SHELBY, N.C. — The day after a newspaper in the small town of Shelby, N.C., reported that the Te Deum Foundation had acquired nearby land for a new Catholic seminary and monastery, a group of nuns in habits stopped at a local service station.
Fifty years ago — 10 years ago and, to some extent, even today — many Southerners regarded Catholics as unsaved and Catholicism as a non-Christian mystery religion.
But that day, everyone at the station greeted and welcomed the sisters. One woman even asked the nuns to pray for her injured nephew.
This acceptance marks a sea change in the Southern Baptist and evangelical Protestant-dominated South, where Catholics make up less than 10% of the population, compared with double-digit percentages in most northern states.
The Diocese of Charlotte, where the seminary will be located, is a prime example of Catholicism’s explosive growth in the South. Formed in 1972, the diocese had an initial 11,200 registered Catholic families.
By 2010, there were more than 63,000 registered families and an estimated 291,000 unregistered Catholics, including many of Hispanic origin. This brings the total Catholic population up from just 1.3% in 1972 to 9.7% today.
Much of the growth comes from immigration: northern Catholics following technology jobs southward and Catholics arriving from Spanish-speaking countries. But Catholics from the north can’t expect to find the pockets of cultural Catholicism typical of the ethnic enclaves of big cities, and Hispanic Catholics won’t find a village whose rhythm revolves around feast days.
Within hours of their arrival in the South, newcomers will be welcomed heartily by their Protestant neighbors — and invited to their church services.
“In such an environment,” wrote Father Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Greenville, S.C., in his website welcome to parishioners, “those who are casual cultural and cafeteria Catholics quickly become either ex-Catholics or evangelical Catholics, and that is paradoxically one of the reasons why our congregation and many other Southern parishes are flourishing: The unique challenge for Catholics seeking to live their Christian faith in the South leaves no room for spiritual mediocrity, doctrinal confusion, uncertain commitments or a lukewarm interior life.”
He is so fervent in this belief that he has composed what he calls the “Principles of Evangelical Catholicism.” In them, he promotes the ideas that “being a follower of Christ requires moving from being a Church member by convention to a Christian disciple by conviction” and that “all the baptized are sent in the Great Commission to be witnesses of Christ to others and must be equipped by the Church to teach the Gospel in word and deed.”
This evangelization of others, he said, will invariably occur through contact with devout Catholics. Most Protestants will never meet a priest; it is up to the Catholic faithful to represent their religion, share their faith and develop their own biblical literacy.
Blessed Pope John Paul II often called for this evangelization. In his apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (At the Beginning of the Third Millennium) he decreed: “A new apostolic outreach is needed, which will be lived as the everyday commitment of Christian communities and groups. ... Christ must be presented to all people with confidence. We shall address adults, families, young people, children without ever hiding the most radical demands of the Gospel message, but taking into account each person’s needs in regard to their sensitivity and language, after the example of Paul, who declared: ‘I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some’ (1 Corinthians 9:22).”
“In making these recommendations, I am thinking especially of the pastoral care of young people,” the Pope continued. “Precisely in regard to young people, as I said earlier, the Jubilee has given us an encouraging testimony of their generous availability. We must learn to interpret that heartening response, by investing that enthusiasm like a new talent (Matthew 25:15) which the Lord has put into our hands so that we can make it yield a rich return.”
JPII Generation Comes of Age
In the South, the rich return is evident. The young people that grew up with World Youth Days, the return to Eucharistic adoration and the Church’s renewed focus on youth and vocations are now young parents who are excited about their faith and want to immerse themselves and their children in parish life.
Father John Tetlow, pastor of San Juan del Rio Church in St. Johns, Fla., has seen the fruits of the well-catechized generation now reaching maturity. His parish’s catechetical program enrolls 900 children, and the school grows every year. Seventy youth will go this summer to Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Catholic Youth Conferences. Driving this is a very involved and enthused constituency of young parents. “These people are a product of John Paul II’s World Youth Days and his New Evangelization,” he said. “They’ve all been impacted by his bringing them back to the Church, and it has spread to their children.”
When Blessed John Paul visited Columbia, S.C., in 1987 and spoke to a crowd of mostly Protestants, Catholics comprised just 2.1% of the population. Not only were they in the minority, but they faced a host of misconceptions and prejudices.
