Shrewsbury Cathedral held two services on Sunday to prepare for record numbers of adults seeking Baptism and admission into the Catholic Church this Easter.

The numbers of people asking to become Catholics in the Diocese of Shrewsbury, which includes all of Shropshire, Cheshire, the Wirral and parts of Greater Manchester, has almost doubled in the past three years.

The surge in new converts has meant that instead of the one Cathedral service to welcome those adults preparing to enter the Catholic Church, the numbers have required two successive celebrations of the Rite of Election on the same afternoon.

A total of 171 adults from 31 parishes took part. The compares with 100 last year and 82 in 2024.

The phenomenon was widely reported in Britain’s national press last year following a 2023 study called the ‘Quiet Revival’ conducted jointly by the Bible Society and YouGov. The study surveyed 13,146 adults and found that Christians who go to church at least once a month make up 12 per cent of the total population, a rise from eight per cent in 2018. But for people in the 18-24 age group, churchgoing had soared to 16 per cent from just four per cent in 2018.

In a Lenten Pastoral Letter read across the Diocese at Mass over the weekend, Bishop Davies said the Catholic Church in Shrewsbury must be “ready for converts”.