The latest Reality TV phenomenon? A french seminarian.

Not sure how I feel about this:

The French love of reality programmes encompasses the music talent show Star Academy, match-making for lonely rural farmers and a polite version of Wife Swap - On a echangé nos mamans. But now the French Catholic church has jumped on the bandwagon with a show about priests that has become an internet phenomenon.

The diocese of Besançon in eastern France has launched Prêtre Academy - Priest Academy - to mark its first ordination of a new local priest for three years.

In episodes available online, viewers can watch the new recruit, Franck Ruffiot, 30, demonstrate how he prays, pay a visit to trendy contemporary artist friend and explain his feelings in a diary room. Two slightly older priests, Michel and Christophe, are followed in their daily lives.

The online show began as a marketing drive to reach young people as the church struggles with declining numbers - each year 500 priests retire or die in France while only 100 recruits join the clergy. But the short episodes showing the priests' somewhat mundane local lives have become a kind of light-hearted cult viewing online, with the first two instalments netting more than150,000 hits and the final episode due this week. (UK Guardian)

Purient interest or authentic fascination?