St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center, just off the campus of Kansas State, will welcome a record-breaking 92 converts this Saturday through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, at the Easter Vigil.
This represents a 122% increase in participants compared to the previous year. As Saturday approaches, the St. Isidore’s community prepares to host around 600 total attendees for what will be one of its most significant liturgies in the Church’s recent history. For the dozens of students soon to be initiated, the night represents the end of a six-month period of study and the beginning of a new chapter in their lives.
For many, like Maggie Thomason, the journey began with skepticism rather than certainty. A community member originally from a Lutheran background in Colorado, Thomason said she initially joined the program to “debunk” the Catholic Church after feeling like a large piece of her life was missing when she arrived at K-State.
“I didn’t know much about the church, and I actually went into this thinking I would prove it wrong,” Thomason said. “But then I started learning about the Eucharist and went to adoration for the first time. I felt this immense peace I hadn’t felt before, and I realized I wasn’t there to tear anything down, I was there to improve my life.”
The numbers at St. Isidore’s tell a story of rapid acceleration within the Catholic community. Ridge Pinkston, representative of the center and OCIA instructor, noted that the spike occurred without any significant changes to the center’s marketing strategies, leaving organizers to look for deeper explanations for the sudden interest among the student body.
“There is no seemingly obvious reason other than something is stirring out there that is not our work,” Pinkston said. “Our marketing approach has not changed in any way … this is not a result of any policy change on our part.”
The scale of the upcoming ceremony is a massive undertaking for a campus ministry, with 92 people all stepping into the church from different times in their lifelong faith journey. The class includes 32 catechumens who will be baptized while also receiving the Eucharist and Confirmation, 34 candidates receiving the Eucharist and Confirmation and 26 confirmands who are completing their initiation through Confirmation alone.
The demographics of those seeking to join the Catholic Church are also shifting. While OCIA programs traditionally attract a diverse mix of adults, the current wave is largely driven by Generation Z. Approximately 90% of those joining at St. Isidore’s are K-State students, and a significant majority — between 60% and 70% — come from a previous Protestant background.
The impact of the record-breaking class extends even to those who have been in the pews since birth. Quintin Ryan, a community member and lifelong “cradle Catholic,” originally thought he knew all there was to know about his faith until he became a sponsor for a catechumen this year.
“It’s crazy how much I’ve learned attending OCIA classes,” Ryan said. “I thought because I was raised Catholic, I’d know most of the information. Turns out there’s a lot of church history, and people with different backgrounds, that made me dive deeper into my faith.”
Relative to the size of the Manhattan and Salina Diocese, St. Isidore’s class of 92 — 110, when you count those getting confirmed on May 24 at Pentecost — is among the largest in the country for a single campus-based center. Nationally, 2026 is shaping up to be a record-breaking year for the Church, with data from the National Catholic Register suggesting that for the first time in American history, Gen Z may have more identifying Catholics than Protestants.
While journalists and sociologists nationwide debate the causes of this growth, Pinkston believes the local surge is tied to a spiritual momentum that extends beyond human planning. He believes that what is happening on campus may be a micro-level example of a much larger shift.
“Regardless of what’s happening big picture-wise, there is something changing on a micro-level here at St. Isidore’s,” Pinkston said. “I mean, almost more than double the numbers. That speaks to something.”