Adult Baptisms in France: A Record That Raises Questions

It is a breath of fresh air in a charged current situation. This is the effect of the publication, by the French Bishops' Conference (CEF), on April 10, 2025, of the number of catechumens who are expected to receive the first sacraments of Christian life in a few days. Thus, during the Easter Vigil, on the night of April 19-20, 2025, no fewer than 10,384 adults will be baptized.

This number has doubled in just two years—from 5,423 in 2023 to 7,135 in 2024—thus testifying to a spiritual dynamic that tends to strengthen over the years. In addition to these adult baptisms, there are those of adolescents, aged 12 to 18, whose number is experiencing an equally spectacular growth: from 2,953 in 2023, to 7,404 in 2025.

In total, 17,788 people, adults and young people, will join the Catholic Church this year through the sacrament of baptism, on their own initiative or at least with their explicit consent for the youngest. This movement, far from trivial, raises many questions. An initial analysis of the figures provided by the CEF reveals a clear shift starting in 2023.

Between 2015 and 2022, the number of adult baptisms hovered around 4,000 per year. For many observers, the COVID-19 epidemic and successive lockdowns played a decisive role in the emergence of this new trend: testimonies converge to emphasize that this period favored a return to an interior life.

Some have thus been prompted to question their relationship with the spiritual life. Baptism trends seem to support this hypothesis: the significant increase observed in 2023 coincides with the end of the two-year period required for the preparation of catechumens who began their process in 2021, at the height of the pandemic.

For Olivier de Germay, Archbishop of Lyon and head of the catechumenate at the national level, this increase in baptisms is not a simple statistical blip. The prelate sees it as "a sign from Heaven," an invitation to recognize that "it is the Lord who draws people to Himself, touches hearts, and reveals Himself."

It is a spiritual sign that also points to some interesting sociological data: 52% of catechumens come from Christian backgrounds, and 4% from Islam. Among adolescents, this spiritual quest is expressed with a new spontaneity. Catherine Lemoine, national head of adolescent pastoral care, reports in Le Figaro that young people, familiar with social media, do not hesitate to display an uninhibited faith and wear religious symbols with confidence, without worrying about secularism.

Can this be seen as a boomerang effect of dechristianization in France, which is encouraging young adults in their quest for identity? Or is this trend due to the increasingly visible infiltration of political Islam into French society, which is pushing young people to rediscover their roots? These are questions that few media outlets dare to ask.

Yet the increase in adult and adolescent baptisms should not be the trees that hides the forest, because another factor sheds light on the current trend: the dramatic decline in infant baptisms. According to statistics provided by the CEF (French Christian Federation for the Evangelical Movement), while in 2000, 380,093 children were baptized, their number fell to 178,388 in 2022. It is a decline that the current increase does not repair; far from it.

There's no need to recall here the repeated opinion polls that highlight the slow decline of Sunday practice: between 2 and 4% of French people attended Mass every Sunday in 2023, and among these, nearly 33% were over 75 years old, while 18-24 year-olds represented 7.2% of weekly Mass-goers.

Alongside the erosion of religious practice, it's impossible not to see the anthropological shift that has taken place. As demographer Jérôme Fourquet explains, in 1974, 48% of French people were in favor of abortion, compared to 77% in 2022. In 1986, 54% of French people saw homosexuality as "just another way of experiencing one's sexuality," compared to 87% today. As for cremation, it has increased from 0.9% of burials in 1980 to 43% in 2023.

The breakdown of Catholic life in France has led to a form of "ex-culturation" of Catholicism at all levels of society, to borrow an expression from sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger, who describes the Church's current inability to nourish the social and cultural fabric of a society in decline.

In any case, may the baptized adults of Easter 2025—who are assured of our prayers—take up the torch of the Faith that their parents failed to pass on to them, in order to show how relevant are the answers that a Catholicism faithful to its traditions can provide to a France bereft of its religious heritage.