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JD Vance and I have something in common. Like me, the US vice-president was raised in an evangelical church background and then felt the tug of Rome – something he delves into in his forthcoming book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith. We both converted to Catholicism in our mid-30s in 2019.
Our experiences are being echoed across the UK, where Catholic conversions are rising. More than 3,000 people entered the Church this Easter (traditionally new Catholics are “received” into the Church at the Easter vigil) and last year, The Catholic Herald reported that Catholics in the UK were set to exceed Anglicans for the first time since the Reformation, thanks to an influx of younger churchgoers.
A year since the election of the first US-born pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, Catholicism is on the rise in the US too. The New York Times gathered data from two dozen dioceses across the United States earlier this year (from large ones such as Los Angeles and Phoenix to small ones such as Gallup, New Mexico) with each reporting newcomers in surprising numbers.
Online too, the “Catholicmaxxing” trend, a Gen Z social media movement often described as “Catholicism, but jacked”, is also gaining attention. Featuring traditional Catholic spiritual disciplines – fasting and prayer, for instance – conveyed via TikTok reels, the attractive “theo bro” (young conservative men interested in theology) stars are determined to spread their message of Catholicism far and wide.
One such person is 22-year-old Anthony Gross, who has more than 150,000 followers and makes films titled: “The walk to Sunday night Mass”, “Come to Catholic church with me in Fort Lauderdale”, and “Everything I consumed while fasting for Lent”, in which he stands around topless documenting all the coffee, chewing gum and electrolyte drinks he’s put away post his pre-6am gym session.
While the theo bro movement may not be to everyone’s taste (The Washington Post describes a theo bro as an “extremely online religious man – usually a convert – who experiences the faith in either a rules-based or power-based understanding rather than a service and community-based understanding”), their profiles are certainly giving Catholicism increased visibility, particularly to Gen Z and younger millennials.
For me, the lure of “full-fat Christianity” (Catholicism) as opposed to the lighter doctrines of the Church of England was an attraction to a church that won’t lower its standards despite all the grumbling and petitioning to update.
But I haven’t always felt this way. My parents were one-time Anglicans turned evangelical Christians who were very passionate about their faith. Evangelicals – sometimes described as “low church” – place an emphasis on spreading the faith and these days, many have travelled quite a distance from formal church structures but my parents set a good example and took us to church every Sunday, actively involving us in church life.
I prayed for the mustard seed of faith from a young age and despite having my prayers answered around the age of 9, I never stopped praying to find more faith. My parents sent me to a convent school for two years when I was 11 and I remember observing the nuns’ quiet studiousness, which seemed very simple and holy at the same time. Later, when I attended an all-girls boarding school, I ran the Christian Union (CU). With lots of engaging speakers such as Charlie Mackesy, the artist and Christian convert, the CU went from being perceived as square to the place to be on a Friday night.
These sorts of events sustained my faith as a teenager and created a ready-made, safe and fun social life. It was never dull. At Focus, a holiday retreat in Suffolk run by Holy Trinity Brompton, who spearheaded the – now – world-renowned Alpha course, we had worship evenings, parties on the beach, 24/7 prayer and advice on relationships all on tap.
But since my teenage days, something bothered me about being an evangelical Christian. I loved all the talks, would make notes and try as hard as I could to concentrate on every sermon, but sometimes I would leave feeling rather flat.
In 1999, aged 19, I met Charlie, the man who, six years later, would go on to become my husband. At that time, Charlie was an Anglican but as the years passed and our children were born, we both felt we were gradually moving towards Catholicism. We came into full communion with the Catholic Church at the Easter vigil in 2019, and our four children became Catholics with us. Our son Benjamin, who was born three months later, is the family’s only “cradle Catholic” (the term given to someone born as a Catholic).
It wasn’t until I became a Catholic that I learnt that the sermon is not in fact the most important part of the service. The Eucharist, which has its own objective meaning, is the most important thing, not what so-and-so opines on the day.
This realisation felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was no longer plagued by self-doubt. I ceased to be worried if one of my children distracted me to the point that I couldn’t concentrate on the entire sermon – the important thing had been that I had attended and received Holy Communion – it’s so important that we as Catholics believe in transubstantiation whereby the bread becomes Christ’s body and the wine Christ’s blood. As our closest priest-friend, Father Michael Ward (author of Planet Narnia) says, “It is more about Christ’s eternal sacrifice to God, which is re-presented at every Mass.”
Whether or not we understood the entire homily was incidental.
While my journey back to what I consider the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church has been one of my life’s greatest joys, there are some aspects of evangelism that I miss, the music being one. I adore the evangelical enthusiasm evident in their worship music – for instance, the enlivening tunes belted out by Bethel Music and Hillsong.
And while we haven’t yet taken our children to the Pyrenean pilgrimage town of Lourdes, last summer we spent a week at an evangelical church camp near Hadleigh in Suffolk, similar to the ones I attended as a teenager. Spending days watching the children learn about the Bible coming to life and making lots of new friends were some of the happiest of their school holidays. Which just goes to show that, Catholic, Anglican or Evangelical, what binds us together as a Christian family is greater than what separates us.
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