Bishop Frank Dougan, of Galloway Diocese, has been given the responsibility for communications by the Bishops' Conference of Scotland.

He believes that social media is a way in which we can engage with those who are seeking Christ. "Not everyone will be lucky enough to have a face-to-face encounter that brings them to Christ," he added. "So, we must use all the means available to reach out to them.

"It is not good enough to wait for our brothers and sisters to come to us. We must do all we can to go to them."

His comments come in a pastoral letter that will be shared with Catholics at Mass this Sunday. There will also be a special collection for communications and evangelisation.

The extraordinary impact of social media in modern life is reflected in new figures released showing record engagement with the Archdiocese’s streams.

The combination of the death of Pope Francis and the conclave which elected Pope Leo saw views of the RCAG facebook page soar. The day of the Pope’s death saw 150,000 views and the total number of viewers for the 90 days around the event was 1.4 million.

The Archdiocesan X/Twitter feed also saw a surge in interactions with 28,000 impressions for the single tweet announcing the death of Pope Francis and 35,000 for the news ‘Habemus Papam’.

Director of Communications, Ronnie Convery said: “It is heartening to see such numbers being reached directly by the Church. It is important for people to be able to get news about the Church directly, without filters or distortions.

“Social media allows us to engage with people who might never come to a church but who retain a fascination for faith, and as such it is a powerful tool of evangelization.”