month as part of his Parables Tour. His last tour date is July 20 in Dublin. (OSV News photo/Tom Tracy, Florida Catholic)

But in addition to integrity, clarity and the truth of Catholic teaching are other frequent topics by Father Schmitz, both online or in person. The human mind is made for truth and the human heart is made for goodness, he says, but “sometimes the way we present things and the way we say things has a lot to do with it.”

Turning to the subject of male teenagers and young adult struggles in particular, Father Schmitz said indifference is the underlying problem or obstacle to a less cynical faith life during adolescence and young adulthood.

“You notice it if you are working with youth,” he said, especially in terms of inviting young men to participate more in church life.

“One of the things that I have seen more and more particularly with people tired of being told online they have to live up to some (online) expectations that they have to live up to every single thing and there becomes a rejection of it.”

Although the sexes both have a lot in common, the priest added, men are perhaps created to have a battle to fight in that sense of a mission to pursue or a mission to live out; and women are more oriented toward relationships.

“When a mission is not given, or a mission is not worth fighting for, is what (Harvard professor) Arthur C. Brooks says leaves a lack of meaning,” Father Schmitz said, which is the number one crisis Brooks has identified and which is required to overcome modern emptiness and achieve true joy.

Trust issues, loneliness and anxiety among young people remain a troubling crisis among today’s students.

“(On) college campuses in the last 10 years, anxiety has overcome depression as the number one mental health challenge young people are facing and anxiety is fear of the future and rooted in uncertainty,” Father Schmitz said.

The remedy, he added, is an overarching sense of Christian hope.

“Christian hope is not just that I desire an outcome, it is knowing that I can trust in God and extending that into the future is the answer for anxiety I think,” Father Schmitz said.

A return to Catholic tradition and authentic reverence among youth has been another antidote to modern-day angst. “There is something really compelling about the mystery and the ancient sense of the Mass or things we do as Catholics that is bigger than you,” Father Schmitz said.

He also touched on artificial intelligence, which Pope Leo XIV addresses in his landmark encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas,” issued May 25. The pope compares the attempt to build an AI future that excludes God to the “Tower of Babel” and underlines the need to safeguard human dignity as it is “threatened by new forms of dehumanization.”

“I was talking with some people at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame University about a year ago,” Father Schmitz said, “and one of the things that they highlighted was that every time we invented some kind of technology it was an extension of some human ability, such as our ability to move around in cars. And each time, we have stunted our ability to use that thing.”

For example, in today’s hyper-mobile society, people don’t walk as much as they used to.

AI presents a similar scenario of extending human mental abilities to tackle problems both complicated and complex, Father Schmitz said.

“AI does a great job of solving complicated problems, but it cannot solve (all) complex problems,” the priest said.

“In the immediate future, I hope we can hold on to our humanity by recognizing there are some questions a computer cannot solve no matter how developed the program is,” Father Schmitz said.

The Fort Lauderdale event drew a cross section of youth, young adults and even senior citizens who likely are familiar with the priest through his popular YouTube videos along with his “The Bible in a Year” podcast. Produced by Ascension Press, the podcast consists of 365 daily episodes reading the entire Bible. In each episode, Father Schmitz reads and discusses sections of the Bible, also adding his own commentary and prayer.

The “Parables” tour is billed as part of a fundraising effort to support the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Some 700 students and faculty come to meet and worship under Father Schmitz’s chaplaincy.

All the proceeds from each event are helping to fund the construction of a brand new church and a dedicated space for students to meet, pray, study, and grow in their faith on the campus.

Tom Tracy writes for the Florida Catholic, news outlet of the Archdiocese of Miami. This story was originally published by the Florida Catholic and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.