NEW YORK — Last November, Daniel McKenna, a personal trainer known by his social-media handle “The Irish Yank,” shared a video on Instagram of himself leaving Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Greenwich Village.
“We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for an ‘I went to Mass’ post,” McKenna wrote, touting the experience as “one of the best Masses I’ve ever been to in my life.”
The video went viral, with hundreds of his followers commenting and thousands sharing it. A week later, McKenna filed another dispatch. “I went back to Mass,” he reported, “and yes it was another banger.”
McKenna’s enthusiasm captures the spirit of a suddenly resurgent Catholic scene in the heart of Manhattan, where college students and young professionals are showing up in force at Masses and other Catholic events as if they are queuing up for the latest hot restaurant or club.
Much of the fervor is focused on three specific parishes, all of which have seen a spike in Mass attendance and converts to the Catholic faith:
At St. Joseph’s, the Sunday evening Mass is standing-room-only, which hardly dissuades the 150 or so people in the overflow who stood in the church’s narthex on a recent Sunday. The church also saw 88 people receiving the sacraments of baptism or confirmation at the Easter vigil this year, up from 35 last year. At St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on the Lower East Side, the number of people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, being received into the Church or returning to be confirmed also rose — to 70 from 40 the year before. And on Manhattan’s Upper East Side at St. Vincent Ferrer, which draws a slightly older demographic of young professionals and a growing number of young families, 77 people were expected to be received into the Church — through baptism or confirmation — compared with 50 last year.
“The Holy Spirit is absolutely 100% in charge of this completely,” the pastor of Old St. Pat’s, Father Daniel Ray, a priest with the Legionaries of Christ, told the Register.
“No one’s planning it,” he added. “Basically, people are wandering in that have been away for any number of years.” The majority of those new to the parish, he said, are fallen-away Catholics who are returning to the faith of their childhood.
Full pews at Old St. Patrick’s (Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
Renovation, Then Revitalization
St. Joseph’s is run by priests from the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph, who are known for the priority they place on good preaching and a rigorous intellectual tradition that makes them a natural fit for the post-grads and students at nearby New York University, where they run the chaplaincy.
Dominican Father Boniface Endorf, the parish’s pastor, confirmed to the Register that “something is happening in this city,” as evidenced by his overflowing church — 1,500 people show up for Mass every Sunday.
More than half of this year’s Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) class were unbaptized catechumens, he said. That’s a sharp increase from previous years, when most converts were Protestants who decided to become Catholic. “Now we’re getting people who are completely beyond the Church,” Father Endorf said.
“There’s greater interest in the faith among a lot of people,” Father Endorf added. “There’s a sense that there has to be more in life than just career and consumerism and materialism. And there’s a desire to connect to something deeper and spiritual.”
Dominican Father Boniface Endorf, St. Joseph’s pastor, celebrates Palm Sunday Mass on March 29. (Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
Many of those coming into the Church, he said, have told him that conservative Christian influencer Charlie Kirk’s murder had a huge effect on them.
“When they saw their colleagues cheering the death of Charlie Kirk, it really shocked them and pushed them to ask deeper questions, which led them to start thinking about their faith,” he said.
The pews weren’t always packed at St. Joseph’s. The church, which was founded in 1829, was down to only about 300 parishioners, until Cardinal Edward Egan, in 2003, asked the Dominicans to take over the parish, while maintaining the chaplaincy at the Catholic Center at New York University.
One of the biggest challenges for Father Endorf when he arrived at St. Joseph’s in 2018 was to make up for 40 years of neglected maintenance. He took the opportunity to set into motion several renovations that he says have helped make the parish’s success today possible.
The church — which in 1972 had undergone a “modernization,” stripping it of its statues, paintings, confessionals and Stations of the Cross, and shifting the tabernacle to the side of the sanctuary — was due for a restoration to its former glory.
First, Father Endorf had two confessionals put in and began offering daily confession, including before every Sunday Mass.
Then he had a parish hall built in the church’s once-rat-infested basement. Today, many parish ministries meet there, including “In Vino Veritas,” a popular post-Sunday evening Mass gathering for young adults featuring wine, cheese and a theological talk by a Dominican friar.
In 2023, St. Joseph’s officially opened the city’s first perpetual Eucharistic adoration chapel, offering key cards to parishioners and NYU students so they can pray there 24 hours a day. Father Endorf said the friars will have as many as 20 or so young people join them in the chapel to chant morning or evening prayer.
