Category: Catholic
Packed churches, skyrocketing conversions: Is New York undergoing a Catholic renaissance?
The years-long trend of American de-Christianization recently came to an end, with the Christian share of the U.S. population stabilizing at roughly six in ten Americans, according to Pew Research Center data. Of the 62% of adults who now identify as Christians, 40% are Protestants, 19% are Catholics, and 3% belong to other Christian denominations.
There are signs in multiple jurisdictions pointing to something greater than a mere stabilization under way — at least where the Catholic Church is concerned.
The New York Post recently found that multiple New York City Catholic parishes have not only seen a spike in conversions but their churches routinely fill to the brim. That’s likely good news for the Archdiocese of New York, which was found in a recent Catholic World Report analysis to have been among the 10 least fruitful dioceses in 2023 in terms of baptism, conversion, seminarian, and wedding rates.
‘We’ve got a real booming thing happening here.’
Fr. Jonah Teller, the Dominican parochial vicar at Saint Joseph’s in Greenwich Village, told the Post that the number of catechumens enrolled in his parish’s Order of Christian Initiation of Adults for the purposes of conversion has tripled since 2024, with around 130 people signing up.
Over on the Upper East Side, St. Vincent Ferrer has seen its numbers double since last year, jumping to 90 catechumens. The Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral has reportedly also seen its numbers double, ballooning to around 100 people. The Diocese of Brooklyn doubled its 2023 numbers last year when it welcomed 538 adults into the faith and expects the numbers to remain high again this year.
Attendance in New York City reportedly skyrocketed in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was apparently attending mass with his Catholic wife, Erika, and their children.
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Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images
“We’re out of space and exploring adding more masses,” Fr. Daniel Ray, a Catholic Legionary priest in Manhattan, told the Post. “We’ve got a real booming thing happening here, and it’s not because of some marketing campaign.”
While a number of catechumens cited Kirk’s assassination as part of what drove them to the Catholic Church, others cited a a desire for a life- and family-strengthening relationship with God; a desire to partake in the joy observed in certain devout Catholics; a desire for community; a desire for “guardrails”; and a desire for anchorage and meaning in a chaotic world where politics has become a substitute for faith.
“My generation is watching things fall apart,” Kiegan Lenihan, a catechumen in the OCIA at St. Joseph’s told the Post. “When things all seem to be going wrong in greater society, maybe organized religion isn’t that bad.”
Lenihan, a 28-year-old software engineer, spent a portion of his youth reading the works of atheist intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. After experiencing an anxiety-induced crisis at school, he apparently sought out something of greater substance, devouring the works of Marcus Aurelius. He found that his life still lacked greater meaning despite achieving material success.
‘The Catholic Church is a place of sanity.’
“I realized on paper, I had everything I wanted, but I had no fulfillment in my soul,” said Lenihan, who remedied the problem by turning to Christ.
Liz Flynn, a 35-year-old Brooklyn carpenter who is in OCIA at Old St. Patrick’s, previously sought relief for her anxiety and depression in self-help books and dabbled in “pseudo spiritualism.”
After finding a book about God’s unconditional love for his children in a gift shop during a road-trip stop at Cracker Barrel, she began praying the rosary and developed an appreciation for Catholicism.
“I’m happier and calmer than I’ve ever been,” Flynn told the Post. “Prayer has made an enormous impact on my life.”
New York City is hardly the only diocese enjoying an explosion in conversions.
The National Catholic Register reported in April that numerous dioceses across the country were seeing substantial increases in conversions. For instance:
- the Diocese of Cleveland was on track to have 812 converts at Easter 2025 — 50% more than in 2024 and about 75% more than in 2023;
- the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas, expected 56% more converts in 2025 (607) than in 2024 (388);
- the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, was expected to see a year-over-year doubling of conversions;
- the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, was expected to see a 59% year-over-year increase;
- the Diocese of Grand Island, Nebraska, was set for a 45% increase;
- the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, was expecting a 39% increase in converts; and
- the Archdiocese of Los Angeles noted a 44% increase in adult converts.
Besides the Holy Spirit, the conversions were attributed to the National Eucharistic Revival, immigration, and evangelization.
Pueblo Bishop Stephen Berg told the Register that people are flocking to the church because it stands as a bulwark against the madness of the age.
“I think the perception of the Catholic Church is changing,” said Bishop Berg. “In a world of insanity, I think that people are noticing that the Catholic Church is a place of sanity.”
“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,” continued Berg. “The people are intrigued by that.”
As of March, 20% of Americans described themselves as Catholics, putting the number of Catholic adults at around 53 million nationwide.
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Bishop raises hell after woke priest allows homosexual ABC broadcaster to receive Eucharist beside his ‘husband’
Bishop Joseph Strickland, the cleric removed from his office in Tyler, Texas, in 2023 by the late Pope Francis, urged his colleagues gathered on Wednesday for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ plenary assembly to address the matter of a woke priest’s apparent willingness to run afoul of the church’s custom and to turn a hallowed Catholic ceremony into a non-straight spectacle.
Gio Benitez, a homosexual ABC News correspondent who is “married” to a man, apparently decided after Pope Francis’ passing last year to make his way back to the Catholic Church. Benitez, who was allegedly baptized in secret at the age of 15, was confirmed at St. Paul the Apostle’s Church in New York City on Nov. 8.
‘Here we are talking about doctrine.’
