The 2026 Conversion Surge
Everyone wants to know: why are so many people suddenly joining the Catholic Church? So, we asked the converts themselves.
As Calvigh Jones was recovering in her hospital room after giving birth, she remembers hearing the crying of a family down the hall who had just lost their baby. And after looking down at her own healthy child, she began to pray.
“I don’t remember the last time I prayed. I don’t know if anybody was listening, but I was just like, ‘be there for those people that lost their babies’”, she recalls. “It breaks my heart - I just think about the pain [they] were going through. And that was the catalyst - like, I prayed, and then my baby’s here, and she’s safe. And now I get to take her.”
Later that year, Jones and her family began taking classes to enter the Catholic Church.
They are just a few of the new surge of converts across the United States who are entering the Church in numbers not seen in many years - and Jones’s reasons for entering are similar to many other converts in the Diocese of Gallup, which is also experiencing a huge conversion upswell.
In 2024, there were 38 new converts across all parishes in the Diocese - this year, there were 50 from Sacred Heart Cathedral alone; Sacred Heart Parish in Farmington and parishes in the White Mountains of Arizona also reported large increases. Many rural Diocesan parishes had one or two or four, when there had been none in previous years.
This swell of interest in the Catholic Church is making headlines all across the country, with many wanting to know - why now? Why are so many people suddenly turning up at the doors of their local parish, wanting to become Catholic?
The ten converts and catechumens spoken to for this story are a small sample size of the hundreds who entered the Church this Easter, but many of them give similar answers. Some, like Jones, began thinking about big human questions and challenges - why am I here? Is there any point to life if we all die? - after a major life event.
Jackie Chavira of Grants, NM, who grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness and then followed no religion for many years, began to explore Catholicism after meeting her Catholic fiance.
“Things feel like they’re getting more permanent, like, I’m gonna be getting married this year. We’re blending our family. And I opened a business, so I’m running a business now. I want God to be at the center of everything that we’re building.”
Others, like Courtney Elkins of Grants, NM, began to go to Mass because their children attend a local Catholic School.
“My kids have gone to St. Teresa [School] since they were in first grade and Kindergarten. And so they really wanted to become baptized into the church. And I started going every Thursday because they read and they sing in the choir on Thursdays for Mass. I think it’s brought us closer together as a family.”
But why Catholicism in particular, as opposed to a Protestant church or non-Christian religion?
Many of the converts said they had attended a Catholic Church at some point when they were young and then stopped going, or they had a family member who was Catholic.
“I was baptized Catholic, a long time ago, and when I was a kid I was doing the First Communion classes with my aunt,” Jones said. “My parents were cradle Catholic, and I think they left the religion for personal reasons, and it just didn’t seem like they wanted me to be a Catholic. It really felt like there was a pull between what my aunt wanted, and what my parents wanted for me, and I ended up not going, and for a long time just didn’t want to be very religious at all.”
After the birth of her daughter, Catholicism was the religion that called to her.
“I have been to different kinds of churches. And I just never felt the way that I felt in the Catholic Church in any of the other ones,” she said. “I remembered how I was just calm and peaceful going to church with my aunt, and I looked at my husband, and said I would love to go to Mass, He looked at me like I was crazy, but he was fully supportive, kind of like, ‘who are you, what have you done with my wife?’” she laughs. “And I went, and I have those same feelings - peace, love - and the next day I called the office, and said I want to get my sacraments.”
William and Natalie Morris and their children are entering the Church - with little to no experience of Catholicism prior to their conversion. William, an attorney who also attended training to become a member of the Army’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, was impressed by his Catholic classmates.
“In August of ‘24 I started in the JAG pipeline. My roommate was Catholic - he had previously gone to seminary before he left and ended up in the Army. I just watched a lot of the other members of the class that happened to be Catholic, and I saw that they weren’t who I was, but they were who I would want my kid to think I was.”
After training, his roommate encouraged him to go to Mass at the Cathedral in Gallup.
“So I talked to my wife about it. And we drove down there, sat in the car together and talked about it. And called [about classes] from the parking lot of the Cathedral,” he remembers. “I’m also working on the reservation. I saw a lot of what was happening on the reservation and with federal funding. And I thought - between my experience with the Catholic members of my class, and the federal withdrawal of funding and the need for social services - it seemed like the only way to meaningfully be a part of that conversation was to join the Church.”
His wife Natalie remembers feeling a bit intimidated to go to Mass for the first time.
“I think I had a lot of preconceived notions about what the Catholic Church was - priests, nuns - and I was like, it’s kind of scary. I was scared, and I walked into the [Cathedral] entryway right there, and I could not [go further]. I was just like, tears, the whole time. I couldn’t stop crying. I just felt overwhelmed and maybe not worthy. I think it is a good sign. And even to this day I still cry a lot at the Mass. I’m like, when does this stop?” she laughs.
Their two daughters have now been baptized and are attending Catholic school.
“That’s just amazing, too. I never thought I’d be raising them in a faith. It just wasn’t a thing that I could see in the future. And now I’m like, I can’t believe we weren’t going to do this! We might not have done this!”
Betsy Perez of Shiprock, NM, also feels a sense of calm and peace when she attends Mass. She attended church when she was young but had never been baptized - a step she’s now rectifying.
“I feel really good coming back out of there. The Holy Spirit’s in the church and the angels are in there, too. So I love the feeling of what goes over my body [in Church].”
She started attending again after feeling distress at news headlines.
“Everything is happening around us and I think it’s better to go back to church now to be on the safe side - like the war, everything. I just want to be in the good Lord’s hands.”
Another large draw to Catholicism for the new converts are the Church’s ancient traditions and teachings.
Janice Welch of Gallup, NM, was formerly a member of the Episcopal Church.
