Blog
April 7, 2026
April 2026 · Drawing on the Holy Cross Global Youth Survey (n = 4,889, 8 countries) and over 150 media sources tracked since December 2023.
Something remarkable happened last Holy Saturday. Across hundreds of churches from Los Angeles to Paris, from London to Hong Kong, adults and teenagers stepped into baptismal fonts in numbers not seen in decades. The New York Times ran a front-page story. CBS Mornings covered it. The headline writers called it a “revival,” a “boom,” a “Catholic moment.” In Spain, El País, El Mundo, and El Confidencial devoted major features to what they labelled the giro católico — the Catholic turn.
But is it a revival? And what does the data actually say? At Footprints Research Group, we have been tracking this story for over two years — through more than 150 media sources in ten countries and through our own global survey of nearly 5,000 young people. The picture that emerges is far more interesting than any single headline can capture.
The numbers are real — and striking
Start with the facts on the ground. A Hallow app survey of more than 140 US dioceses found that over 80% are experiencing an average 38% rise in adults entering the Church through OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) compared to 2025. Newark is expecting 1,701 new Catholics — 60% more than its pre-pandemic figure of 1,064 in 2019. The Diocese of Richmond boasts a record 900. Oklahoma City is up 57%. Los Angeles, 139%.
France is the most dramatic case. Adult baptisms have more than tripled over the past decade: from 4,124 in 2016 to over 13,200 this year. Five years ago, in 2021, France baptised 4,895 adults and teenagers combined at Easter; this year the figure reaches 21,386. The Archdiocese of Paris alone will welcome 788 converts — its largest group ever. Faced with this scale, the bishops of the Paris region have called a regional council to run through 2027 — focused not on preparing catechumens for baptism, but on how to integrate them fully into the life of the Church.
In Spain — historically the country with the lowest spirituality scores in our global youth survey — the growth is equally striking in relative terms. The Spanish Bishops’ Conference recorded 13,323 adult baptisms in 2024, and projections for 2026 exceed 14,000. In Getafe, south of Madrid, 50 adults were being baptised this Easter — a diocesan record, and 39 more than in 2023. In Navarra, 40 adults received baptism, the highest figure in twenty years. Valencia more than doubled its catechumens. In Zaragoza, the increase is 164% in recent years. And in January, a Catholic event called “Llamados” sold out the Movistar Arena in Madrid, with over 18,000 attendees, many of them in their twenties.
“I’ve been a priest for 35 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”— Parish priest quoted by El Debate, April 2026, on the surge in adult baptisms
The Gen Z Catholic turn — with caveats
Beyond baptism numbers, the demographic shift at the heart of this wave deserves attention. In France, adults aged 18–25 now represent 42% of catechumens — the largest cohort, having overtaken the 26–40 group that dominated for decades. In the US, one widely cited finding from the 2023 Cooperative Election Study suggested that, for the first time, more Gen Z adults identify as Catholic (21%) than Protestant (19%). This claim spread rapidly — and it is not quite right. Pew Research disputes the data, finding young Protestants still outnumber young Catholics. But even Pew acknowledges the narrowing of the gap. And in the UK, data from YouGov commissioned by the Bible Society tells a clearer story: among young churchgoers aged 18–24, 41% identify as Catholic — compared to just 20% who say Anglican.
The pattern is consistent across countries: where young people are actively choosing a religion, they are increasingly choosing Catholicism — and choosing it deliberately, not by inheritance.
What our survey told us — two years before the headlines
None of this should have been entirely surprising. Our 2023 global survey of young people aged 16–35 across eight countries — conducted with the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross — documented a spiritual landscape far more alive than the standard secularisation story allows.
Spirituality is “very” or “fairly” present in the lives of 92% of young Kenyans, 85% of Filipinos, 82% of Brazilians, 63% of Mexicans, 52% of Italians, 50% of Argentinians, 48% of young Britons — and 39% of young Spaniards, the lowest score in our sample. Yet even in Spain, among those who do hold a faith, half report that spirituality is more present in their lives than five years ago. Only 15% of young believers globally said it had diminished over the previous five years.
Across all eight countries, 73% of respondents identified as believers. And the faith they described is not superficial. Among believers, 79% acknowledge the existence of sin (versus 33% of atheists). 85% said they want God to be present in their family life. 57% believe religion is something parents should pass on to their children. Faith shapes how young people think — about morality, about politics, about community. It is not merely a cultural inheritance to be shed at university.
Why are they coming? The loneliness diagnosis
The question everyone is asking — from parish directors in New Jersey to columnists at El Confidencial — is: why now? The answers converge around a few core themes.
Loneliness and isolation are the most commonly cited factors by diocesan leaders in the US. “I think technology has isolated us from one another. COVID only magnified that isolation,” said Archbishop Rozanski of St. Louis, whose diocese is seeing its highest conversion numbers since 2016. “We are realising that many of the ills of our society — anxiety, depression — come from that isolation.” The 18–35 age group, he notes, is the fastest-growing segment among new converts in his diocese.
