Within US Catholic Churches, 'Something's Happening'

An American pope and a post-pandemic reset are coinciding with something US bishops didn't quite see coming: a wave of adults choosing to become Catholic. Data collected from two dozen dioceses by the New York Times, including some of the biggest ones in the US, shows sharp increases in people set to flood into the church at Easter, the highest in more than a decade for some. Detroit is set to welcome more than 1,400 new Catholics, its biggest class in 21 years; Washington expects 1,755; a and Newark, New Jersey, will receive around 1,700, up from 1,000 in 2010. Philadelphia's total has roughly doubled since 2017, while Des Moines is up more than 50% over last year.

"Something's happening," a rep for the Oklahoma City Archdiocese tells the National Catholic Register. Bishops trade numbers in conference hallways and talk about possible drivers, per the Times: loneliness amplified by technology and COVID, political and social volatility, and the appeal of a stable community. Many dioceses report notable growth among 18- to 35-year-olds. New converts say Pope Leo XIV, the first US-born pontiff, is mostly background. They mention personal reasons instead, citing marriage, parenting, mental health struggles, and the pull of online Catholic voices on YouTube and podcasts.

The trend comes as America's overall Christian share has steadied after years of slippage—and as some Orthodox churches also report an influx, suggesting a broader search for rooted religious life. "We know deep down that there's something more," a rep for the diocese in Providence, Rhode Island, tells the Register. "I think people grasp that intuitively somehow. People are looking for something deeper." Here, the stories of some of the thousands of people in the Los Angeles area preparing to convert for the holiday. ChurchPOP, meanwhile, features the story of an atheist who converted to Catholicism after seeing Mother Angelica, now deceased, on TV.