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Young people come to New York City to chase careers, materialism and pleasure. The pursuit of faith isn’t exactly on the Big Apple checklist.
However, at a recent, very crowded Sunday night mass at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village, Father Jonah Teller, OP made a simple announcement indicating that times are changing.
According to Teller, the number enrolled in the parish’s Order of Christian Initiation of Adults — the process in which adults convert to Catholicism — had tripled since last year, with roughly 130 people signing up.
There’s a similar story at St. Vincent Ferrer on the Upper East Side, where their OCIA numbers have doubled since last year, swelling to nearly 90 people.
At the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, they’ve also doubled their head count with about 100 people. Their Sunday 7pm mass has become overcrowded.
“We’re out of space and exploring adding more masses,” Father Daniel Ray told The Post.
In the Diocese of Brooklyn, they’ve also seen a surge. In 2024, they had 538 adults enter the church, nearly twice the amount of 2023. (All priests acknowledge some will drop off before the Easter Vigil, but they still expect numbers to remain high).
Since activist Charlie Kirk, an evangelical Protestant, was assassinated in September, there’s been reports that mass attendance is way up. And over the last year, Catholic churches across the country have cited more conversions among young people.
But such a large number of people seeking faith in uber secular New York City is remarkable.
“We’ve got a real booming thing happening here, and it’s not because of some marketing campaign,” said Ray.
However, in an unstable and fractured world, the promise of strength, love and community is a pretty good pitch.
“My generation is watching things fall apart,” Kiegan Lenihan, who is in OCIA at St. Joseph’s told The Post. “When things all seem to be going wrong in greater society, maybe organized religion isn’t that bad.”
Indeed, the crop of converts — most of whom have no experience with formal faith, cited a variety of cultural forces pushing them toward the church.
Some are looking for balance and meaning in a chaotic, polarized world where politics has become a stand in for real faith. In fact, a few cited Kirk’s murder. Many are high achievers unfulfilled by success.
“Materially, we have everything at our fingertips, and it’s not reaching our hearts,” said Teller, a charismatic teacher who is often cited by OCIA students as a draw.
Others have been profoundly changed by a personal loss, like Cindy Zhao. The healthcare worker decided to convert after her 42-year-old cousin tragically died after a short battle with cancer.
“My own personal life drove me to faith. It’s helped me to find clarity,” said Zhao.
And there’s Liz Flynn, who found the Lord in the gift shop of a North Carolina Cracker Barrel.
The 35-year-old Brooklyn carpenter, like many in her generation had suffered from anxiety and depression, seeking relief in self-help books, yoga and “pseudo spiritualism.”
“I thought I would struggle for the rest of my life,” said Flynn, who is in OCIA at Old St. Pat’s.
In July, Flynn was in a dark place while driving to Florida with her boyfriend. They stopped at the restaurant, where she picked up “15 Minutes Alone with God” by Emilie Barns in the gift shop. On the first page, she read a selection about God’s unconditional love for all his children.
Suddenly, she struggled to compose herself. “I didn’t want to make a scene in the Cracker Barrel,” she said with a laugh. But something shifted. Flynn started praying the rosary, which led her to a great appreciation for the Virgin Mary and to Catholicism.
“I’m happier and calmer than I’ve ever been. Prayer has made an enormous impact on my life,” said Flynn.
Lenihan described a similar peace since turning to Catholicism — a religion his grandparents abandoned thanks to years of scandal. The 28-year-old always had a “relentless curiosity about the world.” As a science-minded high school student, he dove into atheist free thinkers Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. But at Duke, where he was on the track team, he described a crisis that caused anxiety and panic attacks.
And thus a renewed search began that included retreats and reading Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius. The software engineer started his own business here, but in 2024, he had a breaking point.
“I realized on paper, I had everything I wanted but I had no fulfillment in my soul.” That’s when he formally decided to join the church.
Ben Cook is an entrepreneur who was similarly dissatisfied, despite growing then selling two companies.
“I’m a progressive kid from San Fran,” Cook, 32 told me. Raised by hippie parents, who had a “kind of falling out with the Christian faith,” Cook met two Catholics who were, “undeniably the healthiest, happiest and most well-adjusted friends I had in college. That was the beginning of me saying, maybe there’s something more to this package.”
He started reading and seeking out various avenues of Christianity. He envied those with faith. When his wife had complications delivering their daughter, he recalls her being wheeled out of the hospital room. He dropped to his knees to pray.
“I had this realization that everything that was important to me, was completely out of my control.” Thankfully, his wife and daughter are perfectly healthy, but it was a turning point for Cook.
Meanwhile his childhood best friend, Mark Carlson, a lapsed Catholic, was separately finding his way back to the church. They’re both in OCIA at St. Joseph’s, something Cook calls, “complete and utter serendipity.”
Carlson, 32 also had been raised in a very liberal environment that pushed him away from the Catholic church. But he started to grow disillusioned with society’s unhealthy movement toward woke doctrines that venerated cancel culture, an obsession with climate change, tolerance of crime and “a radical call to action.”
He also realized that Catholicism offered all the things people were seeking through therapy and social groups, like run clubs.
“What I hadn’t appreciated before is that these are good teachings. And they give us guardrails,” said Carlson, who works in finance.
It’s that structure and value system that attracted Ian Burns, as he graduated from the University of Michigan, where he played basketball.
“There’s a lot of turmoil right now, and I’m in transition, so I feel like I needed something to lean on,” said the 22-year-old East Village resident. Burns who was baptized in the Episcopal church and stopped attending services because hoops took up his time.
Why Catholicism? “It’s the original religion of Christianity, and I wanted to get to the root of it rather than branches.”
Burns hopes that his relationship with God will help him build a traditional, family oriented life. “I want to meet someone, who has similar values and have children.”
