With a tip of the cap and a raised glass of Guiness to James Joyce, The Bench takes a cheerful look at the elect who are preparing to become the converted at next weekend’s Easter Vigil.

A snapshot of the story in Baltimore, from the Sun:

A police officer assigned to watch over a church nursery during Mass overhears the homily and becomes intrigued. A retail manager struggling with the loss of hours at work is inspired by the faith of his fiancee. A married mother of two looks for answers after two siblings are stricken with cancer.

All have found their way to the Roman Catholic Church as members of the largest class of converts the Archdiocese of Baltimore has seen this decade. Nine hundred and eighty-four local adults are preparing to become Catholics during Holy Week this year, a third more than joined the church locally in 2008.

The surge has caught archdiocesan officials by surprise – and left them at something of a loss for explanations.

“It’s really hard to say,” Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien said, before suggesting a variety of possible factors: uncertain economic times, the Washington visit last year of Pope Benedict XVI, the vibrancy of individual parishes.

“We’ve talked about evangelization an awful lot the last couple of years,” O’Brien said. “How are we presenting our parish to our neighbors? Are we friendly? Is there an outreach? Are we sensitive to their questions and to their needs?

“And I think the more active that parish is, the more people are going to want to look inside the door and say, ‘What are they offering here that gives so much life and energy?'”

The uptick comes as organized religion in the United States continues its long decline. A national survey released last month found that the proportion of Americans identifying themselves as Christians fell from 86.2 percent in 1990 to 76 percent in 2008. The fastest-growing group in the American Religious Identification Survey were those who said they had no religion. They now form the second-largest segment of the U.S. population, after Catholics.

Locally, the number of converts to the church has fluctuated widely this decade, from a low of 685 in 2002 to a previous high of 887 in 2003. The national count has varied similarly and was about 136,000 last year; a figure for this year was not available.

Deborah Frazee was less concerned with religious trends than with the disease that was stalking her family. A brother and a sister both were diagnosed with cancer. Married to a Catholic at Sacred Heart Parish in Glyndon, Frazee turned to Sister Jude Cianfrogna for support.

“She told me about the classes that were on Monday nights, and she said, ‘Why don’t you come, just sit in a pew, no obligation,'” Frazee said. Her two sons were already enrolled in the church’s religious education program, and she saw an opportunity to “take that journey” with them.

She is one of the more than 30 adults who have been attending weekly classes at Sacred Heart since September to learn about the beliefs and traditions of the church. On Saturday – the Easter Vigil, the traditional date of entry for converts – she will be confirmed into the church and be eligible to take Communion.

“The faith has helped me,” said Frazee, who lost her brother in November. “Understanding the faith and believing that there is a better place once you pass. It’s been nothing but positive.”

Check out the rest at the Sun link. It will do your heart good. And please, let’s remember these fine folks in our prayers.

PHOTO: Sister Jude Cianfrogna teaches Rite of Christian Initiation classes to adults preparing to convert to Catholicism at Sacred Heart Parish in Glyndon, Maryland. (Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor).