For the Burns family, the path to the Catholic Church this Easter vigil started with a funeral.

Steve Burns, 43, a mechanical engineer who lives in Avon Lake, Ohio, was raised a Free Methodist. His wife, Corrine, 42, a homemaker who worked for years in a wholesale greenhouse, was raised a Catholic but stopped going to Catholic church when she was an adolescent. Their son Ryan, 12, hasn’t been baptized.

But when Corrine’s beloved Uncle Tony died in March 2023, she attended his funeral Mass and immediately felt at home.

“For the first time I felt right, like I was in the right spot again,” Corrine told the Register. “In my head I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got to get my family in here, too.’ ”

That’s what’s happening this weekend. Steve and Ryan went through the parish’s conversion program this past year. Steve plans to be formally received into the Catholic Church during the 9 p.m. Easter vigil Mass at St. Joseph’s in Avon Lake, followed by confirmation and first Communion. At the same Mass, Ryan plans to be baptized, followed by confirmation and first Communion.

They are part of a bumper crop in the Diocese of Cleveland, which expects 812 converts at Eastertime 2025, which is about 50% higher than in 2024 (542) and about 75% higher than in 2023 (465). It’s so high that the diocese had to move its Rite of Election — during which prospective converts meet with the bishop near the beginning of Lent to declare their intention to join the Church — to the city’s Public Auditorium and Conference Center, because the cathedral wasn’t big enough to accommodate the nearly 3,000 attendants, including converts, sponsors, family and friends, according to Nancy Fishburn, the diocese’s executive director of communications.

Cleveland is part of what appears to be a spike in conversions in various parts of the United States.

It’s too soon to say what the total number of converts to the Catholic Church will be nationwide in 2025, as many dioceses don’t report official figures until later in the year.

But the Register contacted all 175 Latin Rite territorial dioceses in the country earlier this spring and received comparable year-over-year figures from about three dozen. The numbers show that significant increases in converts are common and widespread. Many are seeing increases not just since last year but also since 2019, the year before the coronavirus shutdowns led to sharp decreases in conversions.

Nor is the United States alone. France, for instance, is expecting a surge in adult baptisms this year — at more than 10,000, the highest number since a national annual report on such figures began in 2002. And England is also seeing a faith revival.

Eucharistic Revival, Media, Popping the Question

How is this happening? The short answer for many is the Holy Spirit.

Other factors cited by diocesan officials include:

The National Eucharistic Revival: “The National Eucharistic Revival has sparked more interest in our faith. Part of our local observance of the Eucharistic Revival has been to place large billboards in prominent places in our major population centers, inviting people to come to our local parishes,” Bishop Michael Sis, who leads the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas, told the Register by email.

The number of converts in the Diocese of San Angelo is 56% in 2025 (607) over 2024 (388). For the first time, the diocese held three Rite of Election ceremonies this year instead of two — “because the high numbers would not fit in the church,” said Bishop Sis, who also credits Catholic radio and evangelizing through social media, as well as recruitment campaigns some parishes in the diocese conducted last summer and fall.

Immigration: Converts in the Diocese of Worcester in central Massachusetts are up almost 25% this year (323) over last year (259), and this year’s figure is 152% higher than in 2022 (128).

“From our perspective, this reflects the rebound we are experiencing in general since COVID. The growth in candidates also reflects new immigration in our area,” said Raymond Delisle, chancellor and director of communications for the Diocese of Worcester, by email.

Evangelization: The Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, is up 67% this year over last year (251 in 2025 versus 150 in 2024), and up 99% from 2022 (126). This year’s numbers are the highest in both baptisms (54) and already-baptized people coming into the Church (197) since at least 2017, according to figures provided to the Register by the diocese.

Todd Graff, the diocese’s coordinator of adult Christian initiation, told the Register that decades ago the Church could expect converts through marriage with Catholics. But nowadays marriages are down, as is engagement with the Catholic faith by baptized Catholics.

“That evangelizing component has become more important. It’s not the case that you just sit and wait for people to knock on the door,” Graff said. “You have to be out connecting with people.”

Churchgoing is also down compared to past generations, both in the Catholic Church and in other Christian churches, which makes inviting people into the faith less straightforward.

“It challenges us in a good way as Catholics to maybe be a little less private about our faith and maybe be a little more engaging with people around us,” Graff said.

Bold outreach is the method at St. John the Evangelist Catholic parish in Fenton, Michigan, where Sandy Shaker, who runs the parish’s conversion program, looks for openings to ask people if they want to become Catholic.

One example: She’s the parish’s wedding coordinator, and when she meets an interfaith couple, she asks the non-Catholic about joining the Catholic Church.

“I’m just looking for opportunities. God puts opportunities in our path all the time every day, and it’s just us being aware of them,” Shaker told the Register by telephone. “I think every day there’s an opportunity for some kind of encounter with people, and are our eyes open to it?”

