The Conference of Bishops in France (CEF) has recorded the largest number of catechumens to be received or baptized into the Church since records began some twenty years ago. This year, 10,384 adults will be baptized during the Easter Vigil – a 45% increase on 2024.
Noticeable emerging patterns reveal younger generations and Muslims in France are leading the way – becoming interested in and converting to Catholicism at a quickening rate.
Official statistics corroborate with anecdotal reports to reveal the authenticity of growth in the French Church. On Ash Wednesday in 2025, an “unprecedented surge” in attendance at Mass across the country was reported in Catholic and secular media, led particularly by young adults.
“We shattered attendance records,” Father Benoist de Sinety told Famille Chrétienne.
The substantial growth in the number of converts France will witness in 2025 is not an anomaly. This Easter will mark the fifth consecutive year of exponential increases, indicating a snowballing trend. Each year, the hike in the number of people seeking to be baptized or received into the Catholic Church has been larger than the one prior.
This has continued to the point that 2025’s number of adult catechumens is now almost treble the number recorded in 2021, 3,639.
Between 2016 and 2020 figures remained relatively consistent and stagnant. Over the five years preceding France’s repeated spikes in conversions, they only ranged between 4,124 and 4,505 adult converts each year.
This decade’s contrasting growth should not be understood as making up for the deficit of a short-lived dip recorded in 2021, when 3,639 adults were baptized during the height of pandemic restrictions. This was the lowest recorded figure in recent times. However, numbers recovered the following year in 2022, followed by an unprecedented and sudden 21% increase in 2023. There was then a more dramatic 32% rise from that in 2024.
Nor is the flurry of French citizens seeking membership in the Church merely replacing childhood baptisms and confirmations. In 2024, some 5,000 adolescents were additionally received or baptized. Their numbers rose to 7,400 in 2025. Simultaneously, since 2019, France’s population increased only from 67.38 to 68.6 million; this means that the converts are joining the Church at a rate far surpassing France’s population growth.
However, the most substantial changes are seen amongst adults.
Young professionals and students in the 18- to 25-year-old demographic are leading this overall trend. They now represent 42% of the overall numbers flocking into the Church.
The growing influence of young converts has steadily increased as a proportion since 2020. Before that year they were the third most common cohort of the four adult age divisions to convert
In England, which has experienced a similar though less pronounced trend among prospective Catholics, the Telegraph reported these young converts repeatedly use terms such as “coherent” and “consistent” when explaining their reasons for coming to believe the Catholic Faith and pursuing sacramental participation in the Church.
Anaë Delion, a 20-year-old catechumen in France, similarly described to the CEF her story and revealed comparable motivations.
After an unhappy childhood and an extended low period in her life – full of “drunken parties, drugs and relationships” – Anaë experienced a spell where “nothing inspired [her] anymore,” and she could not get out of bed.
After one day suddenly feeling spurred on to no longer give up, she explained:
Without understanding why, at that precise moment, I felt a force in my heart pushing me to find out what it was. I absolutely wanted to know everything. I realized later that my heart was actually seeking to know God. Two months later, on March 2, 2022, I began my very first Lenten season. Since that day, I have never let go of the Lord.
Ms. Delion is not alone. One stable pattern is more women than men joining the Church. Females account for 63% of the overall numbers of newcomers this year.
An impulse to discover a deep knowledge of the Faith is a recurrent theme. Writing for the Catholic News Agency, Heather Tomlinson attributes the growth in conversions among the young to the two factors: internet and tradition.
Accounts point to the readily available nature of information about the Faith online and increasing prevalence of apologists, evangelists, priests, and religious sisters over the airwaves. In the Anglosphere, Father Mike Schmitz, Bishop Robert Barron, Michael Knowles, Matt Fradd, and Lila Rose have social media clout; France has its own online evangelists. Dominican friar Paul-Adrien has almost 470,000 followers on YouTube, while Sister Albertine, a Chemin Neuf nun, connects to some 270,000 Instagram followers.
Ms. Tomlinson’s report that young people are attracted by tradition corresponds to evidence published by French newspaper La Croix that 40% of young French Catholics approve of Traditional Latin Mass. (This is despite the fact this lesser-known liturgy only accounts for some 1% of the Masses celebrated globally).
Similarly, the annual pilgrimage to Chartres in France, which features the traditional liturgy, has grown rapidly and experienced oversubscription in consecutive years, is dominated by young people.
The share of new converts to Catholicism from Islam is steadily rising. Former Muslims comprised 3% of neophytes in 2023, increasing to 5% in 2024. This year they will be 7% of the overall figure.
Father Vincent Breynaert, director of the national Youth and Vocations Service, explains that the vast majority of the converts have little to no background in the Faith.
“In today’s French society, 80% of young people have not received any religious education,” he said.
A report released earlier in 2025 by Aleteia and Famille Chretienne drew up a composite portrait of these new Catholics. Of the respondents to surveys: “65% say they did not grow up in a believing family, and 50% say they discovered the faith on their own.”
“Mass is a key step in their journey,” it continues, “83% already attended before entering the catechumenate, often alone (42%), 95% wish to continue practicing but 57% ask to be able to share their faith with other Christians, 38% expect spiritual support, and 27% wish to deepen their understanding of the Mass and the fundamentals of the faith.”