“My Confirmation Mass was a very small gathering of family and friends who have quietly been with me on this journey,” Benitez wrote on Instagram. “I found the Ark of the Covenant in my heart, stored there by the one who created me… exactly as I am.”
The ABC News correspondent also received holy communion from the church’s woke pastor, Rev. Eric Andrews, at the highly publicized mass where LGBT activist Fr. James Martin was a concelebrant and where Benitez’s “husband” served as his sponsor.
Blaze News reached out to Rev. Andrews for comment, but did not receive a response.
While the Catholic Church holds that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity,” “intrinsically disordered,” “contrary to the natural law,” and “can under no circumstances” be approved, the Catechism states that homosexual persons must nevertheless “be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.”
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Bishop Joseph Strickland. Photo by Craig F. Walker/Boston Globe via Getty Images
The church has also made clear that Catholics with same-sex attraction who are chaste can “participate fully in the spiritual and sacramental life of the Catholic faith community.”
However, those who regularly engage in sexual activity or are partners in a committed homosexual relationship that includes regular sexual relations are not to receive holy communion or serve in public ministries.
“Receiving the sacrament is the ultimate expression of our Catholic faith, an intensely personal matter between communicant and priest,” wrote the late and posthumously exonerated Cardinal George Pell. “It’s not a question of refusing homosexuals or someone who is homosexually oriented. The rule is basically the same for everyone.”
“If a person is actually engaged in — by public admission, at any given time — a practice contrary to Church teaching in a serious matter, then that person is not entitled to receive Holy Communion,” continued Pell. “This would apply, for example, to a married person openly living in adultery. Similarly, persons who openly declare themselves active homosexuals take a position which makes it impossible for them to receive Holy Communion.”
During a USCCB discussion of doctrine on Wednesday, Bishop Strickland raised the matter of Benitez’s highly publicized reception of holy communion while flanked by his “husband.”
“I don’t know how many of us have seen on the social media priests and others gathered, celebrating the confirmation of a man living with a man openly,” said Strickland. “It just needs to be addressed. Father James Martin once again involved. Great pictures of all of them smiling.”
Bishop Strickland and Martin have traded barbs over the years, largely around Martin’s subversive LGBT activism and apparent efforts to liberalize the Catholic Church’s stance on such matters.
Martin — who shared an article titled “Gio Benitez, Openly Gay ABC Anchor, Joins the Catholic Church” on social media this week with the caption “Happy to be a part of your journey!” — has made no secret of his activism. For instance, he took issue with the Supreme Court’s June 2025 decision to let parents opt their children out of lessons featuring LGBT propaganda and insinuated that homosexual persons aren’t really bound by church teaching.
“Here we are talking about doctrine,” continued Strickland. “I just thought I need to raise that issue. I know it’s not part of any agenda, but this body gathered, we need to address it.”
The panel, focused on updated ethical and religious directives for Catholic health care services, did not take up Strickland’s concern.
The Catholic Herald noted that Strickland’s tenure as bishop of Tyler was “marked by a reputation for directness, a strong emphasis on Eucharistic devotion, and a willingness to challenge trends in the wider Church that he believed risked undermining the clarity of Catholic teaching.”
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New head of US Catholic Bishops said he would deny communion to pro-abortion politicians
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley is not in favor of giving politicians preferential treatment.
Coakley, archbishop of Oklahoma City, was elected as the next president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in a secret ballot on Tuesday and will serve a three-year term as president.
‘I think in many cases it becomes the right decision and the only choice.’
Coakley has set a strong precedent for supporting the denial of communion to certain politicians that dates back more than a decade.
Most recently, in 2022, Coakley spoke in support of Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone of San Francisco. As reported by Life News, Cordileone decided to withhold communion from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at the time after she backed the Democrats as they blocked a vote on a bill to stop infanticide at least 80 times.
As Pelosi’s district encompasses San Francisco, Cordileone informed Pelosi she would be denied communion following her repeated dismissal of the archbishop, who attempted to speak with her about supporting “grave evil.”
Coakley supported the decision, saying, “I applaud the courage of Archbishop Cordileone and his leadership in taking this difficult step. Let us continue to pray for Abp. Cordileone, priests of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Speaker Pelosi, for the protection of the unborn, and for the conversion of hearts and minds.”
The new USCCB president has remained consistent, and the proof is showcased in an interview he gave in 2014.
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After Coakley said that many Catholic politicians have been at the forefront of “fostering so-called abortion rights,” he was asked about denying them communion due to the “severity” of their support for abortion.
Coakley replied, “I think one has to determine yet at what point it can be determined that they have come to that state of obstinate refusal to desist from that condition of manifest, grave sin.”
He told Life Site News, “I think we have an obligation as bishops, as pastors, to try to work with them to bring them to a change of heart and refusing them communion would be, not the first, but more than likely, the last stage in a serious [sic] of steps.”
The outlet then clarified, asking if it was something he would rule out or not.
“Oh, absolutely not,” Coakley reiterated. “I think it is something that Canon Law sanctions and that I think many bishops find themselves with no other choice but to make that decision. I think in many cases it becomes the right decision and the only choice.”
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VATICAN – 2022/06/29: US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R), with her husband, Paul Pelosi (C), attend a Holy Mass for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul lead by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica. (Photo by Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Upon accepting his new role, Coakley wrote a statement on X about being “put out into deep waters” in his new position.
“Once again, the Lord is inviting me,” he wrote. “Please pray that I may be a faithful steward and a wise servant of unity and communion with our Holy Father, Pope Leo, and with my brother bishops.”
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