“When John Paul II came to South Carolina, there was still a great deal of hostility and suspicion among evangelical Protestants in this part of the world,” said Father Newman in South Carolina, where Catholics now make up 4.2% of the population. “His visit opened hearts and sowed the seed bed for relationships between evangelical Christians and Catholics. Once local people ceased to think of Catholics as loathsome and alien, they were attracted by the morality and the clarity of the Church’s moral teaching.”
The Church’s unflinching stance on moral issues continues to draw adherents as Protestant churches wrestle with abortion and same-sex “marriage.”
“Men and women who have lived their whole lives in that (Protestant) community are looking for a place to land,” said Father Newman.
Seminarians Taught How to Build Parishes
The solid moral foundation is also drawing those with no religious roots. Msgr. David Brockman, vicar general for the Diocese of Raleigh in North Carolina, notes that when he was first ordained in 1990 about 70% of those entering into full communion with the Church were from another Christian tradition. This year, of the 1,000 people who entered the Church at the Easter vigil, 60% were unbaptized. “I attribute this directly to our efforts at evangelization,” he said.
As is happening across the South, the Diocese of Raleigh is growing rapidly, with the Catholic population ballooning 42% between 2000 and 2010. The Diocese of Charlotte, home of the planned seminary and monastery, has opened six new parishes in the last 10 years. In the Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Catholic population has tripled since 2000 and increased nine-fold since 1980 — and these numbers do not include unregistered Catholics of Hispanic origin.
This growth has also spread to vocations. In one year, the number of vocations to the priesthood in the Diocese of St. Augustine, Fla., jumped from nine to almost 30. “There is a domino effect,” said Father Remek Blaszkowski, the diocesan vocations director. “Men in seminary become inspirations to other young men.”
By focusing on a strong campus ministry and high-school vocations discernment, and by encouraging young men to meet and interact with seminarians, Father Blaszkowski said the seeds are sown for more vocations.
In Atlanta, where the number of priests has increased from 121 in 2000 to 191 today, Father Tim Hepburn, archdiocesan vocations director, attributes the rising numbers to the archdiocese’s increased focus on youth. When he was ordained in 1993, the archdiocese had no paid youth ministers. Now almost every parish has one.
These were also the years, deep in the heart of Blessed John Paul II’s pontificate, when children’s religious-education classes became more catechetical and when biblical apologists like Scott Hahn taught Catholics how to defend their faith. People also saw the Pope’s strength, even as he aged.
“Young men saw the strength that came from the missionary zeal of the Gospel,” said Father Hepburn. “They saw the priesthood as the best way to express that strength.”
With these numbers, it seems only natural that the South should have its own regional seminary. That was Billie Mobley’s reasoning when, in 2003, she established the Te Deum Foundation, whose mission is to provide seminarians with material and spiritual goods. With few resources beyond prayer and divine inspiration — while praying at Fatima in front of the crown that houses the bullet used in the 1981 assassination attempt on Blessed Pope John Paul II, she heard a priest behind her say, “Build my seminary” — Mobley began planning for a seminary so that young men could study in the area where they would one day serve and absorb the South’s unique religious flavor.
In March, she stood beside Bishop Peter Jugis as he blessed the land. “The Te Deum Foundation’s mission and seminary project are both praiseworthy endeavors in the service of the Lord and his Church,” said Bishop Jugis.
Currently, seminarians from the Diocese of Charlotte attend school in Maryland and Ohio. The regional seminary would be the only one located in a large triangle between Florida, the District of Columbia and Louisiana.
“Most seminaries teach how to close parishes,” said Mobley. “Priests in the South need to know how to build parishes, and they need to learn biblical apologetics to defend their faith.”
The 484 acres, about 60 miles west of Charlotte, will be split between the future seminary and a permanent monastery for the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, Mother Angelica’s cloistered nuns who moved from Ohio to a temporary monastery in Charlotte in 2010.
Details for construction and administration are few, although Bishop Jugis supports Mobley’s efforts and is allowing the Te Deum Foundation to fundraise. Mobley said she is relying on God to reveal details as needed. In the meantime, she is concentrating on what she calls “the journey of doing it”: “The people God pulls into this mission, their experiences, their journey and their exposure to our
faith — maybe that’s what God wants. God puts all these people in place for a reason.”
