At Easter vigil, adults stepped into baptismal waters in parishes all across the United States. The Church welcomed them, and by Monday morning everyone was talking about the numbers. Hallow found a 38% average year-over-year increase in OCIA initiations across more than 140 dioceses. Los Angeles welcomed 8,500 new Catholics. Newark rose 72% since 2023. The New York Times and other secular outlets ran features.
There have been many hypotheses, from a simple “market correction” held over from COVID to a full-scale political shift. Are these new converts looking to cash in on the latest trend, or is there a deeper need for the sacraments being realized? What role did the digital world play in these conversions? France is asking those questions. And, until we do the research, we’re simply throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.
The last major American study of OCIA motivations was a USCCB survey from 2000, when 88% entered for marriage or family reasons and only 12% for a personal spiritual quest. This publication’s own data team has shown that the current increase is more of a rebound to pre-pandemic levels than a historic peak, with most dioceses still below 2000. That analysis keeps the conversation honest. But whether it is a boom or a rebound, the people behind the numbers are real, and we have almost no insight into what moved them.
Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute, who has spent decades training parishes to form intentional disciples, says those proportions have likely inverted, especially among young adults. Still, we are guessing.
France, on the othe hand is not guessing.