Notre Dame Sees Record Number of Converts Preparing to Join Catholic Church
The witness of ‘on fire’ Catholic peers and the campus’ faith-based ‘atmosphere’ are behind the 76-person-strong OCIA class
Before his freshman year at the University of Notre Dame, the only time Alex Huang had ever set foot in a church building was for a piano recital. Now, the first-year student from Minnesota is just months away from becoming Catholic.
Raised by parents who never considered practicing religion due to their upbringing in atheist China, Huang became curious about Catholicism while in high school and is now a part of Notre Dame’s Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA). He hopes to enter the Catholic Church at the upcoming Easter vigil, and he says that Notre Dame’s Catholic atmosphere is a big reason why he plans on taking the plunge.
“I went to a public high school, where nobody really talked about their religion,” he said. “But when I got to Notre Dame, people would mention their faith all the time, and that was super jarring — not in a negative way, but really interesting and new to me.”
He’s not the only one at the South Bend, Indiana, university who is discerning becoming Catholic. This year, Notre Dame’s OCIA program boasts a record number of participants. In total, 76 students are enrolled, including 42 catechumens, 12 candidates for full communion, and 22 Catholic candidates for confirmation.
The record year is part of a recent trend.
During the 2023 school year, 33 students were enrolled in the program, while in 2024 the number rose to 52. Growth this year has been particularly strong among catechumens, meaning those who have never been baptized, as this year’s group is nearly twice as large as last year’s.
Brett Perkins, assistant director for evangelization and religious education with Notre Dame’s Campus Ministry, is himself a convert to the Catholic faith. He sees the record surge in conversions as indicative of an even broader movement among young people who are turning to religion.
“I think the questions that people are wrestling with and the experiences of life remain the same, but perhaps there’s been a bit more of an awakening to start to pay attention to the longing in the human heart,” he said.
Peers ‘On Fire’ for Faith
According to Perkins, multiple factors are behind this turn toward deeper desires, from the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic to the impact of online evangelists like Bishop Robert Barron and Father Mike Schmitz.
But at a place like Notre Dame, one factor sticks out above the rest: the witness of faithful peers who are willing to invite non-Catholic students to come and see what their faith is all about.
“In the last couple years [at Notre Dame], I’ve just noticed folks are coming in really, really on fire,” Perkins said. “There’s a willingness to not just be on fire themselves, but also to invite others in.”
Perkins said this witness takes form in many ways, including Catholic students inviting their non-Catholic roommates to Mass in their dorm chapel.
“People start to have those moments of encounter and be like, ‘Wow, I want to learn more,’” he explained. “So a lot of times the aha moment happens before they actually come to me.”
Out of Notre Dame’s nearly 9,000 undergraduate students and more than 4,000 graduate and professional students, more than 80% identify as Catholic. And with chapels in every dorm and even many academic buildings, students can participate in a flourishing sacramental life. Each week, more than 158 Masses are celebrated on campus, and nearly 50 hours of Eucharistic adoration and 19 hours of confession are offered.
Faith also factors into academic life. All students are required to take two courses from the theology department, which boasts more than 800 students who have declared a theology major or minor.
But the thriving Catholic community — despite lingering questions about Notre Dame’s commitment to its Catholic mission — isn’t just a big part of getting non-Catholic students at Notre Dame interested in the faith. The witness of peers is also an integral part of OCIA. Students who are already Catholic can volunteer to sponsor a friend or relative or sign up to be paired with a participant they don’t yet know. Sponsors attend the weekly formation sessions with their catechumens or confirmandi and seek to learn alongside them, while providing a vibrant example for them of what it means to live out the Catholic faith in everyday life.
Clare Hettich, a freshman from Washington, D.C., volunteered to help with OCIA after sensing God calling her to be a sponsor.
“Being at Notre Dame … I’m surrounded by people who take their faith so seriously, and live it out so well, and that constantly makes me want to be like that,” she said. “And so being able to be in that position for someone else, I can really see the value of, simply because I’ve had people serve, even subconsciously, as mentors to me, whether it’s the friend who always invites me to 11 p.m. Rosary or the friend who says such beautiful prayers and makes me want to deepen my prayer life. So I really wanted to be that person for someone else.”
The 2025 Notre Dame OCIA class(Photo: Carmela Sadaya)
Lucas Santiago, a senior at Notre Dame who is a Catholic candidate for confirmation this year, was raised in an agnostic household after being baptized as an infant. But after coming to Notre Dame, he said, his “individually formed moral code felt incomplete for the first time” after seeing the faith of many of his close friends.
He said that witnessing the love and joy of Catholic young people and his exposure to Catholic social teaching left him “in awe” of the radical charity of the Catholic faith and inspired him to embrace it. Now, he continues to delight in the “jubilant spirit” that characterizes his peer community.
“It’s a beautiful thing that my peers and classmates at Notre Dame, people that might only know me in an academic or entirely informal context, have exemplified how another young person may walk with God,” said Santiago. “These counterparts at any other school might view me as a competitor, but at Notre Dame I am the recipient of endless love.”
A Grace-Filled Experience
Notre Dame students who are interested in becoming Catholic have two possibilities for their catechetical formation: the yearlong OCIA process for those who are not baptized and the semester-long “Short Course,” offered twice a year for those who are already baptized as Christians or Catholics, but are awaiting complete initiation into the sacraments of confirmation and the Eucharist.
While both catechetical processes aim to assist discernment of Catholicism, OCIA provides a longer and more comprehensive introduction to the life of discipleship, while the Short Course seeks to clarify and develop the Christian formation that baptized individuals have already received.
Members of OCIA who complete the program will be received into the Catholic Church at the 2026 Easter vigil on April 4, while Short Course participants receive their sacraments at different times at the end of each semester.
For students with no background in Christianity, Perkins explained that the program begins by exploring how the Catholic faith is the answer to their deepest longings.
“In OCIA, we start our first session by not necessarily digging right away into Scripture or into Church teaching, but, rather, we start with human experience … speaking to what exists at the heart of every person, that there is a longing for a relationship with God, and it’s an eternal longing and can only be filled by our eternal, infinite God.”
And for those like Santiago and Huang, it’s clear that God is at work through Notre Dame’s OCIA. According to Santiago, the joyful faith that fills the student body is what makes the program such a success.
“I’m blessed to walk alongside literally thousands of young disciples on my faith journey,” he said, “at least for a little while.”
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