Mobley can already name numerous Protestant Southerners touched by their experiences with the seminary, from the non-Catholic landowner to the people at the service station who greeted the nuns.
For all the writings and musings on evangelization in the South, Mobley’s approach is simple. She says, “All you have to do is be a good Catholic, and people will follow.”
Register correspondent Dana Lorelle writes from Cary, North Carolina.
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When I attended Mass as a kid vacationing in western North Carolina, I remember vividly the Glenmary priest telling us of his experience in Murphy, NC, where a man stuck a pistol in his ribs and told him to “get the hell out of town.” I’m sure there were other words exchanged as well. The holy cards with “No Priestland USA” indicated that most counties in the South had no resident priest. Glenmary and other home mission socities, along with migration and mmigration trends described in the article, have contibuted to this growth in the Faith throughout the South. The Holy Spirit is definitely still in charge of the Church.
The reason Catholic churches are starting to thrive in the South is because they are basically indistinguishable from Protestant ones except for the Canon of the Mass.
this is great GOD IS GREAT THEY ARE MOVED BY THE SPIRIT ALSO JESUS SAID BE NOT AFRAID
people are having their journey home to 2thousand years of trutH &BEAUTY;
The catalyst for Catholicism in the Carolinas has been Belmont Abbey College which had held firm the tenets of the faith for generations.
Wonderful!!! God is so good! Thanks for the great article! The truth is the truth and if people open their eyes and soften their hearts, they will realize there is one truth and that is in Jesus’ one true Church; the Catholic Church.
Posted by Marguerite on Monday, Jul 2, 2012 7:23 AM (EST):The reason Catholic churches are starting to thrive in the South is because they are basically indistinguishable from Protestant ones except for the Canon of the Mass.”
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Not in my part of the South.We have beautiful,traditional Catholic churches.If you go all the way back to the earliest days under the Spanish, Catholics were the original Southern Christians anyway.
I don’t know, Marguerite. Perhaps, but the South and the Midwest is where traditional Catholicism is actually growing, isn’t it?
People in the south see how the mainstream media is capable of distorting the truth and when you pose the thought that their misconceptions might stem from that same distortion as well, the scales fall off their eyes and they see that to be a catholic is to live in the fullness of the faith. It suddenly shifts from being an alien religion like Mormonism to being a religion that a Protestant can embrace wholeheartedly. It makes me think of that scene in terminator 2 where all the fragmented pieces of the t-1000 melt and start glopping together to form one big surge!
People in the south see how the mainstream media is capable of distorting the truth and when you pose the thought that their misconceptions of Catholicism might stem from that same distortion as well, the scales fall off their eyes and they see that to be a catholic is to live in the fullness of the faith and It suddenly shifts from being an alien religion like Mormonism to being a religion that a Protestant can embrace wholeheartedly and in full. It makes me think of that classic scene in terminator 2 where all the dispersed pieces of the t-1000 melt and start glopping together to form one big surge…
I moved from the upper Midwest to Appalachian eastern Kentucky in 1994 and it woke up my faith life. So I say Amen and Amen! to this article. I have to give a shout-out to my parish, St. Martha in Prestonsburg, KY, a very special parish much beloved even by visitors. And Marguerite, you are not correct. Our radical charity to the poor without insisting they be members of our church is a unique witness here, unlike any other. SCOTUS makes that illegal next year but we’re talking about second collections for bail money, holding Mass in the parking lot when the federales chain and padlock the doors…we’re all on board for the heroic witness that is coming our way…it is the capstone Beatitude! PTL!!!
I agree with your general assessment of the South. However, there are pockets in the South, such as in one of the great southern cities, New Orleans, where Catholicism has been well entrenched for centuries.
Great Article! God sent me to Tennessee in 2011. I was born and raised in California and at age 56 after my husband dying and needing to relocate to a state that was cheaper and one that would house my Alpacas well, I kept getting the sign from God to come to the South and specifically Tennessee. I had visted some of the Southern States years ago when I was a travel agent on some of the River Cruises. It’s a LONG way from home and moving with no family or friends but I can see why God has me here! Especially since I am a convert to the Catholic Faith and was Raised a Baptist!!!