The French bishops’ own survey of 1,450 catechumens adds texture to this diagnosis. 40% traced their path to baptism to a personal crisis — illness, bereavement, existential questioning. A third cited a profound spiritual experience. And 61% had already been reading the Bible on their own before ever approaching the Church. Only 11% cited social media influencers as a primary driver — a strikingly modest figure given how much coverage has focused on TikTok priests and Catholic influencers.
“In this nebulous world of grey, the Catholic Church has offered some black and white. They see a consistency in teaching, a consistency in values.”— Fr. Armand Mantia, OCIA Director, Archdiocese of Newark, quoted by OSV News, March 2026
In Spain, the testimony of individual converts points in the same direction. Iván Carillo, a young man from Navarra who grew up “as far from Catholicism as possible,” arrived at the Church through philosophy — and through community. “Finding people with whom you can express yourself, share, learn, and form a Christian circle is a great window,” he told COPE Navarra. A 29-year-old teacher in Getafe described a gradual process, guided by friends and colleagues: “Little by little, God has been guiding my path.”
The “giro católico”: fashion or phenomenon?
In Spain, the debate has been especially lively — and appropriately sceptical. After Rosalía released “Lux,” her album laden with sacred imagery, and after “Llamados” filled the Movistar Arena, a wave of op-eds erupted in the Spanish press. El País, El Mundo, ABC, El Confidencial, La Vanguardia all weighed in. Is it a genuine giro católico? Or is it, as Juan Manuel de Prada wrote in ABC, merely “la moda de lo católico” — Catholicism as aesthetic, not conviction?
The data counsels precision. A study cited by Europa Press in November 2025 found that one in three young Spaniards defines themselves as “spiritual” — but 61% do not practice any institutional religion. Experts at Alfa&Omega spoke of “a containment of secularisation” rather than a reversal. The BBC, in a careful February 2026 report, reminded readers: “We thought Gen Z had started going to church in droves. But the truth is more complicated.” Ross Douthat, writing in the New York Times, framed it most honestly: “Is religion reviving or declining? Both.”
Our own survey data supports this nuanced reading. Spain had the lowest spirituality score in our eight-country sample — and yet it is showing growth in adult baptisms. Italy and Spain have more atheists and agnostics than believers in the 16–35 age group. The spiritual searching is real. The institutional reconnection is partial and fragile.
A tale of two trends — and one challenge
The Easter baptism wave coexists with a longer-term decline that has not gone away. In Spain, infant baptisms continue to fall — under 50% of babies were baptised in 2024. Catholic marriages are down. First communions are down. In the US, Pew Research reported in December 2025 that far more people are leaving the Catholic Church than entering it, and infant baptisms have fallen by more than 50% since 2000.
What is happening, then, is a polarisation rather than a uniform revival. Cultural and nominal Catholicism continues to erode. But chosen, intentional faith is growing — and in some places, growing fast. As one Los Angeles diocesan official put it: “While we may see a decrease in cultural Catholicism, we see an increase in people becoming Catholics by personal choice.”
The profile of those choosing matters. They come with fewer assumptions and more hunger. Priests working with OCIA programmes across the US note that new Catholics today arrive earlier in the process with stronger personal prayer lives and a greater willingness to engage with Church teaching. They have done the searching before they knock.
What it means for the Church — and for us
The Archbishop of Lyon, writing to his diocese earlier this year, framed the challenge with clarity: the task is not to imagine procedures for “after baptism,” but to ensure “our entire parish communities become aware of their collective mission.” The Archdiocese of Paris has called a synodal council. Newman Centres across America are being reconfigured to accommodate larger classes. Dioceses in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Australia are all reporting increases.
Our survey offers one final piece of evidence worth holding onto. The most widely agreed-upon religious statement among the nearly 5,000 young people we surveyed — across all eight countries, believers and sceptics alike — was this: I often ask God to be with my family, my friends, and those I hold dear. 70% agreed. Faith begins in the intimate. It begins in relationship, in loss, in longing. Not in institutions, and not in algorithms.
The Easter baptism wave of 2026 is real. Whether it becomes a tide depends not on the Church’s marketing, but on whether it can offer what a generation raised on loneliness, relativism, and digital exhaustion is quietly looking for: community, truth, and something worth giving your life to.
“To me, this is evidence of the desire in every young person’s heart to find truth, beauty, and goodness in a world that is selling them everything but that.”— College student at University of Illinois, quoted by Aleteia, April 2026
About the data. Survey data from the Holy Cross Global Youth Survey (GAD3 / Pontifical University of Santa Croce, 2023): weighted sample of 4,889 young people aged 16–35 in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, Spain, and the UK. Baptism and conversion figures drawn from the National Catholic Register, Religion News Service, ZENIT, Aleteia, The Pillar, OSV News, and Catholic News Agency (March–April 2026). Spain figures from the Spanish Bishops’ Conference Activity Report 2024 and Jóvenes Católicos. French catechumen survey: Conférence des Évêques de France, 2026 (n=1,450). UK young churchgoer data: Bible Society / YouGov, 2026. US Gen Z Catholic/Protestant comparison: 2023 Cooperative Election Study; disputed by Pew Research Center — see NCR fact-check, January 2026.