“But lately, the Episcopal Church is going in a direction I don’t really like. So I decided to convert, [to Catholicism]” she said. “And then the big thing was, I went to Italy, went to the Vatican. I mean, history, you know? My family’s Italian. So it just felt right.”
She has also grown to love the Catholic Church’s veneration of Mary - something Jackie Chavira also cites.
“Like, there’s all kinds of saints! You know, Jehovah’s Witnesses, they don’t [have that]. It’s one God and that’s it. But Catholicism, you have the Virgin Mary - people adore her. She’s Jesus’ mom! And then you have Saint Michael. Saint Michael has a lot of fans. I’ve been reading up on him. I found it beautiful, you know, that you can believe in a saint, that you can pray to the saints to just kind of get you a little bit closer to God.”
Calvigh Jones often finds herself turning to Mary as well.
“I think the biggest thing for me that pulled me into the Catholic Church was Mary and being able to pray the rosary. I started going to Mass in October and then very shortly after that, looked up how to pray the rosary and started praying it. I think it’s a beautiful thing to have this heavenly mother that you can talk to and you can go to,” she said. “When I would read about her, it would say that she sits with Jesus and she talks to him about us and speaks about us on our behalf. And that was just a beautiful thing to me, to be able to come to her and cry to her. I keep a little rosary in my car and when my kids are screaming and we have ten minutes until we go, I’ll just take that and start praying, like ‘Mary, help me!’” She laughs, recalling these common instances of quick prayer.
Finally, several of the new converts mentioned that their fellow Catholics community are a huge benefit.
“Being in the church praying, being accepted into a community - I feel like the world has just gotten a little bit crazy, unpredictable. And I feel like, you know, at the end of everything, you always want to go back to your faith,” Elkins said.
“We’ve only lived here for about six years. And the first half of it was all COVID. So I really only feel like I’ve been branching out and meeting people for the last like two, three years,” said Natalie Morris. “And it’s gone from this very small pool to all of a sudden, just like, dozens of people. A lot of people don’t want to actually be the village, but they want the village. But I feel like these people actually want to be part of the village.”
Her husband William is also incredibly grateful for his fellow parishioners at the Cathedral.
“It makes a substantial difference. Whether it’s the school and the church or just the church, the community is strong. I think there are very few problems that you can’t address with the help of the people around you.”
And at the end of the day, all have found the consolation, the peace, and the purpose they have been seeking - perhaps their entire lives.
“It’s been really amazing because I would always say, well, I’m more spiritual, I’m not religious, this that and the other,” said Natalie Morris. “But I never believed that you believe in nothing. Like even if you believe in nothing, you believe in something. I feel like just being in the presence of the church, there’s just something about that. You know, they talk about that. You can feel a difference when you walk in. From being outside, just walking and sitting down and you’re just sort of in awe, if you really pay attention. And then my kids are pretty funny because when they’re doing the incense, they’re like, ‘the angels are here. Jesus is in here!’”
“Without religion, what gives you purpose? What gives you the strength to keep living and loving?” Chavira asks. “And if it’s one thing God teaches, it’s love: love your neighbor, love yourself, love God. If you don’t believe in God or if you don’t have a religion, what is there to believe in, then? What’s left?”
A Closer Look At the Numbers
By Suzanne Hammons
For this story, I spoke to ten converts and around 20 parish catechists and staff. One of the big Catholic stories of 2026 is the large increase in people seeking to become Catholic, and everyone - from bishops to secular media outlets - wants to know why. After all, if we can figure out the reason, in hard data, maybe we can point to certain evangelization efforts that will help us to convert more people in the future.
But, after a bit of digging - and I want to make it clear that I am no statistician or evangelist, just a reporter - I would argue that there is no “new” reason that people are seeking to convert - human nature has not changed since the days of Christ and the early Apostles, and the same hunger of the human heart for the Divine drives people to the Catholicism in modern times as it did when the Church was young.
In the New Testament, people are driven to repentance and conversion through the grace of the Holy Spirit and an encounter with Jesus Himself. Later, the Holy Spirit and Christ in the Eucharist remain, but it is the Apostles and disciples who go out to all corners of the world.
Most of the converts I spoke to for this story noted - maybe without realizing it - this dual encounter with the human and the divine. Many of them first learned of Catholicism at some point in their lives from another person - a friend, relative, staff at the Catholic School their children attend, etc. It’s notable that the Catholics they knew were not silent and passive about their faith, but proud of it and willing to evangelize. This initial contact was what first cracked open the door. Then, it is Christ who knocks (Rev. 3:20) and the Holy Spirit who pours out consolation and peace.
Humans are prideful, and the pleasures of the world are many, so it is all too easy to become complacent and to tell ourselves that we are happy - St. Thomas Aquinas noted that wealth, honor, fame, and glory are common subsitutes for God. But none of us, despite our best efforts, can escape illness, suffering, and death.
Many of those I spoke to described a major life event, such as the birth of a child, a divorce, or death of a loved one, that left them grappling with very real, eternal questions - why does any of this matter? Why do we have to suffer? What’s the point, if we all due and then experience oblivion?
They then recall the Catholics they know or once knew - how they were joyous, fulfilled, or virtuous. And I was surprised at how many of the converts described an almost immediate sense of overwhelming peace and consolation upon entering a Catholic Church for the first time, or attending Mass.
Really, as a lifelong Catholic - I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s very easy to take this great gift of the faith for granted, to daydream, to downplay our faith to others. But in speaking to these converts -and, I hope, in reading their stories - we can all be reminded of the incredible, beautiful reality that the Creator of the universe loves us, deeply and completely, and that whether we were born into the Faith or came into it in 2026, He awaits us and is present to us, ready to give our lives peace and meaning.