Amen..Amen…Praise God
Quit bashing the South!! I came here in 1968, a graduate of a northern Catholic High School and went to SELMA AL. As a 17 year old, I never once felt the repression or discrimination just because I openly said I was Catholic.
A history of times long ago left a scar on the South; however, even the strongest proponents of anti-Catholicism do not act rude, lynch anyone, disrespect them, or pretend they don’t exist. How about framing the New Evangelism (especially in relation to the South) as an expression of the Gospel going forth—hey, EWTN is in BIRMINGHAM AL. The AVE MARIE GROTTO is in CULLMAN AL.
My father passed away in 1955 but my mother continued his regular giving to the Redemptionist Mission in Selma. I still believe it is off of Broad Street (Main street in town). Many small towns have a mission or a church. I was married in Demopolis AL in 1970 by a wonderful Irish priest (St Leo’s Church). We even had Pre-Cana meetings!!!
Now, I am no longer a professing Catholic but a Baptist minister (apostasy?) No and any reasonable and knowledgeable non-Catholic minister will hold his tongue as to Catholic differences. So, loosen up and go pick on the real culprits to your work—your wayward members.
This is a great article. The point about there being fewer nominal Catholics in the south is spot on in my experience. I’m from the north east and while I met individual Catholics there who were happily devout I was hard pressed to find a parish full of them. It was a vibrant, reverent Catholic Church in rural Kentucky (with a spit fire octogenarian priest) that showed me how robust Catholicism can be, and I came into the Church there as a result (God bless St. Luke’s!).
Through EWTN, the spirit of the South is now invading the world. Thank you for this great history lesson.
Ah, North Carolina and the South You do realize North Carolina has had a huge population shift of Northerners and Hi-Tech professionals moving there from other states who are already Catholic. It would be expected parishes and dioceses would then see an increase.
I think if you read Flannery O’Connor you’ll get it.Folks in the South may not be predominantly Catholic, but “Christ is still in the conversation” here.People aren’t ashamed of faith.
Prayers has also been a big factor, and the fact that the Tridentine Mass has came back in the South. It would have been great to see the statistics on that.
For NC, fr. Price has been the pioneer to evangelization, Whose motto was ” Every Tar Heel a Catholic”, followed by his excellency the good bishop Vincent Waters who had the same vision.
We pray that our Bishops in the South encourage more young strong faithful men to become priests who will revive our Catholic Tradition and devotions. We need also nuns in full habit teaching our children and encouraging our daughters to become faithfull and dedicated bride of Christ.
Fr. Price pray on our behalf.
As the Marketing Director at Aquinas College in Nashville Tenn, I can tell you first hand that the South is rising again, in both its spiritual and educational dimensions. It’s refreshing to read an article that touts that fact.
God bless,
Ron
Marguerite’s post has some validity. I went to Sunday mass recently in a church in Mississippi and it could have been any protestant Holy Communion service. Also went to a daily mass in Texas and that too was even less than what a good liturgical mass in an Episcopal church was.That said, I am overjoyed that Catholicism is making in-roads into all areas of the South. Incidently, I grew up in a Catholic parish in Mississippi-I am now 64 years old- and never experienced any form of hatred or discrimanation against me from my protestant side of the family or from anyone in our community.
Thank you very much for this article. I’m glad to be a friend of Miss Billie Mobley. The article is a good summary of the Catholic experience in the South but as an article must by its nature be incomplete. The Church has had a long history in the South as long as the North’s history with the Church of course if not longer considering the Spanish and French influence in Florida, Louisiana and the Mississippi.
It was the much greater immigration that the North underwent that gave the North a different history in relation to the Church. During its early days, prior to Irish and Italian immigration, the North was heavily Protestant and virulently anti-Catholic. It was in the North that the anti-Catholic Know Nothing Party flourished. Further it was in the North that saw the burning of churches, convents and Catholic schools. In the South the Catholic churches, convents or schools that were burned were primarily by Northern invaders. Additionally the Republican Party during its early days was anti-Catholic. During that period it ran against ‘Rum, Romanism and Rebellion’. This is not to say that there has not been any tension between differing Southern Christians but merely to point out that historically and even today there continues to be anti-Catholic hostility (mostly by secularists) in the North today.
Again allow this native Southerner and Catholic convert to thank you for the excellent article.
