One of the greatest tensions in modern society is between the public and the private. It’s hard to know where one domain stops and the other starts. Social media has been the disruptor in this space, enabling people to post, share and tag extraordinary details of their hitherto private lives with billions of people around the globe.

This online world is an encouragement to move on from important events happening in the real world far too quickly, without taking the time to deepen the experience. This is what Adolfo Nicolas SJ, the former Jesuit General, was warning us against when he spoke of social media as “the globalisation of superficiality”. It is the very opposite of the approach of St Ignatius Loyola, who urged us to savour experience and learn from it, to enjoy it and, when appropriate, to repent of it, so that we might make better decisions in the light of it.

Boris Johnson and Israel Folau make unlikely twins in the tense space between public and private. Folau, the fundamentalist Christian rugby player, did not foresee the outcome of posting a meme of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 on his Instagram account with the stark admonition: “WARNING Drunks, Homosexuals, Adulterers, Liars, Fornicators, Thieves, Atheists, Idolaters HELL AWAITS YOU, REPENT! ONLY JESUS SAVES”. Days later, he was sacked from the Australian rugby team. He has launched legal proceedings against Rugby Australia, saying, “No Australian of any faith should be fired for practising their religion.”