Fr. Thomas Reese warns of convert surge in Easter 2026
Fr. Thomas Reese criticized the reported rise in Catholic converts in easter 2026, saying he feared some were entering the Church for the “wrong reasons.” His remarks came after major news outlets gave the trend front-page coverage, putting the reaction from a leading Jesuit voice in the same frame as the surge itself.
Fr. Thomas Reese
Reese, a former editor of America magazine and now a featured columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, bemoaned the much-reported boon in converts. He said he feared they were entering the Church for the “wrong reasons,” a judgment that puts his criticism at the center of the debate over who is being drawn into Catholic life and why.
The reporting cited, The Washington Post, and ABC News among the outlets that treated the increase as front-page news. That coverage gave Reese’s comments broader reach than a typical church-side critique and made the convert trend part of a larger public discussion.
Society of Jesus
The article says the Society of Jesus has been trying for well over a half century to reconfigure the Roman Catholic Church after the fashion of a United Nations NGO. It also quotes Chesterton: “he who marries the fashions of the day, soon finds himself a widow.”
That critique was paired with examples from Jesuit institutions. Santa Clara University advertised a “Slut Walk” on Friday, April 10th at 3:00pm, while Loyola University in Chicago was mentioned in connection with a student newspaper report about Sheridan Gorman being killed by Jose Medina-Medina. The university office at Loyola University in Chicago scolded the student newspaper for reporting that Jose Medina-Medina was an “illegal immigrant.”
Jesuit institutions
The article uses those examples to describe what it calls the New Society of Jesus, contrasting current campus priorities with pre-1965 Church teaching. For readers following Catholic institutions, the practical issue is not the headline count of converts alone, but how leaders such as Reese interpret the people entering the Church and the direction those institutions have taken.