The adoration chapel at St. Joseph’s also draws young families.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
Together with traditional liturgies, music has played a part in the revitalization. The pastor says that “the best chant choir in the city” sings at the 11:30 a.m. Sunday Mass, and a band plays contemporary, jazz-infused music at the 6 p.m. Sunday Mass — the one featured in the viral social-media posts.
“Most of them are Broadway musicians, and they attract a lot of people,” Father Endorf noted.
The typical parishioner at St. Joseph’s is in his or her 20s or 30s and has moved to New York for a job. Father Endorf explained that the organizing principle behind the way the Dominicans run the parish is based on the transient nature of their parish.
“We have our average parishioner for two to five years because the get their first job in New York City, and then they get married, or they get tired of the city, and they leave,” he said.
“Our goal is to form them as best we can in those two to five years,” Father Endorf said.
Dominican Father Boniface Endorf incenses the altar during Palm Sunday Mass 2026.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
In addition to the wine-and-cheese social and theological talk after Mass, St. Joseph’s offers a weekly discussion of matters of faith and hosts the New York City chapter of the Thomistic Institute, a Dominican apostolate, as well as a book group, a men’s group, a moms’ group, and a group for singles on marriage as a vocation, among other lay-led ministries.
Once newcomers have been going to the 6 p.m. Mass for a while, Father Endorf said, they often “graduate” to the more traditional Mass as they become more serious about their faith.
“There are people that will tell me, “I’m not really on board with the Church on a lot of things,’” Father Endorf said. “And then two years later, they say, ‘I’ll only date Catholics.’”
The parish has also produced several vocations. “The Holy Spirit has been so active,” the pastor told the Register.
Sean Leahy, 29, standing on Sixth Avenue as young adults congregated after the 6 p.m. Mass, recently began attending Mass again after years away from the Church after a friend invited him to St. Joseph’s. Before Mass that evening, Leahy, who works in corporate finance, went to confession for the first time in 10 years.
Leahy said he appreciated the homily at Mass, in which the priest talked about the demands of living a Christian life in today’s world.
“I felt like the message was geared towards a younger audience today, and I specifically liked that, he said.
Young Catholics chat outside of St. Joseph’s.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
New Energy at Old St. Pat’s
Eight blocks east from St. Joseph’s, past Washington Square, is St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, known as Old St. Patrick’s.
The historic Gothic Revival church, established in 1815 and rebuilt in 1868 following a fire, was the first cathedral church for the Diocese of New York, serving that role until the St. Patrick’s on Fifth Avenue opened in 1879. There, too, the young-adult Mass, held at 7 p.m., is standing-room-only.
Father Ray, who has worked at the church since 2019, said he first noticed the increase in interest among young adults just before COVID hit, but saw it really take off between 2022 and 2023. He recently decided to add another Sunday evening Mass.
Mass at Old St. Patrick’s(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
He said that the pressures of living in New York and working 70 hours a week while “resting really hard” on weekends, have led some to seek out the Catholic Church.
“They’re having everything that they could humanly want, except they’re missing community, and their missing God from their life,” he said.
He has been struck by the number of people who grew up in another denomination or were raised without any religion or were members of a non-Christian faith asking to become Catholic.
Father Ray said these converts and reverts are eager to learn more about the faith, and “they’re not picking and choosing” aspects of the Church that they like, like some people from past generations might have.
“Now, they’re just all in, and it’s amazing,” he said.
Mass at Old St. Patrick’s draws many young people.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
The liturgy at Old St. Patrick’s, he said, is “highly formalized,” featuring classical music, which he thinks is appealing to young people looking to the Catholic faith for meaning.
“There’s that sense of bringing out the best music that the Church has to offer over the last 800 years,” he said. “It really connects them with the past, which connects them with their identity and connects them with eternal things.”
Reception of Holy Communion during Mass at Old St. Patrick’s(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
There are also many opportunities for community. After the 7 p.m. Sunday Mass, the parish has a young-adult wine social, and during the summer, the parish hosts barbecues in the backyard of the rectory. Parishioners organize a wide range of activities hosted at the parish, from weekly waltz dancing to Bible study.
The personal relationships that these small groups foster helps support young adults just starting to practice their faith, as their “friend group becomes their church group,” Father Ray said.
A young Massgoer at Old St. Patrick’s(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
St. Vincent Ferrer Serves Older Young Adults
At St. Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican-run parish since 1867, the appeal includes the beauty of the old stone church (Andy Warhol, who once lived nearby, was said to be found praying in a back pew almost every day), the excellence of the Dominican preaching and professionally performed sacred music.
