At a recent confirmation service at the University of Dayton chapel, the pews overflowed with parishioners and new visitors.
They gathered to witness five students receive their confirmation, led by Father Robert Jones, chaplain at the catholic school.
This year at the University of Dayton, 26 people have been confirmed — up from six people last year.
Jones has never seen this many confirmations in one academic year during his four years at UD.
“We say it's one of the sacraments of initiation along with baptism and First Communion,” he said. “So kind of in a colloquial sense, you might say confirmation is the sacrament where you become an adult in the church.”
This trend isn't unique to Dayton. Other Ohio colleges are reporting similar numbers, including the University of Cincinnati, whose confirmations through their Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, or OCIA, have jumped from 5 participants in May of 2024 to 25 last year.
Miami University saw a jump from 20 to 40 OCIA group members this year, including non-students in the area.
In Columbus at Ohio State University, confirmation numbers have risen from 10 people in 2022 to over 70 this year.
“People are drawn by the sacraments, by intellect, by a frustration with the way our culture says relationships should work, either with the relationship with self, the relationship with others, the relationships with authority,” said Sarah Botti, director of OCIA at OSU.
After several years of decline in the number of Americans who called themselves Christian, data from Pew Research last year shows that those numbers have leveled off at about 63%.
The Catholic church lost a lot of followers in the earlier part of this century, amidst clergy abuse scandals and a widening divide between the church’s teachings and some parishioners’ social and political viewpoints.
Reports from Pew Research show that overall, 18% of U.S. adults who left the church did so due to a change in beliefs or values, while 8% left due to scandals in the church.
Yet, over recent years, data from PRRI displays a recent shift in Gen Z, trending toward more religious affiliations. The number of young men and women between the ages of 18 and 29 who identify as religiously affiliated increased from 32% in 2013 to 38% in 2024.
Jones theorizes that increasing isolation and polarization in today’s society might be behind this surge of confirmations and religious interest.
“You know, the rise of technology, just current events. I think as students are kind of wrestling with some of these bigger questions, they're realizing there might be something more that they want to explore,” he said.
Joseph Ellis–Vela is one of those students making their confirmation this year. He's a 22 year old criminal justice major at the University of Dayton who was raised Catholic.
His siblings made their confirmations at the typical time in their early teens. But his parents encouraged him to wait until he felt personally ready for that step.
Ellis-Vela said his decision was largely driven by his late grandmother, who was a devout Catholic.
“I remember just stepping in there, kind of taking the idea that she is with me during this process and looking down on me,” he said. “And keeping that with me kind of helped me push through every time I was like I don't know if this is for me or I'm not sure. But I just knew that she always wanted this for me.”
Jones said family is just one reason students are seeking confirmation. Others include a desire for answers, closeness to God or a search for connection as they grow up in what he calls a “fragmented world.”
“Being part of a faith community is a way that we can get out of that partisanship, and I think even our faith communities help us understand there's a different way of living,” he said.
Plus, Jones said, having the first American pope doesn’t hurt.
“Pope Leo, when he talks, if he talks in English, we can all totally understand what the pope is saying,” he said.