National Catholic Register, by American college campuses are cloaked in the annual splendor of fall colors, and students are buckling down in a new semester. Amid the many diversions of campus life, Catholic chaplains say unexpectedly large numbers of students at universities across the country — including many secular institutions — are expressing interest in the Catholic faith.
It’s reached the point where many Newman Centers — named, of course, for the newest Doctor of the Church and patron saint of education, St. John Henry Newman — are almost overwhelmed by the response from young men and women on campus to their educational, recreational and sacramental offerings.
“We’re in a golden age of campus ministry right now,” Father Ryan Kaup, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Church and Newman Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), told the Register.
“We so often focus on the negative, but there’s a lot of hope” on college campuses, he continued.
Since the first one stateside was founded in Pennsylvania in 1893, an estimated 2,000 Newman Centers have been established in the United States.
UNL has long had a strong Newman Center culture, but recent years have been off the charts. Roughly 45 converts entered the Church through the Newman Center the first year Father Kaup was pastor; this past spring, 72 converts entered the Church at the Easter vigil. So far this semester, they already have 125 students interested in joining the Church, Father Kaup said.
One of those recent converts is Ashwin Mannur, a UNL senior studying economics and finance who joined the Church at the most recent Easter Vigil. For him, becoming Catholic has left him more fulfilled and happier than ever before, and he says he has witnessed faithful Catholic students on campus making huge positive changes in the lives of their peers, especially among his fellow guys.
“With young men, there are so many ways the world yells at you. But here [at Newman], you can go to the quiet chapel and be in Jesus’ presence, and it’s so calming,” Mannur told the Register. “I felt the most peace I’ve ever felt in my life the first time I sat in adoration.”
Other Newman Centers in college towns around the nation are seeing similar amounts of dramatic growth as UNL. Ryan Ayala, campus minister at Arizona State University’s Newman Center in Tempe, said Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) participation jumped from 18 students last year to 70 this year. In addition, ASU’s Catholic studies program — which offers students college credits through a partnership with North Dakota’s University of Mary — has surged from 30 students in 2022 to 101 in 2025, he said.
At another large state school, Texas A&M University in College Station, more than 400 students were signed up to attend OCIA class at St. Mary’s Catholic Center near campus at the beginning of this semester.
Desiring Clarity — and Truth
Father Lee Brokaw, chaplain at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center in Champaign, Illinois, told the Register that he has observed firsthand a generation genuinely searching for meaning and clarity — students who are curious, hungry, seeking.
This is demonstrated by the “staggering” number of students coming to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) Newman Center, including non-Catholic students attending Mass out of curiosity, Father Brokaw said.
After roughly 45 students joined the Church last year through the Newman Center at Illinois’ flagship, Father Brokaw said so far this year they’ve had more than 130 students express interest. Not all of those students will complete the whole OCIA journey, of course, but it’s entirely possible that more than 100 students will become Catholic this year in Champaign — the largest group in that Newman Center’s 100-year history.
“The students are the ones making the invites. And they’re making the invites wholeheartedly to their friends,” Father Brokaw said.
He noted that today’s high-achieving students — of which there are many on Illinois’ Big 10 campus — can solve complex problems and attain worldly success, “but they can’t open Heaven without Jesus.” They’re asking the bigger questions: “Why do I need a Savior? What did God make me for?”
“They’re desiring clarity on who Jesus is, why he came, clarity on who they are,” he continued.
‘We Portray the Church to the People in Our Lives’
The stories of several students who converted to Catholicism during their time belonging to a Newman Center have a lot in common — many cited the personal witness of Catholic friends as a primary motivating factor that drew them to the faith.
Aidan Brynjelsen, a sophomore at UIUC studying economics and philosophy, grew up in a nominally Christian household in suburban Chicago. After arriving on campus, he realized that he wanted to figure out his own path when it came to faith. He had joined a fraternity as a freshman and was invited to take part in a Bible study at the frat house led by an upperclassman named Logan. Through their friendship, Logan introduced Brynjelsen to the Newman Center community, and he started attending Mass.
“God took the wheel from there,” Brynjelsen said.
At first, it was easy to feel like an outsider — crossing his arms to receive a blessing at the altar instead of Communion, Brynjelsen admitted he felt a little out of place. But the encouragement and excitement of his newfound friends at the Newman Center provided steady support toward his ultimate decision to embrace Catholicism.
Though he had gathered a lot of knowledge about the faith through his friendships and Bible studies, Brynjelsen realized during his first week in OCIA that he still had a lot to learn. He said learning experiences during OCIA such as an “explanatory Mass” — where the priest pauses to explain each element of the liturgy as he is celebrating it — were invaluable as he grew in his appreciation and love for Catholicism.
It definitely “feels like a revival” of faithfulness among college students — especially his fellow young men — is underway, Brynjelsen commented. Regarding the Catholic faith, “there’s this masculinity to it” he said, “to be able to pray, and to humble yourself.”
Brynjelsen is now investing in the next “generation” of potential converts, leading his fraternity’s Bible study for the freshman — many of whom have never gone to church but are now attending frequently.
“Now that I’m on the other side, as a Catholic, it makes my heart so happy for them,” he said.
