Ascension has announced the winners of its 2025 “Truth and Beauty Awards” for Catholic Content creators, a contest that is also celebrating the success of the “Ascension Presents” YouTube channel reaching 1 million subscribers. The milestone was acknowledged in a video from Fr. Mike Schmitz, of the ever popular “in a Year” podcasts series.
Finalists and winners were selected by an Ascension panel based on “excellence among individual Catholic video creators who are sharing the transformative power of the Gospel on social media and YouTube.” Ascension has produced a brief reveal of the winners in a YouTube short:
Of the Truth and Beauty Awards, Lauren Joyce, PR and Communications Manager for Ascension, commented:
“As Ascension Presents marked 1 million subscribers, we wanted to ‘share the mic’ with up and coming Catholic video creators,” explains Joyce. “So many passionate and talented evangelists have partnered with us over the years to build our own faith-based platform, so we wanted to honor the talent and creativity of the Catholic online community as we celebrated this important milestone.”
The awards were split into two categories, Short Form and Long Form, with the prior including videos between 1 to 90 seconds, while the latter included videos from 91 seconds to 12 minutes.
Short Form
Jayden Remias (IG @JaydenRemias)
Catholic influencer Jayden Remias has been sharing his journey after quitting his job to begin a mission of evangelization on social media. He has stated that his radical change in jobs was inspired by the works of Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN. He just marked one year since he started his journey in February 2024.
Nicole Jones, Digital Media Manager for the Diocese of Baton Rouge (IG @DioceseBR)
From the social media pages of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Nicole Jones has been building a wonderful channel full of Catholic content. For the winning video, Ascension has highlighted this imaginative rendition of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” for which Jones selects Catholic themes for each number listed.
Long Form
Pete Dill (YT @BackSeat-Media)
Pete Dill has created hundreds of videos on Catholicism, covering topics from the technical aspects of the faith to cultural trends and values. Ascension has highlighted the value of his YouTube channel (BackSeat Media) with the above video, which is part of a series in which he travels around the US giving Catholics ideas for where to attend Mass while on vacation or business trips.
Randall Williams (YT @IronInquisitor)
While Williams produces many more short form videos than long form for his YouTube channel, he was selected as a winner of the long form category for his short film on social media addiction. The character begins by being too plugged in to his phone and misses an assignment because of this. He decides to visit a church garden to pray before the Blessed Mother, when he finds a schedule of church services that becomes an invitation to something greater.
Congratulations to all winners of Ascension’s “Truth and Beauty Awards,” who will each receive a cash prize, promotion on Ascension, and a personal review of their channels by Fr. Mike Schmitz in the coming months.
And today we celebrate...