From TikTok to church pews, France's Catholic influencers find a new flock

In the span of 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of people had already signed up to see Pope Leo XIV during his upcoming visit to Paris. The pontiff will visit the capital on September 25 and 26, the opening leg of a four-day apostolic tour of France that will also take him to Lourdes and Metz.

But for young people, it's the Stade de France leg of the trip that has stirred the most excitement. On the evening of September 25, Leo XIV will host a prayer vigil for people aged 17 to 35 in the same arena where Beyoncé performed last year. And when registration opened, the stadium's tens of thousands of free places were claimed within the hour.

That same appetite shows up in harder numbers, too. Though France has seen a sharp decline in the number of priests ordained, from 65,000 in 1960 to 12,000 in 2023, baptisms among adults and teenagers have surged from just under 6,000 in 2022 to over 21,000 in 2026.

A rise that is due, in part, to France’s Catholic influencers preaching the gospel on social media. 

Stop scrolling and pray with me

Brother Paul-Adrien, a Dominican Catholic monk and influencer, has adopted all the trappings of the YouTuber trade. Against a modern backdrop of brick wallpaper, neon lights, a guitar and a plant, he speaks directly to the camera, his face perfectly lit by an LED panel. It's hard to miss the near-life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary, the crucifix and the giant Bible that give away his channel's theme.

Filmed in his studio, Paul-Adrien's videos are edited with flashy graphics and meme clips that lend a touch of humour to his hot takes on a range of popular topics, from masturbation to AI. Skilfully fine-tuning his content to fit the platform he preaches from, he is hugely popular and has amassed 678k subscribers on YouTube, 383k on Instagram and 404k on TikTok. 

“There is a renewed interest in the Church in France, and Catholic influencers have definitely played a part in that,” says David Douyère, a professor at the University of Tours and expert in religious communications.

An investigation carried out by French Catholic newspaper La Croix found that one in five adults baptised in 2025 they spoke to mentioned influencers like Paul-Adrien as having a role in their decision to convert. 

“They are modern and have somewhat dusted off the Church, making religious life a little more bearable to young people,” Douyère explains. “But the substance of their content is very traditional.” 

Sister Albertine, a member of the Chemin Neuf community, is also one of France’s most popular Catholic influencers. She began posting behind-the-scenes videos to show what her life was like as a nun and explain her role within the Church.

But Albertine insists that “I didn’t become a nun for fame”, and says she doesn’t look at her stats or followers. 

“There are a lot of clichés about how nuns live, so my goal was to debunk them,” Albertine explains. “As time passed, I realised there were a tonne of preconceived notions about how Christians live too, so I broadened my topics and began answering questions on Catholicism.” 

Read moreVatican goes digital as influencer priests spread gospel on social media

Father Benoît Pouzin, a priest in southwest France, began posting videos on TikTok and Instagram two or three years ago. Donning priest's robes draped over a shirt with a clerical collar, he projects an image of legitimacy in his feed. Unlike Paul-Adrien or Sister Albertine, his videos are either prayers his followers can join in on or educational bites, such as a "powerful prayer to combat evil", an explanation of "why we go to Mass every Sunday", or a prayer "in search of true happiness".

"I saw how young people spend their lives on their phones, especially on social media. It struck a chord with me. I decided I needed to reach people where they are," he says. 

"My role is to share the message of faith, and I do that in a simple and humble way. If I wanted to create a buzz, I would. I don't talk about current affairs, sensitive topics or anything like that. My main goal is to answer people's questions and pray with them," Pouzin explains.

Most influencers work hard to keep their followers online, but when people come to Pouzin with questions or open up about issues they are facing, he urges them to "leave the virtual world" and "go meet their local priest".

"The whole point is to help people put down their phones and bring them to church," he says. "Nothing will ever replace human connection."

A decade of digital disciples

The Catholic Church has welcomed digital communication for a long time, dating back to Pope John Paul II, who embraced the internet as a “new forum for proclaiming the Gospel” back in 2002. Catholics began making a name for themselves online first through blogs or forums, before social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram took over. In France, for example, the “Padre blog” was and still is a prominent space run by a team of active priests that surfaced in 2007.