However, the pastor, Father Peter Martyr Yungwirth, believes that offering extra Mass and confession times has been key to the three parishes’ success. The fact that these parishes are operated by religious orders is another advantage, he added.
Dominican Father Peter Martyr Yungwirth celebrates Mass at St. Vincent Ferrer Church.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
While the Archdiocese of New York is suffering from a shortage of parish priests, there are 13 Dominican priests at St. Vincent Ferrer and five priests at St. Joseph’s and the Catholic Center at NYU. Old St. Patrick’s has five priests from the Legionaries of Christ.
Throughout a recent noon Mass at St. Vincent Ferrer, a dozen or so faithful were lined up for confession, which is offered before (and during) every Sunday Mass. Father Yungwirth said the parish recently built a confessional to fit a stroller to accommodate young families.
St. Vincent Ferrer serves a slightly older demographic than does St. Joseph’s in the West Village. In fact, after a few years, St. Joseph parishioners often move uptown and join St. Vincent’s, leading to an oft-repeated quip that you date and marry at St. Joseph’s and then have a baby at St. Vincent’s.
The Eucharist is adored at St. Vincent Ferrer.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
As a result, St. Vincent’s parishioners are more likely to stay in the city and invest in the parish — at least until the upscale neighborhood’s small apartments and lack of affordable schools make it untenable.
Emilia Tanu Chornay told the Register she and her husband and their two small children cross the city on public transportation to get to St. Vincent’s.
Chornay started going to St. Vincent Ferrer in 2020, before she lived in Manhattan, because they offered a 6 p.m. Mass that she could go to after work.
Dominican Father Peter Martyr Yungwirth prays during Mass at St. Vincent Ferrer.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
“The parish itself was always very vibrant in terms of really keeping to its sacramental core,” she said, noting that the priests celebrate multiple Masses each day. “That’s a unique thing in New York.”
Once they started seeing the numbers of young adults increasing at the parish, which also includes St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, the Dominicans launched several initiatives to serve that population, including a monthly talk followed by a discussion and social hour, called “Club Dominica.”
St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church is also shepherded by the Dominicans.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
Young adults are heavily involved in parish life: They host the family pancake breakfast, a group of young women is reviving a long-ago-discarded tradition of putting together a cookbook using parishioners’ recipes, and others were put in charge of organizing a reception after the Easter vigil this year.
The Dominicans at St. Vincent Ferrer, Chornay said, offer an extensive slate of programs — for adult formation, for families and young adults — but do so in a way that doesn’t feel that it’s meant to be “purely social.”
“I feel like these all came about because of their regular offering — and very beautiful offering — of the sacraments,” said Chornay, who with her husband mentors couples in the marriage-preparation program, where they often help others navigate the unique challenges of family life in the city.
She said the parish has become a real community quite naturally.
“People just started to become friends and decided to commit to making this their parish.”
Eucharistic procession gets underway at St. Vincent Ferrer Church.(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
Feed My Sheep
The attention all three of these parishes have generated — including from social-media influencer Anthony Gross, whose popular videos on TikTok rank Catholic churches in New York City — has attracted a second wave of newcomers, allowing them to build on the firm foundations that were already in place, pastors and parishioners say.
Young adults fill the pews at St. Joseph’s. (Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
“They’re seeing that, ‘Oh, there’s lots of people going to this place who care about their faith. If I’m trying to find a church, I should probably start in one of these places,’” Father Yungwirth said.
McKenna, the “Irish Yank,” is happy that his posts have played a part.
“I do love it when people come up and say, ‘I saw your video and I came in and it was unbelievable,’” he said.
“And that’s the whole point,” McKenna added, while seated outside his favorite coffee spot, Porto Rico Importing Co., around the corner from St. Joseph’s, with Dougal, his Rottweiler, at his side.
Daniel McKenna and his dog, Dougal(Photo: Jeffrey Bruno for the National Catholic Register)
He said many people who saw his posts mistakenly believed he’d undergone a conversion. In fact, he was a regular Massgoer before stumbling upon the Mass at St. Joseph’s — “I just never told anybody.”
“I think the Lord works in amazing ways. I think there are people there who are way more into the Lord — or Catholicism or Christianity — than me,” McKenna said of the people filling the pews at St. Joseph’s.
“And that’s the whole point of believing in the Lord. You can meet him where you’re at, and once you kind of believe there’s someone there, then it grows,” he said. “The more you go, the better you find it.”