The number of adults baptized by the Catholic church in Belgium has tripled in ten years, announced on Wednesday the Conference of Bishops of Belgium by press release. This year, 536 catechumens (adult candidates at baptism) will receive the sacraments on Saturday, during Easter night.
Christian baptism is attracting more and more Belgian adults. Their number has tripled in the space of a decade. In 2024, there were 362, an increase of 48% over one year, compared to 180 in 2015 (+198% in ten years). This year, there will be 536 to receive the sacraments during Easter night.
The diocese having recorded the most candidates this year is that of Malines-Brussels. In detail, they will be 102 catechumens in Brussels, 47 in Walloon Brabant and 24 in Flemish and Mechelen Brabant, to receive the sacraments. Tournai is the second most requested diocese, with 136 candidates in 2025. Bruges is the diocese having recorded the least new catechumens this year (14).
The baptism of adults traditionally takes place during the Pascale vigil, the night before Easter. It is preceded by a period varying from 18 months to two years of preparation within the framework of the catechumenate, with an initiation to the faith and the life of the community of faith.
L’influence TikTok
“In recent years, we have observed a slow but constant progression of the number of adults who are baptized, both in Belgium and in France,” said the French-speaking spokesperson for the Conference of Bishops of Belgium, Tommy Scholtes. An upward trend that is partly explained thanks to … Tiktok. “Catechumens mainly concern young adults from the Tiktok generation,” said the man of faith. “The social network allows young believers to come together, to share and create communities around faith and to be enthusiastic about each other,” he explains.
An enthusiasm that resulted in record attendance during the pilgrimage of Frat de Lourdes: more than 13,000 young people were present.
Radiation up
If the number of catechumens has been actually increasing for ten years, it is nothing compared to the requests of Belgians to be struck off from the registers of baptisms of the Catholic Church in Belgium. In 2023, the last year for which complete figures were available, 14,251 people had requested this radiation. In previous years, this figure generally revolved around 1,200, with a peak at more than 5,000 in 2021.
An impressive figure which is largely explained by “disgust for sexual abuses in the Catholic Church and the culture of silence present in the past”. But why that year? Simply because it was in 2023 that the documentary “Godvergeten” (“forgotten of God”) was disseminated by the Flemish public channel VRT, highlighting the testimony of around twenty victims, mainly men, having undergone sexual assault or rape when they attended, adolescents, Catholic institutions. Moreover, most of the requests have been recorded in the north of the country.
The visit of Pope Francis in Belgium in September 2024 had also caused the anger of more than 520 people who had asked to be tired. Pope Francis had notably described the partial decriminalization of the voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) in Belgium as “murderous law”, calling the doctors practicing the abortion of “hitmen”. Enough to imagine that the figure of reinforcement requests for the year 2024 could be greater than the average.
Baptism Catholic Christian Church Belgium Tiktok
