Is the Catholic Church witnessing a revival right now? On one hand, the most recent data on the issue shows the exodus of Catholics has continued apace, with more than eight Catholics leaving the church for every new convert coming in, and “9 in 10 cradle Catholics leaving the church.” This coincides with the experience of most practicing Catholics who continue to see their local parishes diminish and never rebound after the Covid shutdowns.
On the other hand, a number of Catholic voices have reported an increase in conversions. Even Tucker Carlson mentioned to conservative Catholic podcaster Michael Knowles that many of his friends were converting to Catholicism.
Clearly, something is happening. An unlikely segment of the Catholic Church, the traditionalist conservative Catholics, is largely responding to the spiritual needs of today better than other Christian communities.
So does that mean the church is contracting or experiencing a renewal? According to a recent article from the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, Eric Sammons, it’s both: “The reality is that millions of cradle Catholics, particularly young Catholics, are leaving the Church. At the same time, an increasing number of non-Catholics, particularly young non-Catholics, are becoming Catholic.” For the time being, the number leaving will dwarf the number coming in, leading to smaller yet leaner and meaner parishes. Milquetoast cradle Catholics are being replaced by zealous converts and reverts (Catholics returning to the faith as adults).
This neatly aligns with the prediction of Pope Benedict that the Catholic Church would shrink yet also become more fervent in the process. In other words, Catholicism would not enjoy the authority and influence it used to have, but it would be more devout and vigorous.
However, another writer pseudonymously named Gildhelm has doubts about this and suggests that the narrative of a Catholic revival is mainly wish-casting from MAGA Christians: “[W]hen the right enjoys a level of cultural ascendancy (which it undeniably has in the Trump era), those individuals believe that Christianity has likewise enjoyed a level of cultural ascendancy, as the two in their mind are inseparable.” Thus, an assumption is made, shared, and memed into existence by right-wing Catholics online, even when all of it conflicts with reality offline.
In Gildhelm’s opinion, these Catholics are just trying to fake a Great Awakening until they make it a widespread social phenomenon. In their calculation, people will want to jump on the Catholic bandwagon since everyone else looks to be doing the same thing. Although these converts may find out later that many of these original accounts of mass conversion were fabricated, by that time, enough people will be swayed into the church so that it won’t matter. All’s well that ends well.
The claims of both Sammons and Gildhelm have merit, but their static framing of religion leaves out an important dimension to the question of whether Catholicism and Christianity are growing again and in what sense. Yes, in itself, Catholicism is a system of beliefs and practices, but it is also a collective response to the surrounding spiritual context.
Thus, what it means to truly be a Catholic depends just as much on time and place as well as the actual beliefs and actions that are maintained. Catholics in the days of the Roman Imperium were a persecuted minority who met together in people’s homes and worked through endless heresies to define their faith. This looked very different from Catholics in Medieval Christendom, who were the majority and resisted periodic Islamic invasions and synthesized classical philosophy with revelation. This again looked very different from Catholics in the modern era, responding to the evils of two world wars, totalitarian communism, and a global secular liberal order.
In the 21st century, Catholics do their best to continue to follow church teachings, but in the postmodern Internet Age. Today’s challenges range from an epidemic of loneliness to hyper-materialism to corporate and political propaganda to transhumanist ideologies. Insofar as the church effectively confronts these challenges and presents a more fulfilling and humanizing vision of life, it is likely experiencing some kind of revival.
Understanding this fundamental role of context in religion explains why the more conservative branches of Catholicism (and other Christian denominations, for that matter) are the ones that seem to be responding to today’s current issues — that is, the conservative churches. Most converts seek the community, common sense, stability, and truth that these churches provide.
By contrast, most of today’s cradle Catholics grew up in liberal boomer parishes that failed to provide these things. Warm and fuzzy as this was, this brand of worship effectively drained Catholicism of its content and integrity, leaving many believers uninspired and despondent. As this crowd now leaves in droves, the composition of the church continues to become ever more conservative and traditional. This, in turn, opens up the potential for a new kind of growth and appeal.
It’s this potential that makes many Catholics, including myself, so excited. Of all the problems plaguing the world today, Catholicism now offers a remedy for most of them. Done right, it can help to heal a world that is degenerating into a listless dystopia where nothing means anything, true love is impossible, and fear and despair prevail. Done wrong, it will only mirror the rest of the culture deteriorating into further irrelevance and mediocrity, much as it has since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s.
True, it may be premature to declare that a new golden age for Christianity is imminent, but a hope for one is certainly warranted. Human beings are more than mere political and economic creatures; we are also deeply spiritual. In many ways, the secular humanism of the post-Christian West is not sustainable and will either regress into neo-paganism, as writers like John Danial Davidson and Rod Dreher have explained, or they may recover the faith of their fathers as these same two writers strongly recommend as a far better alternative.
If Christians keep all this in mind, they might just win this battle. Of course, their success shouldn’t breed complacency, nor should doubts and setbacks lead to despair. Like any other time in history, we should all heed the command of St. Peter, who urged us to “be ready always to give an answer to every man who asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” And with the world being what it is now, we can expect that this question will come up much more often than it has in the recent past.
