Is the Catholic revival real?

For several months now, there has been discussion in our country’s press about an alleged “Catholic revival.” This is said to be supported by various developments, such as the significant increase in adult baptisms in France. According to a report by the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF), in 2025, 17,800 catechumens (adults and adolescents) were baptized in that country during Easter, representing a 45% increase compared to 2024. These figures are the highest ever recorded since the CEF began conducting this survey more than twenty years ago (in 2002). Furthermore, a trend already observed in last year’s study has been significantly confirmed and reinforced: the growing—and now majority—proportion of young people among all catechumens. In our country, this shift is illustrated by the rise of certain ecclesial movements focused primarily on young people and, more recently, by the success of the film Sundays, which centers on a 17-year-old girl who is seriously considering embracing a life of cloistered religious devotion.

These and other circumstances have led sociologists and thinkers to argue that we are witnessing a sort of “revival” of Catholicism. This is said to be occurring after years in which professing this faith was viewed as a private choice—comparable to a subjective and, therefore, irrational preference—that was even the subject of mockery and scorn. Thus, it would seem that Byung-Chul Han’s assessment at the beginning of his short book on God—in which he argues that “it is not God who has died, but the human being to whom God revealed Himself”—is excessively pessimistic.

Seeking God Once Again

Be that as it may, what is certain is that long before anyone spoke of this “Catholic turn,” we were witnessing, in the realm of thought, a sort of “theological turn” or a renewed interest in the question of God and the religious phenomenon. Certainly, throughout much of what is generally referred to as “Modernity,” there was a kind of self-limitation or self-mutilation of reason itself, as it focused exclusively on the realm of the empirical sciences. When we speak today of a rational demonstration or a scientific demonstration, we all automatically think of the work done, for example, in a laboratory. However, the view—which is, moreover, genuinely Catholic—that reason’s scope must be broadened has increasingly gained ground, as Josef Ratzinger/Benedict XVI maintained both in his theological work and in his Petrine ministry.

In this vein, prominent philosophical schools of thought have begun to consider the “phenomenon” of God and to analyze the way in which God and “the things of God” are revealed to us. Indeed, as the theologian Joseph Ratzinger already pointed out in his Introduction to Christianity, there is an infinite gulf between God and man. We have been created in such a way that our eyes can see only what is not God. God will always lie outside our field of vision. However, as Ratzinger himself acknowledges, the attitude expressed in the word credo It means “a fundamental way of relating to being, existence, the self, and all that is real.” It is a perspective that asserts that at the very core of human existence “there is a point that cannot be supported or sustained by what is visible and comprehensible.” In this way, the Christian faith regards the invisible as more real than the visible.

However, we might ask ourselves, along with St. Augustine, to what extent “the invisible things of God are understood and seen through created things”? Contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Luc Marion, among others, have pointed to what they have called “the phenomenological paradox.” By this expression, the French philosopher refers to the apparent contradiction of “the appearance of that which is preeminently unapparent—the visibility of the invisible as such, which remains as such in its visibility.” The central question raised here is: What do we see of the invisible? Or, to put it another way, what of the invisible is revealed to us in the visible? 

This highlights the fact that the realm of phenomena is much broader than that of perceptible entities. As Jean-Yves Lacoste points out, “to appear” is more than “to be present to us through our senses.” In fact, he goes so far as to say that “we perceive more than what our senses provide for us to perceive.” This lies at the heart of religious experience, insofar as in it the human heart can feel both the presence and the absence of God. 

A presence “in the heart”

In this way, contemporary philosophy opens itself up to modes of “giving” that differ from representation, in which the absent also plays a role. This is what Lacoste refers to when he mentions that the God “perceived by the heart” is at once present and absent, felt and not felt. As this author points out, God is infinitely greater than everything we feel and know about Him. However, what we do not feel and know about God is not, in reality, a lack or an absence, but rather a “surplus,” “too much presence.” This does not mean that we must set aside what we know about God. The fact that God is infinitely greater than our knowledge of Him makes it clear that His presence is not a presence in the manner of an object of representation. It is a presence to the “heart.”.

Consequently, this “Catholic turn”—or, at least, “Christian turn”—that appears to be evident in some of the most significant philosophical currents of recent decades goes hand in hand with a revival of affectivity as a central element alongside understanding and the will. In contrast to a certain tradition that holds that the affective sphere must be excluded from the spiritual realm—reducing it to the realm of bodily sensations, emotional states, or passions—contemporary philosophy has reclaimed the decisive role that this sphere plays in the human person. In fact, it has even been argued that in many respects, the heart is what constitutes our true self.

In short, the “Catholic turn” that seems to be evident in significant developments in contemporary thought has focused on the uniqueness of religious experience. In this experience, human beings lovingly open themselves to a personal God who dazzles them, yet whom they simultaneously feel is close to them. This is what Pascal was referring to when he wrote: “While, when speaking of human things, it is said that one must know them before loving them—which has become a proverb—the saints, on the contrary, say, when speaking of divine things, that one must love them in order to know them, and that one enters into the truth only through charity.”.