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CHIMAYÓ — Taos resident Jose Gonzales is finding his faith again, and he’s not alone.

On Good Friday, Gonzales was trekking south in a bucket hat and neon vest along the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway. His destination? One of the most sacred sites for New Mexico Catholics, El Santuario de Chimayó, a 19th century Spanish mission church that sees thousands of visitors each year during Holy Week.

“I did it about 12 years ago,” Gonzales said as he took a break in the sunshine after a roughly 14-mile walk overlooking the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east and the Rio Grande to the west. “I guess you could say I parted ways for a while, but now that I stepped away from it, I felt more of a calling spiritually to come back.”

Though they share a common destination, pilgrims who travel to this National Historic Site during Holy Week all have their own reasons for making the journey.

For the most ardent Catholics, the walk is an annual act of sacrifice meant to reflect the suffering of Christ. For others, it’s a family tradition passed down over generations, an immersive cultural experience or a ceremonial way of stepping back into faith once forgotten.

Melanie Rodriguez of Chamisal said the walk for her is about “spiritual growth” and maintaining a more than 100-year-old custom in northern New Mexico, where she was born and raised.

“Right now, the world is in such turmoil,” she said. “We need to be closer to God. That's what this is about for me — making sure that I can get as close to God as I can with what I have. It's just a tradition that is dying, and I think that the older people have to get the younger generation back into it.”

Those efforts to keep the Catholic faith alive may have been successful, as the church in recent years has reported an increase in followers both in the U.S. and across the globe.

Agenzia Fides, the official news agency for the Vatican, reported last year that there were , with an increase of roughly 15.9 million that year compared to the year previous. The U.S. saw an increase of approximately 5.67 million.

In a March 2025 survey, Pew Research Center found that 20% of U.S. adults described themselves as Catholic, amounting to an estimated 53 million Catholics nationwide.

Demographically, the share of Catholics in the U.S. identifying as white has decreased 10 percentage points since 2007, while followers identifying their race as Hispanic increased 7 percentage points.

According to a religious census conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020, New Mexico is among several states that has seen a slight uptick in Catholicism since 2010, with members of the church rising by about 1.5% since 2010.

The Journal contacted the Archdiocese of Santa Fe this week inquiring about a potential increase in Catholic membership in New Mexico, but the archdiocese did not respond as of Friday evening.

Father Mike Garcia, who joined as reverend of Church of the Incarnation in Rio Rancho last year after five and a half years overseeing the historic San Francisco de Asís Catholic Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, said that he and other priests in the Land of Enchantment have observed a rise in attendance.

“Other priests I’ve talked to say that, at least anecdotally, we’ve seen an increase in attendance,” Garcia said. “At least here at my parish in Rio Rancho, we have quite a few more coming into the church.”

Garcia said pews tend to fill up on and around major religious holidays, like Easter, and many have returned to mass after avoiding large gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But he said other factors may also explain why people are either returning to the Catholic faith or discovering it for the very first time.

“People are looking for guidance,” he said. “They’re looking for structure, especially in such a chaotic world. I think they’re tired of seeing what they may feel is a collapse in leadership across all spectrums of society. I think they’re looking for stability and truth, meaning in their life and purpose.”

From the architecture, to the art, to folk traditions still practiced today, Catholicism is closely interwoven into New Mexico’s culture.

Thousands of pilgrims also made the journey on Good Friday up Tomé Hill, a site south of Albuquerque and east of Los Lunas considered sacred to the faithful for thousands of years.

Carlos Mendez, 82, has been making the journey to the three crosses that look out over the religious site every year on Good Friday in remembrance of his wife, Maria Mendez, who died of cancer on Easter six years ago.

On the final stretch of highway leading to El Santuario de Chimayó — where believers waited in line to pray inside the small chapel or to take home a handful of the mission’s purportedly healing dirt — Española resident Vanessa Martinez was looking for her ride after completing the pilgrimage in honor of her late grandparents.

“I’m a member of the church,” she said. “But I mostly do it for them, to keep the tradition alive. Now this is a yearly tradition for me. It’s a very special time for my family, to remember why we walk and just all the sacrifices we’ve made for each other.”

John Miller is the ����������ϼ�’s northern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at jmiller@abqjournal.com.