Posted by Marguerite on Monday, Jul 2, 2012 7:23 AM (EST):The reason Catholic churches are starting to thrive in the South is because they are basically indistinguishable from Protestant ones except for the Canon of the Mass.”
Marguerite is spot on here. Many young and/or contemporary American Catholics seem to be more Evangelical than Catholic. In fact, I would argue that we are losing an authentic Catholic culture to the ubiquitous influence of Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. This results in the formation of basically Evangelical Christians with some Catholic externals. The “Praise and worship” music, the “Jesus, we just ask you..” language of a lot of prayer heard in youth groups and elsewhere, the “me and Jesus” spirituality expressed by many Catholics supports this. All of this comes from a forgetfulness or ignorance of the essentially ecclesial,sacramental and liturgical nature of the Catholic tradition, which is being replaced with personalism, biblicism, and a persistent demand for novelty like that which marks non-denominational worship. All if this, of course, is creating a theology,culture,and worldview that is at its heart Evangelical rather than Catholic.
@Geo, much of your comments concerning the state of Catholicism lays blame at the infiltration of Protestant Evangelicalism into the Catholic church. I do hope you are not part of the new and growing segment of rabid Catholics who call Vatican II, John XXIII and every pope since apostate and traitorous. Since when does Jesus express His own preference of the Novus Ordo or Latin? You are doing what church leaders did to Jesus in His time. He dealt with them in Mark, Chapter 7.
This is SO true! My husband is active duty Coast Guard and we recently transfered to St. Louis. We are originally from Texas and our Parish there is flourishing and vibrant!!! In St. Louis there is a Catholic church on most corners and the parish in our neighborhood is lukewarm. Maybe God put us here to help change that!
The Holy Spirit is at work. in the end, everyone will be Catholic because Catholicism is the one religion begun by Christ Himself.
I guess I made the first comment, so here goes another after reading all those that followed. I have traveled extensively within our United States and enjoy attending Mass wherever I go. It gives me a great sense of the universality of the Church when, wherever I go, the liturgy is the same. Surely, there is gracious Southern hospitality when I attend Mass in Athens, or in Atlanta, or in Rock Hill, or in Raleigh, or in Asheville, or in Charleston. That is a given in our South, but the liturgy is faithful and constant wherever we go. The Lord is present in His Word and in the Eucharist, but also in the person of the priest and in the People of God there assembled. We are blessed to belong to His Body, the Church. How beautiful on the mountains are those who bring the Good News!
Geo ,
The praise & worship music can be annoying, I agree but it’s hardly a uniquely “Southern” thing.I think it’s something that many young people connect to along their path to a more mature Faith.We’re a universal Church & there’s room for difference of expression as long as we’re faithful to the magisterium.
I think we need to be prudent & discerning when it comes to charismatic/pentecostal worship, but not rigid.And “evangelical” is not a bad thing.If we as Catholics have something good & true, we should share it joyfully.
My personal preference,though, is for Gregorian chant.I wish we could at least mix that back into the Mass.
This article is great news and bears witness to the movement of the Holy Spirit. If one wants to get a sense of how Catholicism was received in the south during the first half of the 2oth century, I recommend Sharon Davies book “Rising Road” It is the true story of the murder of a Catholic priest committed in broad daylight w/witnesses that went unpunished in 1921 Birmingham AL. Probably hard to imagine such a thing today.
Comment back to Robert Sprung - You have left the Body of Christ in the Holy Eucharist - how much more personal of a relationship can anyone have than to partake in this great feast. The Bible comes alive at the Mass. I hope that the Holy Spirit changes your views and that you will become a “revert” and we will see you on EWTN’s “The Journey Home” where many a Protestant pastor have come to realize the truth of Jesus’ One True Church and shared their story; Dr Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins (a revert), Alex Jones, and many others.
@Gwen Brown: Really, haven’t we had enough of your kind of myopia? I had that drilled into me by nuns in Catholic grammar school. What makes you think that Protestant Evangelicals cannot be equally (if not more) devoted to Christ as Lord over their lives as any Catholic?
Posted by Michael on Tuesday, Jul 3, 2012 8:58 AM (EST):This article is great news and bears witness to the movement of the Holy Spirit. If one wants to get a sense of how Catholicism was received in the south during the first half of the 2oth century, I recommend Sharon Davies book “Rising Road” It is the true story of the murder of a Catholic priest committed in broad daylight w/witnesses that went unpunished in 1921 Birmingham AL. Probably hard to imagine such a thing today.
