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 whereBeyoncé performed last year. And when registration opened, the stadium's tens of thousands of free places wereclaimed 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 toover 21,000 in 2026. A rise that is due, in part, to France’s Catholic influencers preaching the gospel on social media. 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. 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. 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. 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".
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