French academic: ‘Number of adult baptisms has tripled since 2022′

By Deborah Castellano Lubov – Paris

Alexandra Maclennan is a French academic of English and South African descent, a practicing Catholic of the Diocese of Bayeux-Lisieux, and the author of a biography of Cardinal Owen McCann, South Africa’s first Cardinal. 

As Pope Leo XIV begins his Apostolic Journey to France, Dr. Maclennan sees signs of something new taking place in the French Church.

The number of adults being baptized has risen sharply in recent years: according to figures from the French Bishops’ Conference, 13,234 adults are expected to be baptized in 2026, compared with 4,278 in 2022. 

She believes this growth, together with increasing numbers of young people seeking baptism, points to a spiritual desire that cannot simply be explained as a post-pandemic phenomenon.

At the same time, she points to the pressures facing the Church: fewer priests, parish mergers, overstretched clergy and the need to find new ways of sustaining Catholic life.

The University of Caen Normandy Professor also reflects on Pope Leo’s popularity in France beyond the Catholic community, the emergence of a new generation of Gen Z Catholics, as well as the enduring devotion of French Catholics to the saints.

She also acknowledges the challenges posed by secularization and recent debates over end-of-life legislation, expressing her hope that the Pope’s visit will encourage new vocations and help the Church in France find “new creative inspiration” for a future of unity and healing.

She spoke to Vatican News about Pope Leo’s visit to France and what it means to the nation’s faithful.

Q: Dr. Maclennan, what is your sentiment, or rather that of your country, to have Pope Leo visiting France?

The visit of Pope Leo is welcomed with a special expectation, especially after Pope Francis did stop in Corsica, Marseille and Strasbourg, but didn’t go for the reopening of Notre-Dame.

Pope Leo is as popular in France as he is in the rest of the world and uniquely beyond the Catholic sphere in mainstream public opinion. Even in this very secular country, people fell in love with his smile. As soon as he came out onto the balcony of Saint Peter’s Square. We all saw the way he teared up receiving the ring and the way he radiates deep peace, I think, inspires the whole country.

Advertisement

We know that Pope Leo has a deep interest in France, and he seizes every opportunity to deliver a message to the Church in France. We remember that a few weeks after his election, Pope Leo wrote a letter to French Catholics on the centenary of the canonization of three French saints.

French people are filled with expectation. The numbers registered to come to Paris show the extent of the real spiritual desire to see their leader in person. We love that Pope Leo, shortly after he was elected, said that he was inspired by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, this Parisian Carmelite whose The Practice of the Presence of God became a publishing sensation overnight as soon as he was mentioned by the Pope in an interview on the plane. And we in Normandy, we feel especially close to him, as he has said, to have Norman ancestry.

Q: What could you tell us about the Catholics in France for someone who may not be very well informed?

Something is happening at the moment, and it’s very exciting. For those who thought that it was curtains on the Catholic Church, it’s not the case at all. Because the number of adult baptisms has more than tripled since 2022.

So we can’t say that it is just catching up after Covid. It’s something else and something new because it has been rising exponentially since that phenomenon, and that took everybody by surprise. And where we had one occasional adult baptism on the Easter Vigil, we now have 25.

It’s a tangible expression of a nationwide spiritual desire. But in my diocese, and no doubt in others too, the priests of working age and sound health are at the moment overstretched to meet that demand, and the parish mergers have not helped, placing huge parishes in the hands of diminishing numbers of devoted but overworked pastors.

More committees have been created, more meetings, and the decision-making process has been complicated. The seminaries are starting to fill up again. So we need to think twice about closing down. And we need to be creative in our thinking as to how we enable the life of the faith to continue to flow in other ways than around the altar. But French Catholics are used to living their lives around the altar. They hold the Church to high standards.

Q: How so?

The French like a beautiful liturgy and like a good, solid homily. We are also carried by our religious communities, either in monasteries around us or on video online. The monasteries offer us stability and observe that to be the case especially when our parish life is in flux.

