Welcoming New Catholics

From the National Catholic Register, this is Register Radio, bringing light and clarity

to the news and topics that affect your life.

As Easter approaches, the church prepares to welcome many, many new members.

In fact, this year, diocese across the United States are reporting record numbers of

catacumans.

Register staff writer Matt McDonnell joins us to talk about this remarkable spike.

And then, we're joined by Register staff writer Jonah McDonnell with an update on all

things AI.

Hello.

I'm Matthew Bunsen, Vice President and Editorial Director of U.T.N. News and Host of

Register Radio.

Joined as always by my co-host, Shannon Mullin, Editor in Chief of the National Catholic

Register.

Hello, Shannon.

Good to be with you, Matthew.

So many US dioceses are expecting heavy increases in people joining the Catholic Church

at Easter, 2026, including some with reported record highs.

Register has been exploring this rather notable trend.

Many US dioceses are expecting heavy increases in people joining the church at Easter.

And what's happening?

What is the cause of this?

And how enduring might this trend actually prove to be?

We're joined by Matt McDonnell, Register staff writer and frequent guest on this show, including

just a couple of weeks ago, Matt, when we talked about the resurgence of faith, apparently

in South Boston.

So welcome back to Register Radio.

Thanks, Matt.

So let's start with some of the numbers.

What exactly have we been seeing at the register?

So I contacted every diocese in the country and I got a response rate of roughly 40 percent.

So these are not national numbers, those don't exist.

What we're seeing is a large number of dioceses that have increases and some of them are huge.

The sample size is 71 of those five reported decreases and the decreases we're talking

about are converts generally.

So catacumans, which are undaptized people, becoming baptized with Catholics at Easter

vigil, and then candidates who have already been baptized to their Christians, they've

been received into the church.

And the 66 of the 71 dioceses that have got the numbers for are so far have seen increases.

Some of them as many as as much as double.

So for instance, no rich can etiquette, which is a small diocese, 112 percent, pub low

Colorado, which is a small diocese, 105 percent.

But then you have a very large, archdiocese of Philadelphia at 60 percent, and the archdiocese

of Los Angeles is about 54 percent.

Yeah, that's amazing, Matt.

And let's talk about the data for a minute.

So essentially you had to create your own database.

Why is that?

He's never just surprised and we hired to get a hold of.

At this point, it wouldn't be surprising that they had to get a hold of because these

receptions into the church haven't actually taken place yet.

They're not taking place at Easter vigil.

But the numbers don't become finalized and made diocese until much later in the year.

And then they're eventually reported to a central source, but that central source doesn't

offer immediate totals.

So numbers in the church, not only do you get.

And now let's put a little context to this because we know that as you report, most

dioceses hit their lowest numbers in recent times in 2021, the year after the coronavirus

shutdowns.

And we obviously saw sharp declines in all kinds of different ways in terms of what the

church is dealing with.

But then we're also seeing sort of across the board a decline overall in religious affiliation.

But these numbers are still pretty significant, aren't they?

They are.

So another important caveat.

We're not suggesting that the Catholic Church in America is growing, a survey suggests

that lots of people are leaving the Catholic Church and more people are leaving that are

coming in.

But there's a lot of activity.

The image in my mind is India and Pakistan after World War II when they separated.

And you had lots of Muslims leaving India for the new Pakistan, lots of Hindus leaving

Pakistan for the new India, not the new India, the old India.

And so we've got these sorts of movement in the church.

Lots of people leaving, but also lots of people coming in.

There's something going on as some of the people I talked to you have said.

Yeah, Matt.

I think one of the surprises for me is that we know and you've written about some of these

hot spots around the country, particularly in the southeast and southwest where the churches

are growing.

There's been a migration of people from the rust belt, from the northeast, and that's

very interesting and very dynamic.

But again, this is just a one year snapshot, but we're looking at a lot of your dices that

have the biggest increases are in the north and northeast and rust belt areas.

So can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, big increases in the England, for instance, which is considered by according to surveys

the most secular part of the country.

So Providence, Rhode Island, that's the Providence, which is the entire state of Rhode Island,

76%.

The Dice of the Fall River mass trudence, which is just next to the Dice of Providence,

71%, and Norwich, Connecticut, which is South East and Connecticut, 112%, the Dice

of the Manchester, New Hampshire, is up over 30%.