Also helping the cause: Kids at the parish’s school who learn the faith through instruction, adoration of the Eucharist and Eucharistic processions often evangelize non-Catholic parents, Shaker said. Attracting converts is a frequent prayer intention of the parish, too.

In 2023, in a parish in a town of 12,000 people, St. John’s welcomed 32 adult converts, followed by 27 in 2024. This year the total number is 38: 30 adults and eight children.

The parish is in the Diocese of Lansing, which has seen steady growth since 2022. This year’s expected number of converts at Easter (633) shows modest growth over the same figure in 2024 (619) — but it’s 53% higher than in 2022 (413), and it’s higher than in any years since at least 2015.

Coming Home

For many, the call to conversion defies easy explanation.

That’s the case for Corrine Burns, who was recently confirmed, and whom the Register asked to pinpoint what drew her to return and to invite her non-Catholic husband and son to come with her.

“I don’t really have a true answer to that,” she said. “It felt like coming back home to me, to be back in the Catholic Church again. It was overwhelming for me.”

She and her husband had tried several other Christian churches during the past several years.

“When I stepped back into a Catholic church for the first time for my uncle’s funeral, I had this feeling, ‘This is where you’re supposed to be.’”

She sees her uncle’s death and funeral two years ago as part of God’s plan for her.

“It was like this is what it took to get me back to where I needed to be,” she said.

“I thank Him for that.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Increases in conversion cover all parts of the country:

Midwest

• The Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, is seeing conversions almost double this year over last year: from 53 in 2004 to 102 in 2025. The previous high during the past seven years was 73 in 2018.
• In the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, the number of people expected to be baptized is up 59%: 189 in 2025 versus 119 in 2024. It’s the highest since at least 2019, and 83% higher than that year (103).
• In the Diocese of Grand Island, Nebraska, converts are up nearly 45% in 2025 (188) over 2024 (130). The figure this year is higher than any going back to at least 2019 (when it was 151), before the virus, and nearly 25% higher than that year.
• In the Diocese of Rockford, Illinois, converts in 2025 (743) are about 41% higher than in 2024 (528) and are 64% higher than in 2019 (452) before the virus.
• The Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, is expecting a 39% increase in converts: 106 people in 2025 versus 76 in 2024. The figure has increased each year since 2022 and is 16% higher than in 2019 (91).
• The Archdiocese of Detroit expected 23% more converts in 2025 (977) than in 2024 (793). This year’s figure is the highest of any year going back to at least 2019, and it is 70% higher than in 2022 (574).

Northeast

• In the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts, the number of converts has risen at least 75% since 2019: 175 attended the Rite of Election at the cathedral in 2025 versus 100 in 2019. (The 2025 number may end up being closer to 200, diocesan public affairs director Carolee McGrath told the Register.)
• The Archdiocese of Philadelphia expects 725 converts at Eastertime (331 baptisms and 394 baptized people being received into the Church). That’s the highest in 10 years, a spokesman told the Register. It’s 10% higher than in 2024 (661) and 57% higher than in 2019 (463).
• The Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, expects 118 baptisms this Easter — the highest in 10 years and the second highest since 2008. It’s a 23% jump from last year (96) and 89% higher than the number in 2023 (63).
• Converts in the Archdiocese of Baltimore are up almost 17% this year (778) over last year (663) and 22% higher than they were in 2019 (637), before the coronavirus.

South

• The Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, is up 36% this year, from 280 in 2024 to 382 in 2025 — and about 44% above the figure in 2019 (265).
• In the Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky, the number of converts is up 30% in 2025 (477) over 2024 (367).
• The Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama, is up almost 26% this year: to 447 in 2025, up from 355 in 2024. That’s also almost 71% higher than in 2019 (262).
• Converts in the Archdiocese of Atlanta are up 24% in 2025 (1,588) compared to 2024 (1,281) and about 9% higher than in 2019 (1,459), before the virus.
• The Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, is up about 24% this year: to 841 in 2025, up from 679 in 2024.

West

• In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, adult converts are up 44% in 2025 (3,308) over 2024 (2,292), reflecting steady growth in recent years since the virus, and 43% higher than in 2019 (2,318), the year before the virus.
• The Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, is expecting about 1,200 adults to enter the Catholic Church this year. That’s up from 960 in 2024, a 25% increase year over year.

• The Diocese of Pueblo, Colorado, expects a modest increase in 2025 (173) over last year (167), but the figure is 92% higher than it was in 2022 (90).

Pueblo Bishop Stephen Berg told the Register he has noticed in his travels around the sprawling diocese that people are more willing to talk to priests in public.

“I think the perception of the Catholic Church is changing,” Bishop Berg said. “In a world of insanity, I think that people are noticing that the Catholic Church is a place of sanity.”

Out of the virus years has come a period of renewed vigor, he said, “Even though it felt rather bleak four years ago.”

“For 2,000 years, you know, through a lot of turbulent times — and the Church has been through turbulent times — we still stand as the consistent teacher of the faith of Christ,” he said. “The people are intrigued by that.”