Sister Monica Clare (born Claudette Monica Powell; 1966) is an American

Episcopalian Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protes ...

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

and

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

er. She is the sister superior and youngest member of the Community of St. John Baptist in

Mendham Township, New Jersey Mendham Township is a township in southwestern Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located more than due west of New York City. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 6,016, an increase of 147 (+2.5%) ...

Biography

Claudette Monica Powell was raised in the Southern U.S., in the

Southern Baptist The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization, the largest Protestantism in the United States, Pr ...

tradition. She became interested in nuns at a young age. After studying acting at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, she moved to Los Angeles, where she worked for around 20 years in advertising, movie poster design,

stand-up comedy Stand-up comedy is a performance directed to a live audience, where the performer stands on a stage (theatre), stage and delivers humour, humorous and satire, satirical monologues sometimes incorporating physical comedy, physical acts. These ...

, and television writing. She married a man she had met through her job, but the couple divorced after two years. While attending therapy following the dissolution of her marriage, she began to entertain the idea of becoming a nun. She joined the Episcopal Church, feeling it aligned best with her views of women's rights and the LGBTQ community. Powell joined the Community of St. John Baptist in 2012, at the age of 46. She made her final vows in June 2018. Sister Monica Clare manages the community's social media and website. She joined TikTok in June 2021, accumulating more than 43,000 followers by the following month. Her content has included videos on convent life, Episcopal teachings, and the convent's cat and dog, Jennie. By late 2024, her TikTok account had more than 200,000 followers and had accumulated more than 2.5 million likes. Her account has been credited with attracting the community's two most recent postulants, the first in over ten years. In 2024, she participated in campaigns which criticized the proposed United States ban on TikTok. Powell has written a memoir, which is set to be published in April 2025.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Claudette 1966 births Living people 21st-century American Episcopalian nuns 21st-century American memoirists 21st-century American women writers American TikTokers Anglican writers Episcopalians from New Jersey Memoirists from New Jersey New York University alumni People from Mendham Township, New Jersey Writers from Morris County, New Jersey