That's some sort of, say, the most secular state in the country.

If you look at New York State and Pennsylvania, also some large increases, Harrisburg, 77%,

for instance, Altrina Johnstown, 84%, there's growth in numbers of converts coming into

the church, even spectacular growth in places where the church seems to be declining.

Let's start asking that obvious question.

Why is that happening?

Everybody involved in this business would say the Holy Spirit, God is doing something.

Good place to start.

Good place to start.

More than one person said that's a good place to finish.

That is the answer.

In human terms, how to explain this?

Well, a number of people said that they see particularly young people, and by young people

we mean people of 20s and early 30s, looking around at a world in society seemingly falling

apart, and looking for something that they can rely on, and the Catholic church for many

seems to be that thing.

Another thing that's going on is in some places, at least, they've been doing

the last several years, more types of outreach to try to get people interested in the Catholic church

that have been going on in the past.

So I have to give you one example, and this is not something I get into in this story, although it will be a future story.

One parish in Rhode Island, rather than just plot along with one or two or three converts

coming to the church every year, instituted a program, a four-week program, where people were asked

in the puse to come up with people who they thought either should come back to the church or might be interested in becoming a Catholic,

and then the congregation prayed to these people for a week during Mass, and then eventually at the end of it,

these people were contacted specifically and invited to come into what was unknown at the right of Christian initiation

for adults program, and from the numbers of two or three a year, it zoomed up to 25 or 30.

Those sorts of programs are bearing fruit in some places.

Yeah, I mean, the numbers, as you and I have talked about, they beg all sorts of questions,

and I think I gave the example of the donut shop that suddenly becomes really hot,

maybe through some social media post, and the good news is there's a line outside the door,

and the bad news is there's a line outside the door, and they really don't know how to handle it,

so what are some of the questions that you have as we dig into some of these numbers and increases

about how the church is managing this?

So first small detail, where do you put all the people when you have various energies,

like this is right of election, which is something that takes place in early lengths in most cases,

and the idea is to welcome and formalize converts coming into the church.

In my own cathedral, that's as I live in, it was almost full this year,

which is something I've never seen before, and other places have reported having to have multiple rights of election,

or multiple other liturgies to welcome converts into the faith.

That's a, I guess, small, practical problem.

A larger problem that people talk about is, how do you make sure they stay in the church?

And that's something that's gotten a lot of discussion over recent years,

because some of the people who have shown up at Easter Vigil have been very into it,

all of a sudden disappear and stop going to church.

It can't just be that you welcome the into the church and say, now, good luck and hope you come back.

But rather, it has to be something where you're kind of walking with these people

and inviting them specifically to events and try to go on their spiritual journey with them,

even after they formally become Catholics.

Yeah, we're going to be talking with Jonah McHughan about the Gen Z factor in all of this.

But what does our reporting indicate in terms of like the age spectrum of people who are coming in?

Across the country, people I talk to said that this increase has been driven by young adults,

and that's surprising, because in the rate of Christianization of adults process,

it's typically been middle-aged people and then some older people.

And obviously, everybody is welcome.

But the idea of young adults driving the increase is new.

And it's something that's been noticeable to the people who administer these programs,

it's been surprising to them.

And it's something that seems to be happening in lots of different places,

as you alluded to Matthew,

I did a story recently on a young adults group in South Boston,

which is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts,

where they're getting more than 200 on a Wednesday night young adults

to come to a young adult Catholic group.

That sort of thing seems to be happening in other places too.

Yeah, Matt, as we speak, we're putting together our April 5th print issue,

which has your story, something's happening on the cover.

There's a great photo, I think it's from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia,

but it shows a shot of the right of election,

and it's a fascinating photo because everything you just mentioned is kind of captured there.

I do see some young faces, yes.

I also see some middle-aged folks.

I also see a gentleman in the front row who is wearing clerics,

begging the question, there's a story there somewhere.

It's going to be fascinating to dig into what's really happening,

and it's going to vary by region, I'm sure.

We're varied by region,

and yet one of the interesting things about the data is how much of the country is included.

If you look at just about any region of the country,

there are at least certain dioceses that have large increases.

Again, I'm not saying that it's every diocese,

and not even saying that a large increase this year is the end of the story.

Some dioceses said, hey, we had a large increase last year,

and now we've maintained it or almost maintained that number.

