French Catholic Church to baptize over 10K adults on Easter; 45% increase over last year
France’s Roman Catholic Church is scheduled to baptize more than 10,000 adults on Easter Sunday, the highest number of new members reported in over 20 years.
The Catholic Church in France recently reported that 10,384 adults will be baptized on Easter night, along with approximately 7,400 individuals aged 11 to 17.
This marks a 45% increase in adult catechumens compared to last year, and is the largest reported number since 2002, when the Catholic Church created the annual survey.
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The report also noted an apparent rise in “the growing, and now majority, proportion of young people among all catechumens.”
“Among newly baptized adults, the 18-25-year-old group, made up of students and ‘young professionals,’ now represents 42% of catechumens, and has therefore surpassed the 26-40-year-old group,” stated the report, as rendered by Google translate.
“The number of adolescent catechumens has increased sharply again this year. We are seeing a 33% increase in the dioceses for which we have figures for the two consecutive years of 2024 and 2025.”
Last month, the French Catholic weekly Famille Chrétienne reported an apparent surge in attendance for Ash Wednesday services at the start of Lent, which is the liturgical calendar season before Easter.
“We shattered attendance records,” said Father Benoist de Sinety, parish priest of St. Eubert Church in Lille, in comments given to Famille Chrétienne.
“Across the three Masses we offered, we had larger congregations than ever before. Nearly a thousand faithful gathered at Saint-Maurice Church in the evening — many of them young people attending for the first time.”
France has had a long, complicated history with Catholicism. For centuries, it was a bulwark of the Church, providing large numbers of soldiers for the Crusades and constructing many notable churches.
However, beginning with the violent secularism of the French Revolution in 1789, the nation has also made the occasional effort to limit Catholic influence on politics and society.
Last December, the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris reopened after more than five years of being closed due to a severe fire in April 2019 that destroyed much of the interior.
Many public officials and world leaders attended the opening, with French President Emmanuel Macron having championed efforts to have the national symbol rebuilt in five years.
The restoration of the cathedral involved more than $888 million (€846 million) being donated by approximately 340,000 supporters from around 150 countries.
"You have transformed ashes into art," Macron told those present for a tour of the completed cathedral last November. “The blaze at Notre Dame was a national wound, and you have been its remedy through will, through work, through commitment.”