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There was a terrible attack on a priest at the University of Florida back in the 1920’s, too.If you go to the Catholic campus site you can read about it online.
As someone pointed out earlier, though, bad things happened to Catholics up north as well.It’s been a struggle in America since the beginning, but we’ve made huge progress.
I live in the Diocese of Charlotte and can state that we are truly blessed on so many fronts. First, it is undoubtedly the work of the Holy Spirit that brought both the Te Deum Foundation to fruition and brought the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration to establish their new monastary here in western NC. In what was once the least Catholic state in the union, virtually every Catholic Church now in the Diocese is filled to capacity at Masses on Sunday. Hence the need for a seminary and to take care of that need, we have the Te Deum Foundation. Over to the Poor Clares: how refreshing it is to have real sisters in our Diocese who look and act like nuns, are obedient to Church teaching, growing with vocations and most importantly, increasing Eucharistic devotion among the faithful. Again, God is at work and has sent the Poor Clares here to flourish and that they are doing. A number of new churches that have been built or remodeled in recent years (Sacred Heart in Salisbury, Saint Ann in Charlotte, Saint John the Baptist in Tryon) have been built in the traditional style that places the emphasis back where it should be—the Eucharist! The beautiful Tridentine Mass is slowly but surely making a comeback here as it is elsewhere thanks to a new generation of young priests. Thank you Heavenly Father for bestowing such blessings upon us in the Diocese of Charlotte.
WVW: It gave me the greatest sense of the universality of the Church before the Second Vatican Council when I visited many other nations as part of my military career. No matter where I went in the world, the Mass was exactly the same. That is no longer true, and I think universality has greatly suffered because of it. When I go to different parishes now in the same city, the Mass is not always exactly the same. You have been very fortunate in your travels in thr U.S. How you would fare in other countries is probably another story.
Well, I attend Mass at St. Mary Parish and Shrine in Wilmington, NC, where Fr. Price co-founded the Maryknoll Missionaries. A convert himself, he worked tirelessly to spread Catholicism through North Carolina and then the world. We love our nothern retiree and hispanic immigrant brothers and sisters who continuously enrich our Southern Catholicism with their rich cultural heritages. We never had “Neighborhood” parishes, so we made our own “family” from all who come to worship the Lord in the Eucharist. 2000 years of Worship, history and tradition, based in the Eucharist and the Bible are a blessing in the South!
To Bob: I lived in Germany for three years and traveled extensively on the Continent. I participated in liturgies all over in in many languages—German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Norwegen, and on base in English, to name a few. Indeed, the Mass is the same everywhere—the Lord is present in His Word, in the Eucharist, in the celebrant, and in the people. The Church is truly universal. And those experiences really brought that concept home.
Recently I have attended many Masses in Florida with Indian and African priests presiding. Again, the liturgy and the homilies are universal. The Spirit has worked everywhere to make this happen. On this Feast of St. Thomas, we are especially thankful for his work to establish the Faith in India, where it thrives today in a country that is overwhelmingly Hindu.
To Gwen Brown. Jesus is the way and the truth. As a lifelong catholic who was educated in catholic schools, I do not claim that the catholic church is the one true church because I have found God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to be present in my local Lutheran and Anglican churches. It may be your faith truth that catholicism provides the “fullness of truth” for you, but I suggest that it is not “the absolute truth.” Christian unity discussion is cut-off when a person says that their denomination is the “only one” and others need to come to that conclusion.
Back in 1980 or 81 we went to visit friends in Mississippi and when we ask about were to go to church we were told that a circuit riding priest, he would go from town to town an say several Mass’s in one day, would be in town an would be saying mass in a store front church. Will the 6 of us show up and we doubled the attendance. We were greeted very warmly an when we told them we were visiting they were disappointed as they were hoping we were moving to the area.
When I was in the service my VP Squadron was deployed to Rota, Spain in 1965 an I went to Midnight Mass on Christmas eve to a Spanish Church in town. Back then the Mass was said in Latin and being a former alter boy I could follow it. The only trouble was the sermon was in Spanish.
