Many U.S. dioceses have experienced heavy increases in people joining the Catholic Church around Easter this year, as adult conversions soar in the nation. Some dioceses have even seen record-high numbers of unbaptized people becoming Catholic.
"We've seen this great rise the last couple of years, and it's really intriguing. It's really joyful," said JonMarc Grodi, executive director of The Coming Home Network and host of EWTN's "The Journey Home," in an interview with "EWTN News Nightly."
The Ohio-based organization's mission is "to help non-Catholic Christians, clergy and laity, discover the truth and beauty of Catholicism and to make the journey home to full communion with the Catholic Church."
The organization is seeing "a huge increase" in numbers of people joining the Church "across the board," Grodi said.
"Here at The Coming Home Network … we're working in particular with people who are on that journey, who are asking questions, who are looking for help," Grodi said. "And over the past years, we saw a 50% increase in the number of Protestant pastors who reached 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 Clergy Convert Conference, which specifically 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 the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology will host a second gathering May 1–3 in Steubenville, Ohio.
Draw to the faith
It's a "pretty wide demographic" of those joining the Catholic Church, as it "is not just a local phenomenon," Grodi said. "This is around the U.S. and around the world."
"I think 20-30 years ago we were seeing a lot of relatively older, more well-educated, more doctrinally interested people. Nowadays, I think we're seeing … a much wider demographic interest in the Catholic Church for all sorts of reasons."
There are also "a lot of people who were brought up or who were born Catholic coming back to the Church," he said.
"Oftentimes people who were brought up Catholic and leave, it's hard to bring them back because they think that they already get it, they already know what Catholicism is," Grodi said. But, "there's a renewed visibility of Catholic identity that is drawing people who were brought up Catholic back home."
Grodi said the reasons are "all over the place" as to why so many are converting to the Catholic faith but noted "there's a great desire for Jesus in the holy Eucharist."
"We have an increase in noise in the world, and people are looking for a solid foundation, a place to go where they can have a right relationship to truth, and to seek the truth. I think also there have been things that have broken down barriers to people considering the Catholic Church," he said.
Pope Leo XIV may be helping to inspire people with "his very visible, clear witness to Catholic identity, as well as a lot of notable public conversions that I think have broken down the walls for some people to consider Catholicism," he said.
"When it gets down to the individual person though, I think so many people are looking for the sacraments. They're looking for these great gifts from God of his presence, where he promises to show up and be with us in the midst of 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 come bring their questions and to seek answers and to trust that there's been 2,000 years of this tradition of seeking truth," Grodi said.