Libby Wilkins, a senior at UNL studying Agricultural Leadership, grew up in an active Evangelical Christian household in small-town Nebraska. Wilkins had a lot of friends growing up who were Catholic, but she said she didn’t really realize until getting to college how many misconceptions she had about the Catholic faith.
She joined a large Protestant congregation in Lincoln after arriving at college, but felt strongly that Jesus was calling her to something deeper. Her older brother had converted to Catholicism while at university, and Wilkins felt she owed it to him to give Catholicism a fair look. Once she started encountering peers who were practicing and living their faith intentionally, especially fellow women in the sorority she joined, Catholicism became increasingly attractive.
“These people are living life differently, and living in abundance. I want that,” Wilkins came to realize.
She started attending Mass and adoration her sophomore year and, at the invitation of her friends, went to SEEK, a major annual Catholic conference put on by FOCUS. It was after that experience at SEEK that Wilkins made the decision to take the plunge into OCIA, and was received into the Church just months later.
“My conversion likely would not have happened without [those friends] being bold and inviting me,” she said.
Now, as an upperclassman and a joyful Catholic, Wilkins said she has been able to bear that same witness to younger members of her sorority and other peers on campus, inviting them to the Newman Center and to the sacraments just as others did for her. She said she has found that college is a unique time of searching for many people, and that setting a positive example for others can prove to be life-changing.
“When people are willing to live differently, that really captivates people and makes them ask questions,” Wilkins said. “As Catholics, we portray the Church to the people in our lives…It’s a great responsibility.”
Mannur, a fellow Cornhusker, came into college interested in learning more about Christianity, and attended a non-denominational Christian church in Lincoln for a couple of years. Having joined a fraternity, he roomed his junior year with a Catholic and benefitted from many deep conversations with him about faith. Eventually, Mannur started attending OCIA classes at the Newman Center — originally just out of interest and without a firm commitment to convert.
Now, as a Catholic, Mannur says it was the witness of his friends that made the faith attractive and accessible to him. Echoing Wilkins, “I never would have found Christianity if I hadn’t had those guys’ [example] at first,” he said.
Like many of his fellow converts, Mannur is now involved in helping to bring newcomers into the community. He said he believes that interest in the Newman Center and in Catholicism is growing.For instance, he’s been leading a Bible study in his fraternity and estimates that at least eight of its participants have chosen to return to Confession, often after several years away.
“Seeing how many people have been through the doors [at the Newman Center] is amazing. We had probably 150-200 people at a Wednesday daily Mass…seeing all these people flooding in — wow,” he said.
‘Something Unifying and Beautiful That They Can Trust In’
Father Jake Anderson, chaplain at St. Lawrence Newman Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said he has personally observed this year “more of a spiritual hunger” among the students at the university than in any of the seven years he has served at the Newman Center — the center’s OCIA classes have roughly doubled in size in the past year, he said.
Other less quantifiable signs of renewal include a greater number of students coming to Mass early to pray, the priest said, as well as large numbers of non-Catholic students showing up to Mass to “check it out.” While taking care to clearly articulate to those non-Catholics what Holy Communion is, Father Anderson said he tries to take every opportunity to make it clear that anyone and everyone is welcome to join for Mass. Evangelization can be, in some ways, “easier” on a large secular campus than on a Catholic campus, Father Anderson observed, because the rich life that the Catholic community offers stands in such stark contrast to the worldly pursuits and distractions that are offered elsewhere on campus.
By and large, Catholic and non-Catholic students alike are looking for truth, “something that’s permanent,” in a world that is deeply divided politically and otherwise, Father Anderson said.
“People want something unifying and beautiful that they can trust in, epitomized in the Person of Jesus,” he told the Register.
Father Kaup agreed that this appears to be “an interesting cultural moment” wherein young people seem to be newly and genuinely interested in religion.
“We’ve hit a point where people are really searching and wanting to plant their feet somewhere,” he said. “There’s a greater interest in Christianity in general,” he added, saying he has heard the same from Protestant pastors in Lincoln.
Father Kaup urged Catholics in college towns to find a way to support their local Newman Center. If nothing else, these centers are forming the next generation of parishioners, he noted — young adults who will carry their faith into careers, families and parishes across the country.
Father Anderson shares this sentiment, urging Church leaders to pay more attention to Newman Centers as vital spaces for fostering conversions, vocations and a lifetime of ownership of one’s Catholic faith.
“This is where the fish are,” he observed.
Our Comment:
The Catholic moment in America has arrived.
Prophetic Link:
“While Catholicism is based on deception, it is not coarse and clumsy. The religious service of the Roman Church is a most impressive ceremony. Its gorgeous display and solemn rites fascinate the people and silence the voice of reason and conscience. It charms the eye. Magnificent churches, stately processions, golden altars, jeweled shrines, choice paintings, and superb sculpture appeal to the love of beauty. The music is of the finest quality. The rich notes of the deep-toned organ blend with the melody of many voices as the music swells through the soaring domes and pillared aisles of her grand cathedrals, impressing the mind with awe and reverence. … This outward splendor and ceremony mocks the longings of the sin-sick soul. The religion of Christ does not need attractions like this. The light that shines from the cross is so pure and lovely that no external decorations can add to its true worth… The pomp and ceremony of Catholic worship has a seductive, bewitching power that deceives many. They begin to see the Roman Church as the gate of heaven.” Love Under Fire, 231.1, 4
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