PARIS — When Léa Guiragossian, a 22-year-old medical student from Bordeaux, arrived in Paris this weekend to catch a glimpse of Pope Leo XIV, she did so as one of the great hopes of Catholicism in the West — a legion of new converts.
While the Catholic Church is growing rapidly in Africa and some other parts of the developing world, it is facing mounting challenges in Europe, the United States and Latin America from secularism, abuse scandals and competition from Evangelical faiths.
But it is also witnessing at least one upward trend. As Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, visits France — the heart of secularized Europe — church data shows an increase in the number of converts in several Western countries, including the U.S., France, Spain, Belgium and Germany.
At an event in Paris on Saturday, Leo addressed new converts and the soon-to-be baptized, hearing their testimonies. He heralded the “paradox” of their rise in a fiercely secular, Western country.
“This phenomenon,” the pope said, “contradicts every defeatist attitude.” He called the trend a “marvel” and said the church must work to “respect their personal history” and offer them a “welcoming environment.” He said the greatest challenge was to “foster” the newcomers, to ensure they remain in the faith.
The convert growth is not nearly enough to offset the number of people leaving the faith, along with decades of sharp declines in infant baptism rates. Overall, converts are a tiny fraction of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Still, church officials are hailing the surge in conversions, with some of the most striking data coming from France and the U.S..
In France, adult baptisms jumped to 13,234 in 2026, up from 4,263 in 2019, the year before the pandemic. Teenage conversions jumped to 8,152 this year, up from 7,404 in 2025, according to the French bishops’ conference.
A recent study by the conference shows the new converts skew female and are overwhelmingly young: 82 percent under 40, with the single largest group between 18 and 25.
And despite widespread perceptions that many converts are politically conservative, French clerics say that is often not so.
“I don’t think I’m very conservative,” said Guiragossian, who converted this year after a traditional two-year period of religious study. “I like to think that religion loves everyone, accepts everyone and wants everyone accepted.”
Her parents were Protestants, she said. But when a Catholic friend invited her to a service, she was smitten by the “beautiful atmosphere” of a Catholic Mass lit by candlelight and designed specifically for youths. “I went every week after that,” she said.
Those who work with converts say they are often the children of less religious parents, come from working-class backgrounds, and are being drawn to the faith of their grandparents often through Catholic friends or family, but also social media.
They come searching for answers, trying to make sense of a world gripped by wars and political upheaval, or seeking comfort following the death of a loved one or other major life event.
In the U.S., recent-year data has yet to be published, and church-backed groups have been cautious, saying it is still too early to discern a trend. But after a plunge during the pandemic, convert numbers in the U.S. have steadily rebounded, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) — a research group affiliated with the Catholic Church.
The popular Catholic app Hallow, citing data from 140 of the nearly 200 U.S. dioceses, said in Marchthat the number of people participating in the church’s program for full entry into Catholicism in 2026 had increased 38 percent over 2025. That includes people baptized in other parts of Christianity, new Christians and baptized Catholics who haven’t completed Catholic sacraments.
Hallow also found, in research released in August, that participant numbers for the church program and Mass attendance are up at dozens of U.S. colleges and universities compared with the previous year.
The number of Catholic adults in the U.S. is growing at the same rate as Catholics in the overall population, almost exclusively because of immigration and new births. And the number of converts is still dwarfed by the number of people who have left the faith.
But experts say the converts are providing a spiritual jolt.
The Archdiocese of Chicago — Leo’s hometown — this year conducted what appears to be the deepest survey into why more Americans are becoming Catholic. It found that 34 percent of all converts were Gen Z, 35 percent were millennials, 20 percent were Gen X and 10 percent were baby boomers — indicating that U.S. converts skew younger, as in France.
Some previous drivers of conversion — such as marrying a Catholic, seem to be less of a factor.
Instead, the report, based on responses from 20 U.S. dioceses, concluded that many people are drawn by the idea of an ancient truth system as an anchor in a rocky, fast-changing world.
As in France, some U.S. converts are being triggered by major life crises.
Trinity Hsu, 29, a Taiwanese immigrant and Catholic convert living in Chicago, was raised in a Buddhist home. She attended Catholic kindergarten and middle school, but she said she considered herself agnostic when she moved to the U.S. four years ago.
An immigration attorney, she found herself in crisis after a relationship ended. Far from friends and family, she felt isolated and turned to the only church community she’d ever been part of — Catholicism.
Hsu felt deeply connected and comforted by the part of Mass when congregants turn to one another, shake hands and exchange a wish for peace. But as she continued to go, she became more curious about the details of Mass, started reading prominent Anglican theologian C.S. Lewis and wanted, she said, to “understand my faith in a more systematic and structured way.”
That’s when she joined a conversion class. At the same time, she started to feel more open to the world having a supernatural component — things happening that she felt could not be explained.
“There is an attraction to the sense of grounding the church offers in this time when people feel unstable,” said Tim Weiske, director of parish vitality and mission at the Archdiocese of Chicago. “We are calling these converts a ‘new kind of newcomer.’”
Their families may not be religious, Weiske said, so they are “approaching the church alone, without support and with less religious background.”
In the Chicago archdiocese, 2,430 adults joined the church for the first time in 2025, the highest number since 2013.
In 2026, the archdiocese experienced a 52 percent increase of those preparing to join the Catholic Church for the first time at Easter — 1,059 people compared with 696 in 2025.
The Chicago survey found 12 percent of all people going through the conversion program said the installation of the first U.S.-born pope “intrigued” them and contributed to their interest in becoming Catholic.
Experts say more data is needed to understand any possible effect caused by Leo because religious affiliation and behavior has been so chaotic in recent years.
“It’s a hypothetical that Pope Leo is part of what’s happening in the U.S. because it brings increased visibility,” said Mark Gray, a senior research associate at CARA at Georgetown University. “But as with Francis, Leo had to deal with the post-pandemic. I always caution people who say there is a Francis or Leo effect; it’s so hard to disentangle from other things.”
Weiske noted that this year’s converts began the process before Leo’s election.
Gray said that Gen Z in particular is exploring using old-fashioned, basic tech and “shunning alcohol” and, for these young people, joining a religious group is part of that pattern.
Hsu now attends Mass weekly and is grateful for the hardships that led her to her new faith.
“What I’ve been observing is that everyone comes for different reasons. My reason isn’t something pleasant,” she said. “I’m just grateful that God brought me this journey and took whatever things aren’t supposed to be mine; I call those ‘fake things.’ He put so many things I’m so grateful for.”
Boorstein reported from Washington.
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