While the religiously unaffiliated are on the rise globally, something curious is also happening: Some American dioceses are reporting significant upticks in adults preparing to enter the Catholic Church this Easter.

Sherry Anne Weddell, the co-founder and executive director of the Catherine of Siena Institute in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and an expert in Catholic evangelization, said that the “high point” of adult Catholics joining the Catholic Church in the U.S. was in 1999, with 172,000 adult baptisms and receptions.

“And then there was just a steady sort of decline,” she said.

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That has since changed.

“There was significant growth between 2023 and 2024,” she said. And while the data for 2025 and 2026 have yet to be published, “the numbers that are being reported are getting bigger and bigger.”

The 2024 Official Catholic Directory reported that in 2023, 619,775 people entered the Catholic Church in U.S. Latin-rite dioceses, including 4.8 per cent (29,752) adult baptisms, and 8.1 per cent (50,490) receptions into full communion from another Christian tradition.

In 2024, adult baptisms and receptions (adults and minors) increased again to 34,552 and 55,453, respectively.

This year, the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, is among dioceses reporting an uptick in Catholic conversions, with 1,701 individuals preparing to join the Church — a 30-per-cent increase since 2025, a 48-per-cent increase since 2024 and a 72-per-cent increase since 2023. 

Fr. Armand Mantia, the archdiocese’s director of the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, the Catholic adult initiation process, says the Church’s lasting stability contributes to the rising numbers.

“In this nebulous world of gray, the Catholic Church has offered some black and white,” he said. “They see in the Catholic Church a consistency in teaching, a consistency in values, a historical provenance and scriptural providence to what we’re doing.”

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In Ohio, the Diocese of Cleveland has more than doubled its OCIA “class” since 2023. In Virginia, the Diocese of Richmond is touting a “record” 900 to be baptized at Easter. In Indiana, the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend held its 2026 Rite of Election outside its cathedral — in a larger parish church — to accommodate growing numbers.

In the Archdiocese of Boston, more than 680 catechumens plan to join the Church at Easter, an increase from last year’s 450, and previous years’ average of 250-300. Boston Archbishop Richard G. Henning “has been saying that there’s some sort of revival,” said Patrick Krisak, the archdiocese’s director of faith formation and missionary discipleship.

“There may not be a revival across the country, but there are revivals,” he said. “And at what point do all of those pockets of revival that we’re seeing all over the country add up to a revival?”

Krisak cited liturgy, certainty amid change and moral leadership as possible attractions. There is also old-fashioned rebellion, he said.

“There’s also the sense in which generations like to be countercultural,” he said. “If you’re rebelling against the folks who rebelled against the establishments, then you’re in some sense perhaps turning back to some aspects of the establishment.”

Reports of more adults joining the Catholic Church “is true not just in the U.S., but in significant parts of Europe,” Weddell said.

The Archdiocese of Paris will welcome 788 converts this Easter, its largest group ever, while the Archdiocese of Westminster, England, reported its highest number of converts since 2011 and a 60-per-cent increase from 2025 to 2026. Dioceses in Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands have also reported increased numbers of people joining the Church.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a national, nonprofit research centre that conducts social scientific studies about the Catholic Church at Georgetown University, counseled that reports of increased numbers of converts are still at this point anecdotal. The nation’s nearly 200 dioceses and archdioceses will not begin formally reporting 2025 sacramental data until early 2026.

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And yet, “There’s this growth in the numbers,” affirmed Weddell, who visits dioceses from coast to coast. 

“Many of the parishes I’ve talked to say, ‘Yeah, we’re seeing it — in our own small way.’”