Despite reports that France is going through what is described as a period of ‘de-Christianization’, a remarkable thing took place in Catholic Churches across France on Easter Weekend as over 12,000 people were water baptized, CBN reports.
The Catholic Church focuses on baptizing infants, who are baptized without making a faith commitment. However, the number of infants being baptized has been declining for several years, making what happened on Easter Sunday even more significant.
This is because the majority of the baptisms, 7100, involved adults and the remaining 5,000 were between the ages of 11 to 17. In other words, they involved people making the conscious choice to be baptized.
France’s Roman Catholic Church traditionally hosts adult baptisms at Easter, and the number this year not only set a record but was 31% higher than the number of water baptisms at last year’s event.
Also, young adults are expressing a renewed interest in faith, as the number of people between the ages of 18 and 25 being water baptized rose from 23% in 2023 to 36% this year.
The number of adults seeking water baptisms has been increasing in the Catholic Church, year-over-year, for the past ten years. This is all the more remarkable considering that over 50% of French people don’t believe in God.
While these baptisms may not always reflect genuine faith commitments, they do suggest, that despite the secularization taking place in that country, there is a renewed interest in faith.
According to the National Council of Evangelical Christians, in 2023 there are over 745,000 Evangelical Christians in France, who regularly attend one of the country’s 2,700 Evangelical churches. In 1950, the country had only 50,000 Evangelical Christians.
