A dear friend of mine sent me an article the other day bearing the news that the Church in France is set to baptise a record number of adults this Easter, over 10,000 people, representing a “historic high that marks the largest wave of conversions in at least two decades, according to the Bishops’ Conference of France”.
From the Washington Times article in question:
“The figure marks a 45% increase from last year and reflects a dramatic demographic shift: the largest share of converts are now young adults.
“The 18-to-25 age group, largely students and young professionals, now comprises 42% of adult catechumens, surpassing the 26-to-40 age bracket that historically dominated conversion figures. Dioceses also report a sharp rise in adolescent baptisms, with more than 7,400 teens between the ages of 11 and 17 preparing to receive the sacrament, a 33% increase over last year.
“Overall, adult baptisms in France have more than doubled since 2015 — from 3,900 to 10,391, a 160% increase over the past decade.”
Now, as a 29-year-old who spent many of his formative years growing up in the shadow of (and adhering to) the ‘New Atheists’ and their fedora-wearing followers, the shape of the shift taking place is absolutely baffling to me. It’s deeply personal too – if you’d asked me of my religious faith ten years ago, I’d have happily answered “None at all, I’m an atheist,” and then given you many reasons why you should be, too.
As I write, 10 years later, I sit at a desk surrounded by iconography and pondering when I’m going to make it to Confession ahead of the spiritually-charged weekend we have before us. That I made a 180-degree about-turn over the course of that decade should be fairly clear, and yet, it does little to enlighten me – or any of my fellow believers – as to the religious shape that Ireland or Europe are currently taking. There are too many factors at play.
But it’s worth noting that the very fact that there are so many factors at play is unusual. We no longer, and haven’t for some time, lived in peak-Christendom, despite the fact that we still enjoy many of its benefits. No, what we currently inhabit is what one Australian pastor, Mark Sayers, describes as a ‘grey zone’.
A grey zone is when one era is ending and another is forming, but the former has not yet passed away entirely and the latter has not yet entirely come into being. It is a place, a time, of immense transition and turmoil, above and beyond the amount of restlessness and change the world normally experiences.
Which is why we’re seeing headlines out of France such as the one noted above, which came in fairly rapid succession after reports that Catholics now outnumber Anglicans among Gen Z in the UK. What would old Henry VIII make of that little development?
Nothing good comes from triumphalism, though, especially Christian triumphalism, and there’s been much of it amongst my brothers and sisters in Christ online in response to that news. I’d rather sober-headed analysis, such as that offered by Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion at St Mary’s University in London, Stephen Bullivant.
In a May 2024 article, Professor Bullivant noted the “apparent paradox” that there are signs of recovery and new growth across parishes in Britain, despite there being no evidence of an ongoing fall in Mass attendance being reversed. Some of those “green shoots” include factors like booming Easter services, relatively large and growing numbers of adult converts, vibrant university chaplaincies, and religiously-engaged immigrant communities.
Each of those factors is also readily observable in Ireland, for those with eyes to see. University chaplaincies are doing great work providing much-needed community in an increasingly atomised age, while pews across Ireland are being filled by devout Catholics from Brazil, India, the Philippines and eastern Europe, particularly Poland.
What does it all add up to? Nothing can be said with any certainty, but it seems to me as someone active and engaged in these circles that there’s something to be said for then-Fr Ratzinger’s thesis that the Church of the future would be a smaller one, one that would have to “start afresh more or less from the beginning”. Despite this, it will be a “more spiritualized and simplified Church,” one of genuine faith rather than pretence.
If that sounds an overly religious answer to why we’re seeing headlines the likes of which are doing the rounds on social media, it’s all I’ve got for you, based on experience and keen interest in the Church’s welfare.
That religion isn’t going anywhere, as it once appeared to be to uneducated observers like myself, is clear. That smaller Church will be more dynamic, but it will be operating alongside people of other spiritualities and faiths – especially in the West, and especially in Europe. Islam, while present to the European consciousness for centuries now, has moved from the dusty periphery to the verdant heartland.
A viral post on X this week stated that 41 percent of children in Vienna’s elementary and middle schools are Muslim, adding that “within living memory, Vienna will become a Muslim city”. While the demographic growth of Muslims in Europe is clear, the quality of their religiosity is anything but, much like the rest of this muddled religious picture.
That said, another interesting trend on social media lately has been young Muslims living in Europe who return to the motherlands of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, disappointed to find creeping secular influence. What to take from that but that secular western society has provided religious ‘inoculation’ of a sort against secularism? The same kind that those Europeans putting themselves forward for adult baptisms are clearly receiving.
Atop all of that is the enduring presence of the individual, spiritual but not religious creeds, that became so prominent in secular societies over the past two decades and that I believe do give away the same human impulse possessing the traditional Catholics and Muslims.
Laugh as I may have at Katy Perry’s claim that her recent spaceflight put her in touch with the “strong, divine feminine,” that it spoke of the shared desire we all have for the spiritual, in all of our various ways and means, cannot be denied. I might debate the veracity of Ms Perry’s worldview, but it is what it is.
It’s a grey zone we’re currently living and moving in, and that’s especially the case when it comes to the religious shape of the future. May the best pray-ers win.