Vatican Embracing Online Influencers as 'Digital Missionaries'

Sister Albertine, a youthful French Catholic nun, stood outside the Vatican, phone in hand, ready to shoot more videos for her hundreds of thousands of followers online.

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VATICAN CITY - Sister Albertine, a youthful French Catholic nun, stood outside the Vatican, phone in hand, ready to shoot more videos for her hundreds of thousands of followers online.

The 29-year-old nun, whose secular name is Albertine Debacker, is one of hundreds of Catholic influencers in Rome for a Vatican-organized social media summit this week.

The Vatican calls them "digital missionaries", and — in an unprecedented move for the centuries-old institution — Pope Leo XIV led a mass dedicated to them at St Peter's Basilica, calling on them to create content for those who "need to know the Lord".

Long wary of social media, the Catholic Church now sees it as a vital tool to spread the faith amid dwindling church attendance.

For Sister Albertine, this is the ideal "missionary terrain".

Inside the Baroque basilica, she was one of a swarm of religious influencers who surrounded the new Pope, live-streaming the meeting on their smartphones within one of Christianity's most sacred spots.

She said it was highly symbolic that the Vatican organized the event bringing together its Instagramming disciples.