Raphaël didn't grow up in a practising family: his parents left it up to him to decide, once he came of age, whether or not he wanted to be baptised, and for a long time he simply didn't give it much thought. Then, in 2022, he travelled to Rome. "I walked into St. Peter's Basilica and understood that the Lord was there, waiting for me," he says. He began asking himself questions about God, faith, religion. And the questions kept on coming.
A friendship that opens doors
Two years later, a friend helped him carry that journey forward. As a student, he met a young man in a university society who used to go to formational activities at Garnelles, an Opus Dei centre in Paris, and Raphaël gradually started going along too. First he discovered a study room, then the oratory, the meditations, the monthly recollection and, one day, a retreat lasting several days.
Over these years, he's got to know people he can speak to freely about all the questions that occupy him. "I was new to the faith, so I had questions about everything: the texts, the commandments, Christian morality... I was lucky enough to find people who could help me work through them."
Raphaël didn't just want to discover the faith: he wanted to understand it. Alongside his catechumenate at the parish of Saint-Dominique, he reads the Catechism, talks things through and works out his doubts with the priests he meets, and discovers the lives of the saints. He's especially drawn to the commandments, because in them he finds concrete answers to the questions in his own life. But, looking back, he's keen to stress the human side of faith: at Garnelles he came to understand that anyone can arrive at the Church carrying their own story, their own doubts, and sometimes having travelled a long road away from faith altogether.
A generation in search of something solid
Raphaël sees it today among his own friends. Some aren't believers, others are just beginning to ask questions. He tries to offer them what he himself was given: friendship, time, and the chance to ask their questions without being judged. He's convinced that, in a world changing at such a pace, plenty of young people, including those far from faith, are looking for "solid ground" to hold on to: something that doesn't shift with the times, something to build a life on.
A few of Saint Josemaría's words have stuck with him in particular: the call to be firm, resolute, never lukewarm. "I think that means an awful lot to a young man." That said, Raphaël is careful not to imagine the same path for everyone: each person moves at their own pace and may be touched by a different facet of the faith. Formation matters, but it has to be fed by a personal encounter with God.
Baptism, "the beginning of everything"
In September 2025, Raphaël enrolled in the catechumenate at Saint-Dominique. A few months later, at Easter 2026, he was baptised. During his preparation, one line came up again and again, and it stayed with him: don't think of Baptism as the finishing line. "After a year and a half of preparation, you might think: right, that's it, I'm baptised, job done. But really, it's the beginning of everything."
Since then, he says he has "the sense of living life far more intensely." His faith gives him a different way of facing difficult moments, standing back a little rather than being swept up in worry. It shows up in everyday life too. When he handed in his master's dissertation in art history this summer, his first instinct was to go to Mass to give thanks: "It was important to me to thank God for the road I'd travelled that year."
"Leo XIV will be my Pope"
Just a few months after his Baptism, a piece of news gave this year a particular flavour: Leo XIV was coming to France. For Raphaël, the prospect is rather overwhelming: "It'll be the first time in my life I've seen the Pope, the successor of Peter."
What's more, it's the first Pope of his life as a baptised Catholic. "I said to myself: he'll be my Pope. He's the one who'll walk alongside me through my twenties and thirties..." Raphaël hopes the visit will reach beyond Catholic circles; some of his non-believing friends are planning to come along and see the Pope too.
And what if his presence prompts a few more young people to start asking questions? For Raphaël, that alone would mean a great deal: he knows, from his own experience, what can come of a question that's given room to breathe. His own path to Baptism began the very same way.
Don't put up barriers
To anyone eyeing the Christian faith from a distance today, Raphaël would offer a simple bit of advice: don't put up barriers too quickly. "Never say: this isn't for me. Take your time." Because everyone comes in through a different door: silence, the Mass, a chance encounter, a question, a friendship... And because, as he's discovered himself over the past four years, "discovering Christ is also discovering yourself."