CV NEWS FEED // Over 2,000 adults, teenagers, and older children were baptized and received into the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California, at Easter this year.
According to Angelus News, 2,075 people were baptized at Easter in the Archdiocese, marking “an increase of 38% over the 2016 record.”
At the same time, an additional 1,521 candidates who were already baptized in non-Catholic Christian traditions came into full communion with the Church through the Archdiocese.
In total, 3,696 people became Catholic in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, but the increase isn’t exclusive to California’s region.
“National numbers are unavailable, but many individual dioceses reported dramatic increases. The Archdiocese of Baltimore rose more than a third to 663,” Angelus News reported:
The 2,364 converts in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston marked the first total above 2,000 since 2019. Increases were not confined to large, urban archdioceses. The Diocese of Yakima in the high desert of central Washington reported the most converts in its 73-year history, with 460.
The news outlet noted that senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) Mark Gray posited that the increase may be due to COVID-19 slowing down RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) programs in previous years.
However, the associate director of the Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Marilyn Santos, suggested there was another factor at play in the recent increases: the National Eucharistic Revival.
“We have heard some incredible stories during the National Eucharistic Revival of people who have experienced total conversion because of the revival,” she said, according to Angeles News. Santos noted that there has also been an increase of entire families going through RCIA.
“Perhaps, she said, part of COVID’s impact was to show the value of family, faith, and community. She also wonders if the explosion of devotion to Blessed Carlo Acutis during the National Eucharistic Revival has played a part, since he led his own parents into the Church,” Angelus News reported.
Additionally, “kindness and hospitality mean a lot,” Santos noted, reflecting on how even small acts of love can go a long way in someone’s faith journey. “If you do something as simple as being welcoming, the rest will come.”
