The news is bad. Israel is pounding Gaza, with tens of thousands of deaths. Ukraine is barely holding its own against Russia. China might invade Taiwan. The Antarctic ice sheet might break up. Transgender ideology is spreading everywhere. Birth rates are dropping.

And on and on.

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality," wrote T.S. Eliot. Perhaps that is why TikTok, Instagram and other social media are turning the minds of Gen Z to glop. Sorry. Once you’re started, it’s hard to stop.

Look closer, though, and you may see green shoots, unnoticed sprigs of good news. They pass unseen by the media, which is too busy chasing fire engines racing to apocalyptic conflagrations.

As someone interested in and occasionally depressed by news about Christianity, and particularly the portion of Christianity to which about 18 percent of the planet and myself subscribes, Catholicism, I was intrigued by this year’s celebrations of the Easter Vigil, a traditional day for baptisms. Not in every church, not in most churches, but in some churches, attendance rose spectacularly, along with the number of baptisms.

It's hard to know if these really herald a new springtime for Christianity, but the signs are promising. Faith resists statistical analysis and most churches are incompetent publicists. But consider this. In London, the gigantic Westminster Cathedral (the Catholic one), which has a capacity of 3000 worshippers, had to turn people away on Good Friday because it was full.

One disappointed worshipper, Robert Stephenson-Padron, then walked to the historic church of St James in Spanish Place to discover that it, too, was full. “Friedrich Nietzsche is dead. King Christ the Crucified and His holy Catholic Church are alive and well!” he tweeted, referring to the German philosopher’s famous dictum, “God is dead”.

Folks can’t get in for Good Friday service at Westminster Cathedral because the church IS FULL. Friedrich Nietzsche is dead. King Christ the Crucified and His holy Catholic Church are alive and well! pic.twitter.com/XzFExOqcWV

— Robert Stephenson-Padron OBE 🇺🇦 (@bobpadron) March 29, 2024

More significantly, baptisms appear to have increased as well. In the Archdiocese of Southwark in the UK, 450 adults became Catholics, the highest number of conversions in a decade.

Moving across the pond, in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 2,075 were baptized into the Catholic faith, the largest number since at least 2016. Another 1,521 people who had already been baptised as Christians were received into the Catholic church, also a record number. In the nearby Archdiocese of San Diego, nearly 1,300 people entered the Catholic Church. In Newark, the largest number in a decade became Catholics.

Surprisingly, in the diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, where Catholics are a very small minority, 1,104 people became Catholic. And in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Georgia, that figure was about 2,500.

The buzz on social media was that the wife of the controversial Jordan Peterson had become a Catholic at the Easter Vigil in Toronto. Even more newsworthy was the conversion of Bree Solstad, who had worked for a decade as a porn star and producer. She announced her plans on X (formerly Twitter) in January: “I have decided to quit sex work. To repent of my innumerable sins. To give up my life of sin, wealth, vice and vain self-obsession.”

Back across the Atlantic, in France, comes the surprising news that there has been a sharp uptick in a single year. The number of adult baptisms rose by 30 percent, from 5,463 in 2023 to 7,135 in 2024. This figure did not include the 5,000 teenagers who became Catholic, so the total was about 12,000. This is the largest number in 20 years. In one rural diocese, the numbers rose 200 percent in one year – admittedly, from a low base – 8 to 27.

What does all this prove?

Well, it proves nothing but it suggests a great deal.

The Catholic Church has had terrible press over the past 25 years, especially over sexual abuse scandals. Nearly every country with a large Catholic population has discovered that some priests have been sexual predators. The media has amplified the scandals. Catholics in France are still reeling from a report published in 2021 which claimed that 216,000 children - mostly boys, had been abused. These figures were inflated, but the reputational damage was severe.

The media delights in highlighting other issues: declining numbers of priests and nuns, financial scandals in the Vatican, the Pope’s media gaffes, dissident cardinals…