Really, a one-year thing is not the whole story, it's more like a trend.

The interesting thing about the trends is a place like the ashes of Newark,

where a priest told me that in 2025, last year,

they exceeded all recent records, recent records going back a number of years,

and then in 2026, they exceeded that record by a lot.

It's not always the eye-popping number year over year,

sometimes it's the number from several years ago that you really pay attention to.

Well, Matt, thanks for your reporting on this.

I know this is something we're going to be tracking now for quite some time,

but we can say one thing with absolute certainty,

that every new person joining the church is loved and welcomed,

and we are so happy that you're here.

Hello.

Well, you're listening to Register Radio and EW-10 Radio.

Next up, we talk as promised with staff writer Jonah McHughan.

Stay tuned here on EW-10 Radio.

Let's return to Register Radio on EW-TN.

And welcome back. I'm Matthew Bunsen here,

as always, with Shannon Mullen, editor-in-chief of the National Catholic Register.

Welcome back, Jonah. It is always a pleasure to have you,

and we've had you the opportunity to talk to you a few times in the last few weeks in studio,

so it's great to have you here.

It's great to be here, Matthew.

So the topic, and you've been doing a lot of reporting on this for us,

is AI, artificial intelligence.

One of the questions that I'm asked a lot,

and I don't consider myself competent to answer in a comprehensive way,

is everyone is afraid of AI that is going to be taking away everyone's jobs or replacing them.

How exactly does that work?

Right. It's difficult to answer in a way,

because obviously every job, every profession,

is going to be affected in a different manner.

And as I'm answering this, I'm remembering a recent interview I had

with a gentleman called Taylor Black,

who works at a high level of AI at Microsoft.

And he's very interested in this question of how AI is going to affect the workplace,

and affect basically the nature of work and how we think about work and leisure.

And I was asking him about this very topic,

and he was saying that AI is ideally,

as long as the people using it have enough formation to not let it kind of take away

their cognitive ability and just in his words make us all dumber.

It could be very helpful for a lot of professions.

An example he gave was he has a handyman who uses AI for all of his kind of back office stuff,

like his billing and taking phone calls,

something that someone might need a human secretary for this handyman is able to use AI for that.

And then also he has all of his instruction manuals on AI.

So that's just one small example.

And I wouldn't have necessarily thought of a handyman as being someone who could benefit from AI.

But there's certainly, I think, assuming we can find a way as a society to make these benefits kind of equitable

and not only confined to the top,

I think there are going to be a lot of benefits to the workplace from AI.

Now there's definitely going to be some downsides as well.

People are going to have to be adaptable in the face of AI doing some of these jobs

that previously only humans could do.

So yeah, the answer is that it's going to be very different for many different professions.

But hopefully if we can do it, do this right as a society, it will be helpful to people.

Yeah, our church has had a lot to say about AI.

And one question is, is anybody listening?

Or at least the people who are really the architects of this technology, you know, are they listening?

But before we get into that question,

what are the sort of major themes that the church and the popes in their various documents have laid out as far as their interest in AI?

Yeah, there's definitely some very common themes in a lot of the statements and the pledges and things that have come out of the Vatican.

Kind of the first one to mention is actually back in 2020, there was a document called the Rome call for AI ethics,

which is basically a brief pledge that several major companies, including Microsoft, have signed on to basically just calling for accountability, impartiality, security privacy,

just some important values that should be inherent to AI.

But later on, for example, in the January 2025 document and Tiguette at NOVA, the Vatican has really very much laid out the church's vision of what humans are and how we think and the importance of viewing AI as a product of human intelligence.

A useful tool, perhaps, but obviously not anything approaching something with the dignity and worth that we have as humans.

And that's really a very common theme throughout Pope Leo's speeches.

He hasn't necessarily discouraged the use of AI entirely.

He's mentioned that it is going to cause a lot of change, including in the workspaces as we talked about.

But it's always oriented, the Vatican's message on AI is always oriented toward human flourishing.

And how can AI help us in creating an environment here on Earth where people can freely seek God and freely practice their faith?

And so that's definitely been a common theme throughout.

The many, many messages that the Vatican has put out so far on AI.

There's an interesting connection that sometimes made, and I know even Pope Leo has talked about a little bit.

And that is the relationship or potential relationship between something like AI and transhumanism, the idea of trying to perfect the human person using these artificial means.

