Did the Catholic Church in the United States experience a surge in adults entering the faith in 2026? Unfortunately, there will be no precise and official word from the church about what happened with new entrants this Easter for more than a year. But we have a glimpse of what we might eventually see from the most comprehensive research available, conducted by Stephen Spiewak, a director of marketing for the Hallow prayer app. According to Hallow, “The average American diocese is seeing 38 percent more people joining the church in 2026 compared to 2025.”

How did Hallow arrive at this conclusion? It conducted a survey of U.S. dioceses asking them about their numbers of candidates (people previously baptized in a non-Catholic Christian faith) and catechumens (unbaptized adults) in 2026 compared with 2025. It collected additional data from dioceses’ official publications and social media. In all, these efforts yielded data from 140 dioceses. Data from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) indicate these dioceses include 86 percent of Catholics in the country.

It is reasonable to assume some response bias may be present in the data. The dioceses with the most positive numbers, or with increasing numbers of converts, may have been more willing than others to respond to a survey or announce the data in their publications. But since the Hallow study accounts for 86 percent coverage of the Catholic population, we can see what will likely become the official story. We can also see that this story fits a trend.

The table below shows the trend in adult entries (baptisms plus receptions into full communion) from 2013 to 2024. Since 2020, the number of adult entries has increased each year. If we at CARA calculate a simple linear regression from 2000, predicting what will happen “if current trends continue,” we would expect that there were more than 91,000 adult entries in 2025 and that there will be nearly 96,500 this year. 

But could there be even more? Yes. The estimates from Hallow indicate this is the case, even accounting for missing data from some dioceses. It is also important to note that some dioceses may only have been reporting catechumens, some were rounding numbers, and some may have reported minor catechumens in combination with adults. Even with these issues, we can still see the general magnitude of an increase.

Because we do not have official numbers for 2025 yet, the official numbers on our chart end at 2024, and we used the prevailing trend to estimate the totals for 2025 and 2026. But if we apply the Hallow estimate of a 38 percent increase from 2025 to 2026, the number of entries for this year would be nearly 110,000 (or almost 14,000 more than the estimate based on the trend of the official data through 2024). 

We cannot be certain what has happened in the dioceses for which we don’t have data. If we assume they had numbers similar to what they had in 2024, the total number of entries could exceed 120,000. The last time the number of adult entrants was this high was in 2008. But in 2000, there were more than 172,000 adult entries into the church. So what may have seemed like a record-breaking year is more on par with the not-too-distant past. The more recent years of low numbers are really what was unusual.

It is also important to note that the Hallow data was collected before Easter. Some of those who were preparing may not have entered the faith. Some dioceses may not have information from all their parishes. This brings us back to the point when everything will become official.

The church’s statistics for adult entries into the faith are published annually by The Official Catholic Directory. The most recent Catholic Directory is for 2025 and includes entries into the church in 2024. Later this year we will get the Directory for 2026, representing the church as of January 1, 2026—before we know about the baptisms and receptions that occurred this Easter. So we won’t have an official number for adults who were baptized or received into full communion in 2026 until the 2027 Catholic Directory is published late next year. At that time, most people will be talking about the entries to the faith at Easter in 2027, and 2025 will seem like old news.

The pandemic represented a record low point in entries into the church for understandable reasons. But the Hallow estimates indicate a recovery to a position higher than what was being experienced in the pre-pandemic years of 2018 and 2019. 

One final piece of context is that people received into the church as adults represent less than 15 percent of those who become Catholic. Most do this in the more conventional way: They are born of Catholic parents. The good news for the church is that these numbers have also been on the rise since the pandemic. 

Mark M. Gray is a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate and director of CARA Catholic Polls.