(AFP) – With his white Roman collar and helmet fixed to his head, Catholic priest Guilherme Peixoto, Portugal's electronic music star, seeks to entice young people and get crowds dancing to convey a message of hope for the “Church”.
“I feel like a priest thanks to electronic music!” says the DJ priest, because music, he says, allows him to connect with an audience that doesn’t normally go to church.
“This allows me to accept the challenge that the Church imposes on us not to close ourselves off, but to reach out to others,” he explained.
This 50-year-old priest stands out with his round face, communicative gaze, and dark glasses.
On Sunday morning, he meets his parishioners in Londos, northern Portugal. In front of a crowded church, he celebrates Mass in sneakers, with green sneakers worn over jeans.
But on the other hand, the priest lives the real life of an electro artist, replacing the altar with a mixing desk. He gives concerts all over the country and abroad, such as in Spain, Switzerland and Italy, where he has performed this year at festivals and clubs.
His passion for music started very early, but the idea of becoming a DJ came to him during a trip with Portuguese soldiers to Afghanistan, where he accompanied them as a military chaplain.
– Mix for the Pope –
When he returned to Portugal, he wanted to improve his skills and so he enrolled in a DJ school in Porto, in the north of the country.
He then realized the power of music to convey the message of Christ, which he says is “blended with all the beauty of the harmonies of electronic music.”
It allows us to highlight “the joy of the Gospel, a message of hope and faith but also a message of tolerance, harmony and peace,” adds this churchman who is very popular among his parishioners.
But his notoriety really exploded a year ago when he mingled in Lisbon before nearly a million and a half pilgrims from around the world, during the closing Mass celebrated by Pope Francis on the occasion of World Youth Day.
Today, when he arrives somewhere for a concert, the person with more than 900,000 followers on Instagram is greeted like a rock star.
This was the case in early July in Coimbra, a large university city in central Portugal, where hundreds of young people danced, mixing techno tracks with excerpts from speeches by John Paul II and Pope Francis.
“This priest is really cool!” says Andrea Borges, a 26-year-old woman who stops Padre Guilherme to take a selfie with him.
“He has managed to join two worlds that seem to be opposed to each other,” says Felipe Barroso, a 32-year-old electronic music lover, “and he is very good at what he does.”
