Father David Reamsnyder anoints junior Devin Houts with chrism in the sign of the cross.
Courtesy | Sophia Rome

They both said they would never become Catholic at Hillsdale. This Easter Vigil, on April 4, senior Emma Kate Mellors and junior Josh Mistry sat in the same pew, waiting to be confirmed Catholic at Saint Anthony of Padua Catholic Church as two members of the largest class in 25 years, according to Jacob Coonradt ’18, Saint Anthony’s director of parish life.  

“I’ve talked about Catholicism since sophomore year, and last year I went to date party with Josh,” Mellors said. “We were talking about it. This was when I was thinking that I just didn’t want to convert at Hillsdale because of all the pressure and whatnot. I remember I was like, ‘Josh, I know I’m going to do this, I just can’t do it here. It’ll be like two years in the future.’ And so it was really nice at Easter Vigil because he was sitting right next to me because of our last names.”

Conversions to Catholicism are at a high nationwide, according to the New York Times, with the Diocese of Lansing — of which St. Anthony’s is a part —  welcoming 940 new Catholics at Easter Vigil, its highest number since 2006, according to Jeremy Priest, the Diocese of Lansing’s director of worship and chair of discipleship formation.  The Archdiocese of Detroit confirmed 1,428 new Catholics, the largest number in 21 years, according to the New York Times. The Diocese of Grand Rapids welcomed 541 people to the church this year, the highest number since 2011, according to a press release from the diocese. Saint Anthony’s received 31 new Catholics at Easter Vigil and is preparing to receive two more at Pentecost, according to Coonradt. 

“This might be one of the reasons why people are looking at the increase in Catholic conversions: because for the Catholic and Orthodox Church specifically, it’s a real effort to join the church,” Coonradt said. “There’s usually a year or longer approach, as opposed to a lot of other Protestant churches where I think you can just go to church and say ‘I’m going to this church now.’”

Coonradt said Saint Anthony’s has welcomed 172 adult conversions since 2020, with 88%, or 152, of them being 30 years old or younger. Recently, about 70-80% of Saint Anthony’s adult converts are Hillsdale College students or non-students who are affiliated with the college, according to Coonradt. 

“It is worth noting that Hillsdale College’s approach to religious liberty, intellectual dialogue, and ecumenism fosters a culture and community that is intentionally devoted to the pursuit of truth,” Coonradt said in an email. “Young people of all religious backgrounds on Hillsdale’s campus are actively practicing a Christian faith, and the discourse that flows from Hillsdale’s education invites a search for truth and meaning that has led young people to become involved in local churches throughout the county.”

Those wanting to join the Catholic Church must complete the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, which teaches adults about the church and prepares them for the sacraments. 

“OCIA is normally a year-long process,” Coonradt said. “Certian people come in much sooner if they have the disposition or certain dispensations, like maybe they’ve been looking into it on their own. They’ve really done their research.”

Mistry’s first Hillsdale encounter with Catholicism was three years ago with his then-new-neighbor in Galloway Residence, current-senior Thomas McKenna. Mistry had recently moved into the dormitory, and during his first time in McKenna’s room, McKenna used a whiteboard to draw a diagram to explain the relationship of the Catholic Church, truth, the Bible, the magisterium, and sacred tradition.

“I was trying to say ‘sola scriptura.’ We argued for like four hours about that,” Mistry said. “At the end of the argument he said, ‘Josh, you’re going to be Catholic before you graduate Hillsdale.’ I was like, ‘I swear I will never be Catholic. I will die before I become Catholic.’ And then we stormed off, and that was the first time we ever hung out. He’s my best friend.”

It took Mistry a few years before he decided to go all-in on Catholicism, but when he did, McKenna was there. 

“The moment I decided to become Catholic, I was standing at the top of Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral looking over the city,” Mistry said. “We’d just got done praying a rosary in the cathedral, in adoration or something like that. And I remember looking out, and Thomas was laughing behind me. I turned around and was like, ‘What?’ But he wouldn’t tell me what he was laughing about. Then I looked out for a few more minutes. I finally turned around and said, ‘I think I want to become Catholic.’”

McKenna was Mistry’s confirmation sponsor. 

Coonradt, a convert to Catholicism himself, said he thinks adult conversions to Catholicism are increasing because of the pain people experience in the secular world and their inability to justify or find meaning in it. 

“They’re growing up in divorced households, growing up in places where worship of the faith is either lukewarm or not done at all, and I think people are thoroughly disillusioned with what the modern world has offered them thus far,” Coonradt said. “So they’re eager to look for some sort of meaning, some sort of purpose.”

Mellors, a Texas native, said she never knew a practicing Catholic before coming to Hillsdale, which she said led to many misconceptions and preconceived notions about the faith tradition. She said her newly-Catholic friends seeded her curiosity in the Church.

“By Easter of my sophomore year, every Protestant in that friend group besides me was coming into the Church, and their sponsors were our Catholic friends in the group, which was kind of funny,” Mellors said. “All sophomore year, our conversations became very theological and those friends who were going to get confirmed, since they were new to it, were asking a lot of questions. So I kind of got to ask questions, or at least hear different answers to questions that I didn’t even know I had.”

Through these questions, and friends inviting her to mass, she began to observe the Catholic Church. 

“I think when you see people you know and really respect so passionate about something, and you see how much their faith is changing their lives, and that that faith happened in the Catholic Church, it softened my heart toward it,” Mellors said. “It made me think, ‘OK, maybe there is something legitimate here.’”

Mellors said she found beauty in the Catholic Church, and that it offered things she noticed were lacking in the world.

“I think a lot of people, especially in our generation, are looking for purpose and meaning, but are also looking for beauty,” she said. “I feel like people naturally seek what is beautiful and what is good. That has been really stripped in a lot of ways in modern society — it’s become very disordered. Whenever I talk to people, what’s really driving them to the Church is this beauty, reverence, and this history of pursuing what is good and what is true.”