“You could say there was a raging storm taking place inside of me — like, I had to know. There was something that was pushing me to know where the truth actually comes from,” Cody said.
Kirsten listened. Then a communion service at a Protestant church came up short for her.
“I just sat there and I realized, ‘This, it’s not it,’” Kirsten said.
They talked afterward and found they were thinking the same thing. They called the local parish, and the OCIA director let them join the program, “a little late,” Kirsten said.
“After we talked, after that day, it’s been nothing but peace. Like, I feel at home,” said Cody, who took the confirmation name Robert Bellarmine after the Counter-Reformation Italian Jesuit cardinal and doctor of the Church.
Conversions Way, Way Up
As of mid-April, about two-fifths of the dioceses in the United States had responded to the Register’s queries. Some don’t have data for this year yet. A handful reported numbers similar to last year’s or small decreases.
As for increases, some observers caution that this-worldly factors may be at play. Some cite a backup from the coronavirus shutdowns of a few years ago. One diocese reported that the diocese’s marriage tribunal issued a large number of declarations of nullity recently, which allowed would-be converts in what the Church considers irregular marriage situations to have their marriages blessed by the Church, therefore also facilitating their entrance into the Church this past Easter.
Even so, the increases are widespread.
A small diocese in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Diocese of Marquette, saw a 70% jump (from 40 to 68 converts) from 2023 to 2024. Others seeing large increases include Grand Island, Nebraska (35%); Portland, Maine (35%); and Grand Rapids, Michigan (33%).
Topping the charts so far is the Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa, which went from 181 to 339, an increase of 87%. The Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, saw an increase in converts of 53%: from 227 in 2023 to 347 in 2024.
Among larger sees, in Texas, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston saw an increase of 30%, from 1,820 in 2023 to 2,364 in 2024; and the Archdiocese of San Antonio went up 39% (from 1,285 to 1,789).
In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the total number of converts increased by about 4% (from 3,462 in 2023 to 3,596 in 2024). But the number of previously unbaptized catechumens receiving baptism in the Catholic Church increased 19%, from 1,743 to 2,075, the highest number in the archdiocese since 2016.
The number of converts in the Archdiocese of New Orleans jumped 48% — from 294 in 2023 to 436 in 2024.
In the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, where the number of converts went from 278 at Easter 2023 to 388 at Easter 2024, a jump of almost 40%, the director of Christian formation, Deacon Jim Bello, credits a more flexible catechesis schedule, a spokesman said.
“Formation is year-round, not just an RCIA ‘season,’ if you will,” said Jim Wogan, the diocese’s director of communications, by email. “It seems to have been successful.”
That’s also a point of emphasis in the Diocese of St. Augustine in northeast Florida, which saw an increase from 625 converts in 2023 to 838 in 2024, up 34%.
Spanish-speaking families make up a big portion, said Erin McGeever, the diocese’s director of Christian formation. San Jose Parish in Jacksonville, for instance, brought 64 people to the Rite of Election during Lent 2024, a 36% increase from 47 in 2023.
The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine has seen steady growth, from 12 in 2022 to 18 in 2023 to 24 in 2024, she said.
While she’s not sure why, exactly, she noted that the diocese has been emphasizing making the conversion program year-round.
The typical schedule mimics the school year, beginning around September and finishing in June, with the high point being the Easter Vigil. Sticking to that schedule can leave out people who show interest at some other point during the year.
She said that the cathedral parish has begun engaging with would-be converts right away.
“So whenever people call, they put them into some programming, until they can get into the formal formation,” McGeever said. “Maybe that’s the key: taking people where they’re at… and filling in the blanks with them.”
In the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas, which saw an increase of 33% (from 515 in 2023 to 685 in 2024), the director of faith formation, Jeff Hines, said he’s not sure what to attribute it to, but he said it suggests a spiritual hunger in a society sharply divided.
“You look at the state of the world, there’s a lot of reasons not to have hope today, particularly for young adults; so people are really looking for meaning and hope, which is exactly what the Church offers,” Hines said.
“So it makes sense for this to happen,” he added. “We should not be surprised. We should be faithful to being open to people who are searching.”
Deep in the soul of Texas
St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M is so busy it offers its conversion program year-round and brings people into the Church twice a year: a September-to-Easter track and a January-to-November track.
The group that entered the program in January 2024 is among the biggest that program director Kevin Pesek has seen.
This past Easter, St. Mary’s had 51 students enter the Church (18 baptized, 33 who made a profession of faith). That followed a group of 34 converts in November 2023 (14 baptisms, 20 professions of faith).
“I’m seeing more and more people coming in with nothing — no religious background,” Pesek said. “It’s very interesting.”
Non-Catholic students join the program because Catholic students invite them, Pesek said, along the lines of Jesus’ words in John 1:39: “Come and see.”
“I’m not the one bringing them in. It’s all through our students. They’re the ones bringing them to Mass, doing the evangelization, bringing them in the door,” Pesek said. “I provide pizza the first night. That’s about as creative as I get.”
In recent times, he has conducted an anonymous survey of new converts asking what drew them to the faith. He shared 57 of the responses, and they’re hard to characterize. Some cite the Eucharist, others the teaching authority of the Church, the papacy, unity, clarity, liturgy, community, the communion of saints, and strength to live a better life.
“The students who aren’t Catholic are hungry and are looking for something,” said Father Will Straten, the pastor of St. Mary’s. “People are just looking for something that’s authentic and real. They’re looking for something that’s grounded and seems to make sense.”
One of the Easter 2024 converts is Kirsten Ruby, 23, who is finishing a master’s degree in accounting at Texas A&M after spending four years there as an undergraduate. She began seriously considering the Catholic faith during the summer of 2023 through the intervention of a friend.
As a kid, she went to Protestant churches (mostly Baptist) sporadically, but was never baptized. The main draw of RCIA for her was a chance to learn more about Jesus: “I saw it as a way of making up for never going to Sunday school as a kid,” she said.
Once in the program, she engaged with the Church’s history and theology, aided by apologetics books by Catholic authors, including Richard Gaillardetz’s “By What Authority?”
She said she found the catechesis program at St. Mary’s helpful and particularly her sponsor, a current senior.
Asking questions helped bring Ruby to the faith, and that continues now that she has joined the Church.
“A big thing that keeps me close to God is questions, forever getting to know him,” Ruby said. “He’s an eternal spouse. You wouldn’t just marry your husband and run away with the ring. You’d want to stay and get to know him better.”
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
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