On Religion: Surging Catholic Conversions Signal Quiet Revival in a Secular Age
(ANALYSIS) For a century, there was one certainty in France: The population was 97% Catholic.
That changed in the 1960s, with survey numbers spiraling to the current plateau of 25% for people aged 18-59, while the “religiously unaffiliated” numbers in France soared to 53%.
Thus, it made headlines when the French Bishops' Conference announced that 10,384 adults joined the church this Easter, a 45% increase over 2024. The sharpest rise in conversions was among students and young professionals, representing 42% of the adult catechumens.
Truth is, many parishes in Europe are growing. But others are dying. As one theologian noted in a 1969 German radio interview, Catholicism was entering a time of painful decline in the modern world. But that was not the end of the story. Easter follows Good Friday.
“From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much,” warned Father Joseph Ratzinger. “She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. ... In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.”
This was, of course, the man who became Pope Benedict XVI, explained Pope Francis during a 2022 meeting with his fellow Jesuits.
“Pope Benedict was a prophet of this Church of the future, a Church that will become ... more humble and authentic and find energy for the essential,” said Pope Francis, who died of a stroke on the Monday after Easter. His predecessor predicted the coming of a }Church that is more spiritual, poorer and less political: a Church of the little ones.”
This Easter, large numbers of converts swimming the Tiber also made headlines in England, with The Daily Telegraph noting “The Extraordinary Resurgence of the Catholic Faith in Britain,” while a report at The Times said, “Catholics Outnumber Anglicans Two to One Among Gen Z Churchgoers.”
On this side of the Atlantic, The New York Post looked at several ZIP codes and proclaimed: “Young people are converting to Catholicism en masse -- driven by pandemic, internet, ‘lax' alternatives.’”
There are many positive numbers, but journalists and researchers should ask hard questions about the future, said social scientist Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University.
“The New York Post has realized that it can cherry pick stats about religious growth and get lots of traffic. ... It's based on very flimsy data,” he wrote in one of his Graphs about Religion posts on X.
Among examples cited by the National Catholic Register, conversions in the Archdiocese of New Orleans jumped from 294 in 2023 to 436 in 2024. In the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, conversions rose from 278 at Easter in 2023 to 388 in 2024. In the Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa, conversions rose from 181 to 339. The Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, welcomed 227 converts in 2023 and 347 in 2024.
Positive trends matter, but “Trenton, New Jersey, having 120 more converts this year is a drop in the ocean when there are 62 million Catholics in the U.S.,” noted Burge. “How many funerals did that diocese conduct? How many children are retained into adulthood?”
In the midst of a global fertility crisis, researchers also should examine strategic statistics closely monitored by church leaders — such as the number of infant baptisms, wedding rites, parish-school enrollments and men entering the priesthood.
Nevertheless, something is happening, and it's appropriate to ask questions, noted Mary Harrington of the Reactionary Feminist website. Writing for UnHerd, she notes that it wasn't long ago that the band Nirvana offered “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” an "anthem to existential boredom" with its haunting, “Here we are now, entertain us” chorus.
“Is it really so strange, then, that a generation raised in this void might, in some cases, turn to religious faith in search of clearer guidance?” she asked. “When the world's faith traditions offer cumulative millennia of writing and practice on how to live well, it stands to reason that some young people would opt not to reinvent the wheel, but rather to fill the void.”
COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.