As France prepares for Pope Leo XIV's visit, a surprising trend has emerged in recent years: the number of baptisms among teenagers and young adults has skyrocketed. More than 21,000 catechumens, those undergoing the period of preparation for baptism into the Christian Church, have been recorded so far in 2026. How can this renewed interest in the Catholic faith be explained? Florence Gaillard reports for France in Focus.
A pandemic, lockdowns, the return of war to Europe, climate change: all of these are proven sources of anxiety, even depression, among young people in France. With some feeling adrift, they're turning to religion and knocking on the door of the Catholic Church. In 2026, more than 21,000 adults and teenagers were baptised, a figure that has more than tripled in the past decade.
A search for meaning and community
For Johan, who had long prioritised athletic performance, his grandmother's death sparked a search for meaning and spirituality. For Morgane, who grew up in public housing with a single parent, the need for community became apparent. For Malick, who grew up in Senegal in a Muslim family, reading the Bible proved a turning point.
All three asked to be baptised as adults.
The growing role of friends
Charles Mercier, a historian of contemporary Catholicism, told FRANCE 24: "Religion is no longer an inheritance received at birth but has become an individual choice. Young people therefore no longer experience it as a constraint or an obligation."
In a secular, multicultural country, faith has become a topic of conversation and inspiration among friends. Johan, for instance, asked his friend Matthieu to take him to Mass for the first time, and later to be his godfather at his baptism.
The observance of Ramadan among young Muslims has also inspired young Catholics to rediscover their own traditions, particularly Lent in the lead-up to Easter.
The rise of influencers
A new era calls for new ways of communicating. According to a survey conducted by the French Bishops' Conference and La Croix, nearly 20 percent of catechumens say that influencers with thousands of followers on social media played an important role in their spiritual journey. Malick, for one, was guided to Trinity Parish in Paris, where a weekly Mass draws nearly a thousand young people, by influencer Brother Paul-Adrien.
For Mercier, the rise of catechumenates is not a return to tradition, as some believed when the phenomenon first began, but rather a new chapter in the history of the Catholic Church.