But I really firmly believe that a new generation of Gen Z Catholics is being called and will come and reopen the churches. What’s interesting is that they are starting from scratch and they are discovering things for themselves.

They are not encumbered by cultural or political baggage that conditioned the life of the Church in the past, and their parents and grandparents’ generation. I believe that after Pope Leo’s visit, not only new babies will be called Leo, as was the case during previous visits of Popes, but also that new vocations will be born.

Q: What would you say are challenges for the faithful amid secularization in the country?

There are several challenges at the moment that are exercising our minds. So I mentioned the parish mergers, but there’s also the new end-of-life legislation that was passed in July.

Catholics had prayed and mobilized to sensitize their representatives and their senators. But the legislation was passed. However, as Cardinal Aveline, the president of the French Bishops’ Conference, said on TV recently, the spiritual benefit of the Pope’s visit will vastly outweigh the anxieties of political life.

Even though this legislative development is a wound, he says he talked about a thorn in the side, one might say, of Catholics who believe that life is sacred. So we understand that Pope Leo has recognized that we need comfort and reassurance in those contexts in France and that that was the reason of his coming this year.

Advertisement

Q: On the other hand, could you shed light on the strong faith and vibrancy of Catholics in the country? You had spoken about this earlier, but if there’s anything else that you would like to add.

The faithful are carried by the new popularity of Pope Leo that goes beyond Catholic believers. The calmly powerful and clear way in which he has addressed world leaders has won the admiration of society as a whole. I believe that in this general atmosphere being Catholic carries a whole new set of meanings, associations and images, and it is tremendously uplifting.

There is a lot of attention and energy at the moment directed to the younger generation, the students and the young adults who are coming forward to receive baptism and how we can welcome them into the Church properly. How can we create a space where they will feel at home and valued for what they are and what they can bring? I think this is a question we need to ask.

Beyond that age bracket, we all, however, need to be nurtured in our spiritual life. You know, even though the life of the Church is very much directed towards the younger generations today, we all need to be nurtured in our spiritual life and to sustain our faith in a more meaningful way, perhaps in a context where we have fewer priests.

The synodal pathway, which has seen parish mergers, is, as I said, a new call to conversion, to a deeper level of faith, to a deeper understanding of what the Church is. And that is the challenge, but it’s also a call to a new level. So it’s an indication of the vibrancy of the Church that it’s trying to find ways to address those challenges. And it is very committed to doing that.

Q: There are so many incredible French saints. Often times people think of Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, Saint Joan of Arc and so many others. Would you say their legend lives on with the faithful in France? And is there still a strong devotion for them?

Most definitely, because people in France continue to pray to the saints when they are in trouble. You have the rosary groups that are organized by the grannies who have kept the Church going since biblical times. And more recently, people have turned to Eucharistic adoration. But people continue to pray to the saints.

There are some special devotions to the saints on various occasions and in various places in my diocese in Normandy. Of course, we are close to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, but the French have a great devotion to other great saints who have shown us how to live in the knowledge that God is with us in our daily lives. I think of Saint Francis de Sales.

We also have a fondness for Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and his homily, Saint Martin of Tours, Saint Norbert for the extraordinary miracles they performed and their care for the poor, along with Saint Vincent de Paul. Of course, St. Jean-Marie Vianney.

It’s hard to do a short list, but to this day, I believe that the French pray to the saints with great devotion and affection and are aware in a new way of the rich spiritual legacy that these saints have left in our country.

Q: Have you been to Lourdes and what was the experience for you? Do you have any memories in particular?

Yes, I have been to Lourdes. It struck me as a place where the universal Church can be experienced in a quite unique way, a place of universal devotion to the Virgin Mary and a place of healing, and to witness that leaves a deep mark in one’s soul.

Q: Is there anything else that you would like to add?

The Catholic Church in France at the moment, I believe, is at a watershed. Something new is happening. It has felt like a vessel that has been rocked in the storm and my hope is that it finds new creative inspiration with the visit of Pope Leo for a future of unity and healing at all levels, lay and also clerical, as it addresses the challenges of the parish mergers and the synodal pathway.