After their mother died, they went to live with their uncle. He enrolled them in the parish school, where they had powerful experiences at Mass and took religious classes that encouraged them to ask their school’s pastor for baptism.
Felichia Laws, a 30-year-old Texas resident, told the bishops’ conference that her new daughter’s baptism helped encourage her to join the Catholic Church.
“During my daughter’s baptism, my body was overcome by so much joy and fulfillment that it is very hard to put into words,” said Laws, who began the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults just before her daughter received baptism.
“I realized then that though I had started the process for her, I also wanted the same baptism for me.”
Teenaged brothers Alex and Chris Barbosa were baptized at St. John Catholic Church in Monroe County, Michigan.
Chris, 13, told the Monroe News his reason for baptism was “hope.”
Sixteen-year-old Alex said he wanted “to form a better relationship with God.”
“It was destined to be,” he said.
The numbers of new Catholics run into the tens of thousands.
In the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, nearly 2,400 joined the Catholic Church. Groups of over 1,000 people joined the Church in the Archdioceses of Denver, New York, San Francisco, San Antonio, and Washington.
The Diocese of Orange set a record number for new Catholics, with 921 newly baptized and 668 already baptized Christians entering the Church.
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Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Washington have welcomed over 1,000 people into the Church at Easter for each of the past nine years.
According to the 2011 Official Catholic Directory, over 43,300 adults were baptized as Catholics last year, while 72,800 people were received into full communion with the Church.
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.