Can you talk about that?

So, transhumanism is a term that people may or may not be familiar with.

Basically, it's kind of the quest to improve humanity or help us escape from these bodies of ours.

And obviously that is not compatible with Catholic anthropology.

As Catholics, we believe that we are embodied souls.

So our bodies are an integral part of who we are.

And so, again, that's kind of a big theme of the Vatican's messages is that, you know, us as embodied souls with intellects, that's just such a unique part of what makes us human.

That is what it means to be human.

And so, you know, the idea that kind of a computerized mind could ever replace us or be kind of unequal footing with us is kind of, I guess, absurd in the face of that.

And then to the second part of that are the architects of AI receptive at all to these principles?

Well, several of them are. And, you know, a couple of the big name architects of AI have at least, you know, visited the Vatican attended these conferences.

Whether they're really listening closely is another question.

But one such company to highlight is a company that we've spoken about here on the radio before andthropic.

There's certainly reasons to be critical of anthropic for other reasons.

But one very good and interesting thing about the company to their credit is that they have actually of their own volition sought out Catholic ethicists and thinkers to look over their constitution, which is literally just a big document.

Laying out, this is what our AI model is. This is what it with these are the lines that will not cross. These are the things that will not do.

These are the things that we want it to do. And a lot of the ethical principles, although they're not, you know, necessarily based on a Catholic worldview of anthropics, AI, you know, have been reviewed by Catholic ethic ethicists.

And, yeah, in answer to your question, some of the AI builders are listening, but there's definitely more work to do.

So everyone is afraid of AI, it seems, many, many people at least. What are the genuine fears on the part of the church about AI?

So I would say the biggest kind of overarching fear, I guess you could say that the church has is handing over what is uniquely human about us to AI.

So kind of outsourcing our intellect to it, not thinking for ourselves, I guess, is one of the biggest things.

But then, of course, there are other very important considerations too. I mean, the formation of young people and making sure that, you know, young people are able to form their own minds in this world without, you know, just, again, AI thinking for them.

Well, Pope Leo's actually talked about the worries about cognitive development, right, and young people.

Right. Yeah, he, I believe he spoke about that at the live address last year at NCYC.

Yeah, I think it's interesting, going forward as you report this, is other than the church and what it's offered, there aren't bodies really with that moral authority to lay out some basic principles.

So it seems like, you know, we really need the church to weigh in on these topics as complex as they are and provide some basic guidance.

And it's just a classic case that if only somebody were talking years from now, if only somebody had listened to the church, we wouldn't be in this problem.

Absolutely. I think that's totally true. And, and it's difficult to because AI development is, is so tied up with, you know, geopolitical interests and, you know, the US is, is racing to develop things and China is racing to develop things.

And we really need that voice of authority from Pope Leo because, you know, the Vatican doesn't have a stake in that. He's concerned with the salvation of our souls.

And so, yeah, I think it's definitely an important voice to have.

So the last question is, if you're a Catholic and you want to find a reliable AI engine or platform, what is your recommendation at this point for something that you can use safely and ethically?

That's a really good question. I do use a couple of AI tools. I use Google's Gemini is pretty good. Yeah, I don't want to necessarily give like a wholesale recommendation or anything.

Again, I, I think it's just important for people to recognize a couple of things. One is that every AI product is going to have limitations. And it's, it's just important to, you know, not, not fall into the trap of thinking, oh, well, this is, this is my friend.

This is a, you know, this is someone, someone who helps me. It's, it's a tool that can help you, but it's, it's not, yeah, it's, it's not someone on the level that we are. And that's okay.

And don't just assume that everything AI tells you or gives you is accurate.

Oh, absolutely not. Yeah, in terms of, even just in terms of accuracy, there's still a lot for them to do, but they, they have plenty of money to, to try and improve the models.

Well, Jonah, as always, thank you for your reporting. And I know I'm a fan of your work, especially in this area. And I know a lot of our readers are here.

Thank you. Well, it's, it's great to be here again. God bless. Thank you.

That's it for Registered Radio for this week. Remember for more news, analysis, and commentary, check out the National Catholic Register online at ncregister.com.

Thanks for joining us here on Registered Radio. Until next week, on behalf of our producer, Michael McCall and Shannon Mullin, I'm Matthew Bunsen.

Please take care and God bless.