Statewide Iowa (RI) — The Catholic Church is reporting a significant influx in new members, and people returning to the fold, both in Iowa and nationwide.
The Diocese of Des Moines reports a 51-percent increase in conversions just in the past year. New converts are officially welcomed during Easter Vigil Mass, the night before Easter Sunday.
University of Iowa religious studies professor Kristy Nabhan-Warren predicts Iowa churches will see record numbers this weekend.
It’s been ten months since the election of Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, which may account for part of the surge in conversions, but Nabhan-Warren suspects there are many more layers to the shift.
She says the Catholic Church offers that needed sense of community as well as a reprieve from a world that’s saturated by artificial intelligence.
While the professor says she ordinarily wouldn’t make a prediction about church attendance, she says it’s a fairly safe bet that the pews will be more full for Good Friday and beyond.
A 2020 survey from the Association of Religion Data Archives reported more than 470,000 Catholics in Iowa, though she says the count is certainly many thousands higher now.
KIWA Staff Photo
