Young Americans (and beyond) are flocking to the Catholic Church

06-29-2025Weekly ReflectionFr. Leonard F. Villa

Earlier this year, The Pillar reported a surge in the number of prospective Catholics looking to join the Church at Easter. The Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, reported a 30 percent increase over the previous year to 633 converts, the highest number in a decade. Father Ryan Kaup of the Catholic Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln baptized 20 students himself— “the most ever”—and performed initiation rites for 50 others from different Christian denominations and now, of course, we have an American pope, Leo XIV, who church leaders hope will further boost the country’s Catholic boom.

America is not alone. The Catholic boom is also happening in France—where there has been a 45 percent increase in adult baptisms this year—and in England, where, thanks to a surge in Mass attendance, Catholics are on track to overtake Anglicans for the first time since the Church of England was founded by King Henry VIII. Madeline Kearns explored this on the blog Free Press. Here are some highlights:

• Most were in their early 20s, which makes sense: The Catholic boom is especially evident among Gen Z. A 2023 Harvard University study found that the percentage of Gen Z identifying as Catholic jumped from 15% to 21% between 2022 and 2023.
• If America’s Catholic boom is fueled by young people, it’s mostly fueled by young men. Father Charles Gallagher, pastor of Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., said that of the seven new Catholics baptized in his church this year, six were men. And he believes that’s representative. He says young men are looking for answers to questions like: “How can I become a better leader? How do I take control of my life? How do I overcome an addiction? How can I have a stable relationship?” For a young man Yuichiro, the choice was not ideological. "What really attracted me was the centrality of God. I didn't just want a community. I already had so many friends. I wanted God." And, in Catholicism, more than in any other tradition, "That immediacy with God... I really felt it. It's something unique."
• Darnell, 21, a student at Oakland University in Michigan who was baptized this Easter, said he appreciates that Catholicism “doesn’t make you feel ashamed of being a man.” For him, becoming a Catholic is like joining the military: “It’s a brotherhood of brothers in Christ, with the discipline that I think is attracting so many young men.” Darnell grew up in a “name-only” family. When he accompanied his girlfriend to a nondenominational church, the experience felt more like a concert than an act of worship.
• Darnell was drawn to the silence of the Catholic Mass, and the deep devotion. He attended a conference for Catholic students in Salt Lake City, where he began each morning with Mass and the Rosary. Remember the solemnity of the Eucharist:
• Jane, 22, grew up without religion in Northern Virginia and then Arkansas. But she said she had “always liked the aesthetic elements of Catholicism.” Representations of religion in old movies—like the baptism scene in The Godfather—fascinated her as a child, and later, as a teenager, she “loved the architecture and stained glass” of old churches, “and how much detail and symbolism there was.”
• In an age of efficiency and technology, it’s easy to forget that humans need beauty and wonder. For many new Catholics, this translates into the so-called “scents and bells” of traditionalism, which allow believers to perceive religious truth with their senses, not just their minds.
• For Jane, a moving work of art or an inspiring piece of music “shows how God is present in our lives to inspire us.” Her first contact with Mass was at Penn State, where she studied music. She discovered and loved the Requiems of Mozart and Verdi, and later the Gregorian chant, which she felt touched her deeply. “It was simple and stripped down, and that’s what struck me.”
• These experiences and comments of young people describe what drew them to belief: silence, mystery, beauty, wonder and so forth. However, these experiences are not belief but motives for belief. For belief God’s grace is necessary and it is all about Jesus Christ. The Catholic religion is based on Jesus Christ, His crucifixion and resurrection calling individuals to become family with God through Him. The Holy Spirit is constantly moving and seeking out people to lead them to intimacy with God as a son or daughter. Some truths:
• God himself, in creating man in his own image, has written upon his heart the desire to see him. Even if this desire is often ignored, God never ceases to draw man to himself because only in God will he find and live the fullness of truth and happiness for which he never stops searching. By nature, and by vocation, therefore, man is a religious being, capable of entering communion with God. This intimate and vital bond with God confers on man his fundamental dignity. Sustained by divine grace, we respond to God with the obedience of faith, which means the full surrender of ourselves to God and the acceptance of his truth insofar as it is guaranteed by the One who is Truth itself.
• What does it mean in practice for a person to believe in God? It means to adhere to God himself, entrusting oneself to him and giving assent to all the truths which God has revealed because God is Truth. It means to believe in one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• Faith is the supernatural virtue which is necessary for salvation. (supernatural means a virtue which surpasses human capabilities and is bestowed by God’s grace) It is a gift of God and is accessible to all who humbly seek it. The act of faith is a human act, that is, an act of the intellect of a person - prompted by the will moved by God - who freely assents to divine truth. Faith is also certain because it is founded on the Word of God; it works “through charity” (Galatians 5:6); and it continually grows through listening to the Word of God and through prayer. It is, even now, a foretaste of the joys of heaven.
• Why is there no contradiction between faith and science? Though faith is above reason, there can never be a contradiction between faith and science because both originate in God. It is God himself who gives to us the light both of reason and of faith. “I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.” (Saint Augustine)
• Why is faith a personal act, and at the same time of the Church? Faith is a personal act insofar as it is the free response of the human person to God who reveals himself. But at the same time, it is an act of the Church which expresses herself in the proclamation, “We believe”. It is in fact the Church that believes and thus by the grace of the Holy Spirit precedes, engenders and nourishes the faith of each Christian. For this reason, the Church is Mother and Teacher.
• In what way is the faith of the Church one faith alone? The Church, although made up of people who have diverse languages, cultures, and rites, nonetheless professes with a united voice the one faith that was received from the one Lord and that was passed on by the one Apostolic Tradition. She confesses one God alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and points to one way of salvation. Therefore, we believe with one heart and one soul all that is contained in the Word of God, handed down or written, and which is proposed by the Church as divinely revealed.
• Why did the Son of God become man? For us men and for our salvation, the Son of God became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. He did so to reconcile us sinners with God, to have us learn of God’s infinite love, to be our model of holiness and to make us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
• What does the word “Incarnation” mean? The Church calls the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one divine Person of the Word the “Incarnation”. To bring about our salvation the Son of God was made “flesh” (John 1:14) and became truly man. Faith in the Incarnation is a distinctive sign of the Christian faith.
• In what way is Jesus Christ true God and true man? Jesus is inseparably true God and true man in the unity of his divine Person. As the Son of God, who is “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father,” he was made true man, our brother, without ceasing to be God, our Lord. See https://www.thefp.com/p/meet-americas-newest-catholics