Young nun influences believers and non-believers in France

Sr Albertine Debacker, a Catholic influencer who goes by @soeur.albertine online, has 334,000 followers on Instagram and a further 202,000 on TikTok.

“What’s happening among young people is that they dare to speak amongst themselves. Religion isn’t a taboo subject,” Sr Albertine said.

Accounts like Sr Albertine’s provide a one-stop shop for those looking to learn more about the Catholic faith. She offers worship tips (her exam-time prayers video has racked up 2.3 million views), life advice, guidance on becoming a nun or getting baptised, and explanations of key Catholic teachings.

“How to forgive”, “Money in the Church”, and “3 tips to start reading the Bible” are among her offerings.

“She’s super authentic,” Jeanne Fabre, 20, told CNN at a youth festival around the Lac du Bourget in the east of France. “There are quite a few priests on social media but to see a nun – that carries a new spirit, a new freshness.”

Among Sr Albertine’s growing flock of followers are many non-believers, some of whom are attracted by the curiosity of an unusual, and agreeable, figure offering a window into another world.

This summer Pope Leo met with 1000 Catholic influencers – Sr Albertine among them – at the Vatican, underlining the importance of what the Church leadership sees as “digital missionaries”.

France has become a hotspot for a youthful turn towards God. Baptisms among 18- to 25-year-olds in France have more than quadrupled in the last four years, while adult baptisms as a whole have risen more than 160 per cent over the past decade, according to data from the Catholic Church in France.

This Easter saw a record number of 17,800, with the number of adult baptisms increasing by 45 per cent compared with 2024, the data showed.

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Faith is a hit among Gen Z. The Church might have influencers to thank |CNN (By Joseph Ataman, Christopher Lamb/CNN)