Many US dioceses have experienced a huge increase in people joining the Catholic Church around Easter this year, as adult conversions increase in the country. Some dioceses have seen record-high numbers of unbaptized people becoming Catholic.
“We’ve seen this tremendous growth over the last couple of years, and it’s really interesting. It’s really enjoyable,” said JohnMark Grody, executive director of . The Coming Home Network and host of EWTN’s “The Journey Home” in an interview with “EWTN News Nightly.”
The mission of the Ohio-based organization is to “help non-Catholic Christians, clergy and laity, discover the truth and beauty of the Catholic faith and journey home to full communion with the Catholic Church.”
The organization is seeing a “huge increase” in the number of people attending church “across the board,” Grody said.
“Here at The Coming Home Network … we’re working specifically with people who are on that journey, who are asking questions, who are looking for help,” Grody said. “And over the past years, we have seen a 50% increase in the number of Protestant clergy reaching out to us for help in becoming Catholic.”
The network reaches thousands of people seeking information and support through a number of resources, including its Pastor Convert Conference, which exclusively invites former Protestant and other non-Catholic Christian pastors and ministers who have become Catholic or who are preparing to enter the church.
Following a successful first conference in 2025, the network and St. Paul’s Center for Biblical Theology will host The second meeting will be held May 1-3 in Steubenville, Ohio.
be attracted to faith
It’s a “fairly broad demographic” of people joining the Catholic Church because it’s “not just a local phenomenon,” Grody said. “It’s across America and the world.”
“I think 20-30 years ago we were seeing relatively older, more well-educated, more doctrinally interested people. Nowadays, I think we’re seeing… a much broader demographic interested in the Catholic Church for all kinds of reasons.”
“There are a lot of people who were raised Catholic or have been since birth who are coming back to the church,” he said.
“Oftentimes people who are raised Catholic and leave, it’s hard to get them to come back because they think they’ve already got it, they already know what Catholicism is,” Grody said. But, “There is a new visibility of Catholic identity that is drawing people who were raised Catholic back home.”
Grody said the reasons are “all over the place” why so many people are converting to Catholicism, but he added that “there is a great desire for Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.”
“We have increased noise in the world, and people are looking for a solid foundation, a place where they can have a right relationship with the truth, and seek the truth. I think there have also been things that have broken down barriers for people considering the Catholic Church,” he said.
Pope Leo XIV can help inspire people “with his very clear, unequivocal evidence of Catholic identity, as well as a number of remarkable public conversions, which I think have broken down the walls for some people to consider Catholicism,” he said.
Grody said, “When it gets down to the individual person though, I think a lot of people are looking for the sacraments. They’re looking for these great gifts from God of their presence, where He promises to come and be with us amidst all the noise.”
Grodi said, “The Church, guided by the Holy Spirit with scripture, tradition and the magisterial teaching authority of the Church, gives people a place to bring their questions and seek answers and believe that there has been 2,000 years of this tradition of seeking truth.”
