A popular Southwest city known for attracting Americans fleeing liberal New York and Los Angeles is undergoing a surge in Catholic converts.

Phoenix, Arizona, has seen the sharp rise in Catholics, with the local diocese growing to more than two million parishioners in recent years, the Arizona Republic reported.

The Phoenix location is now the second-largest Catholic diocese in the country, trailing only the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, according to the 2025 Official Catholic Directory. 

'Something holy is taking place, something historical, something that goes way back, and they're intrigued by that,' said Joyce Coronel, the Diocese of Phoenix manager told the outlet. 

She called the current wave of interest in the church 'enormous.' Data obtained by the outlet showed the Diocese had 512 adult baptisms in 2025, up 46.7 percent from 2022, 84.8 percent from 2023, and 24 percent from 2024.

'Adult baptisms have increased significantly over the past three years, and we anticipate this number will also be higher as the solid data from 2026 comes in,' Brett Meister, the diocese's communications director, said.

The Diocese also saw a rise in adult confirmations and first communions, with 1,404 confirmations and 1,118 first communions in 2025, compared with 507 confirmations and 621 first communions in 2022.

Coronel explained that many younger converts are drawn to the Church by a desire for connection and truth.

'"I don't wanna just go to a concert or a pep talk. Like, I want something holy,"; Coronel reported a young convert in his 20s told her.

A national survey by the Archdiocese of Chicago found that many converts were drawn to Catholicism by a search for 'personal hunger.'

Others cited the Church’s traditions, including its liturgy and history. The survey, conducted from this past February to May, found that 69 percent of respondents were Gen Z or millennials.

Riley Myers, 23, spoke to the Arizona Republic about her personal experience when it came to her religious journey.

After she came home from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff back in August 2024, she felt 'lost.' 

'I was trying to find who I was and felt like I wasn't going anywhere,' she told the outlet.  

'And I was just really sick and tired of it, and so I prayed to God and begged for him to help me.  I decided I wanted to go back to church,' she added.

The 23-year-old used to attend St Thomas Aquinas Church in Avondale with her stepfather as a kid.

So she took the leap and went to a service in early 2025 and said it brought her comfort.

'I understood it on a level I couldn't when I was younger. It was just this warmth and this presence,' she told the outlet. 

Myers was also moved by the church’s detailed depiction of Christ on the cross, which hangs above the altar. 

The Catholic Church itself has undergone a transformation over the past 13 years, with the current Pope Leo XIV, who was born in the US and has been vocally outspoken on social justice issues.

Pope Leo's views have triggered a simmering feud between him and President Trump. The two have continuously butted heads over their views on the war on Iran. 

Phoenix remains America's price-cut capital, with nearly a third of all active listings recently seeing price cuts as sellers respond to sluggish demand and elevated mortgage rates.

The sprawling Arizona city and its surrounding suburbs median listing price for properties is $499,000, offering bigger homes, sprawling backyards, swimming pools and mountain views, but with a friendlier price tag than other western cities like California.

The median listing price in LA County is $975,000 – almost double compared to Phoenix.

The trend in Phoenix mirrors a rise in Catholicism across the US. 

A new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows, for the first time in two decades, attendance in church is up. More people are volunteering, and there also seems to be a renewed sense of optimism among pastors and other clergy.

Vice President JD Vance has also been open about his religious experience with Catholicism and even wrote a book about it.

Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, the follow-up to his 2016 best-seller Hillbilly Elegy, which turned him into a household name and put him on the political map.

Communion is largely about Vance's spiritual journey from Protestant to atheist to converted Catholic.

Daily Mail reached out to the Diocese of Phoenix for comment.