“I would say Catholic influencers have been around for about a decade,” Douyère estimates, “with a boom in online presence during the Covid-19 pandemic.” 

Successive lockdowns and health measures like safe distancing made it near-impossible for public Masses to take place, so Catholic figures across the country turned to social media in order to continue preaching and staying in touch with their parishes. 

Nowadays, the presence of Catholic influencers online has become commonplace. 

The Vatican organised a special event for Catholic influencers last year in July, marking a formal recognition of their role in the church. Around a thousand “digital missionaries” were invited to the Holy City. It was an unprecedented initiative scheduled alongside the Youth Jubilee in Rome, a weeklong celebration that brought together tens of thousands of young pilgrims from around the world for prayer, concerts and Mass, with Leo XIV making a surprise appearance on the eve of the opening Mass. 

But “there is a tension with the Church because on the one hand, there is the risk that influencers get too much attention while on the other, they are useful when it comes to spreading the faith”, says Douyère. 

Read morePope Leo declares Italian teen computer whiz a saint

Influencers are mavericks. Rather than operating under a formal mandate from an institution famous for its hierarchy, Catholic influencers derive their legitimacy from their followers. Even when they are priests or members of religious orders, the Church has very little control over the content they share. 

In 2023, the Vatican published a “pastoral reflection on engagement with social media”. While the Church recognised the role of influencers as “able to inspire and motivate others with their ideas or experiences”, it warned against “further polarisation and division between individuals and groups”. 

“They need to maintain a sense of humility because they are the disciples of Jesus sent to convey the message of God, they need to take the back seat. But the attention they get can contradict that,” says Douyère. 

​​When faith takes a political turn to the right

Among France’s most popular Catholic influencers, progressive voices have all but vanished. Former YouTuber Matthieu Jasseron decided to leave priesthood in 2024 and levelled a series of accusations against the Church hierarchy, including physical and psychological abuse, and physical assault by a bishop. Some content the former priest had posted online had cost him dearly, including a video in which he argued that nowhere in the Bible nor in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is it written that being gay is a sin. 

The French Catholic Church at the time promptly responded to the video on its X account, writing it “disapproved” of some videos that “distort the Church’s message”. Jasseron had more than 1 million followers on TikTok. 

“Catholic influencers with a large following in France don’t take great liberties with interpretations of the Bible,” explains Douyère. “Sister Albertine made a video about observing Lent warning her followers the devil might tempt them into eating a pain au chocolat. Something like that would have been laughed at ten years ago.” 

The “charismatic” framework used by Catholic influencers is presented as non-political, but their opinions are “extremely anti-progressive” and “traditional”, Douyère explains. “They reject sex outside of marriage, campaign against masturbation, pornography, they are opposed to abortion. They are against assisted dying,” he says. 

Paul-Adrien invited far-right priest Matthieu Raffray to participate in one of his YouTube videos and explain what a traditional Latin Mass is to his followers. In his latest book, Raffray floated the idea of turning France into a religious state, where Catholicism would reign supreme. The priest is also a favourite of the French far-right, anti-migrant youth group “Jeunes Identitaires”. 

Opus Dei: Spain under influence of ultra-conservative Catholic movement

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.

One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.

12:31

For a long time in France, Catholics were less likely to vote for extremist parties, but that no longer seems to be the case. 37 percent of practising Catholics voted for far-right president of the National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, in the June 2024 European elections, a study by Ifop for La Croix found. The number had more than doubled since the previous elections in 2019. 

Still, France’s Catholic influencers will insist that they are there to reinforce young people’s faith and give them a sense of direction. 

“Social media isn’t only a tool but a place where young people can really begin their search for God. I receive many messages from people who have drifted away from their faith and want to learn to pray or go to Mass but no longer know how. They need a bit of guidance,” Sister Albertine says.