I’m glad to see the gospel flourishing through any of the paths, Catholic or Protestant, that the Lord has provided for the redemption of the highest number of people. I grew up Baptist in Mississippi and never heard that Catholicism was a non Christian mystery religion, nor was ever aware of any particular prejudice against Catholics, nor ever witnessed any bias against Catholics. Maybe it’s because our neighbor Louisiana is heavily Catholic. There are many blended families who jokingly refer to themselves as “batholic” all over the gulf region and many children grow up going to either the Baptist or Catholic church depending on which set of grandparents they are with that weekend!
WVW: I am glad to know that your experiences have been so rewarding. We must be from different worlds. I come from the world before the Second Vatican Council when the Eucharist and sacred vessels were handled only by consecrated hands. Belief in the Real Presence was near perfect, and you could tell by their reverence at Mass that everyone seemed to know God was indeed there. I am totally committed to the Magisterium and the church is indeed universal, but the Lord doesn’t seem to be in all people after the council like it did before.
The last trip I made out of the country was in 1984 when I visited Rome and Fatima where I assure you the faith was doing quite well there. I don’t know about other countries, but in our nation, I can believe the estimate that only 25 percent still believe in the Real Presence. You can tell from the way they act and how some are dressed that they couldn’t possible believe God was indeed there. This is the tragedy of VCII, that seems to have happened because the Eucharist and sacred vessels have been contaminated by unconsecrated hands. How can we ever regain universal acceptance of belief in the Real Presence the most important element in our faith? That cause me to grieve for what we have lost.
“The reason Catholic churches are starting to thrive in the South is because they are basically indistinguishable from Protestant ones except for the Canon of the Mass.”
I’ve belonged to Fr. Newman’s parish since I was a kid. The many Protestant converts at St. Mary’s would absolutely disagree with this assessment.
In 1959, I married a Midshipman (Annapolis) from Decatur, GA. He was Presbyterian, I, a cradle Catholic from NY. His father died on our 3rd anniversary - I flew from Rhode Island to GA w/a year old baby, to stay with his grieving Mother for 3 months while he was at sea.
I was 21, did not really know my Mother-in-Law that well but thought our presence would be a possible distraction from her sorrow.
My first day there, the woman turned to me and said, “My husband and I would rather our son had turned over the 6th fleet to the Russians, than to marry a Catholic - and a Yankee at that”. My first and only experience with such bitterness because of my faith. It stung and I was stunned…and I thank God for my continued faith.
In 1959 I married a Presbyterian Midshipman (Annapolis)met while attending a Catholic college in Washington, DC. He was from Georgia, I was from NY. 3 yrs. later his Father died; I flew from RI to GA with a year old baby to stay with his grieving Mother at her request. I believed we would be a distraction from her sorrow. (Her son was on a tour of duty). My 1st day there, his Mother said to me, ‘We would rather our son had turned over the 6th Fleet to the Russians than to have married a Catholic - and a Yankee at that’. It stung and I was shocked; the first and only hateful comment about Catholicism I’d heard was from a Southerner. I do think people like her were few and far between - but I was 21 yrs. old and her hatred of my faith remained with me until the day she died.
smogdew ,
I’m sorry for your experience.All I can say, as a fellow Southerner, is that your mother-in-law forgot her manners that day.
That’s good to hear that Catholicism is spreading to what has long been an evangelical enclave long isolated from religious diversity. Many Catholics in Catholic areas do take for granted their religion, become lukewarm, and never develop the skills to defend and explain Catholic Christianity to others…because they’ve never had to. Many Protestant Churches actively teach their congregations how to evangelize others, in particular Catholics, to their faith. Catholics on the other hand focus more on worshipping than on evangelizing on Sundays. Our message should be “this is what we believe and the door is always open,” rather than the kind of ignorant, condescending, and aggressive evangelization waged “against” Catholics by many Protestants. People need to understand and respect religious differences, and take a more positive approach to evangelization - whatever their affiliation may be.
47 messages in and NOBODY has posted this?
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“The Catholic . . . in the South will see many distorted images of Christ, but he will certainly feel that a distorted image of Christ is better than no image at all. I think he will feel a good deal more kinship with backwoods prophets and shouting fundamentalists than he will with those politer elements for whom the supernatural is an embarrassment and for whom religion has become a department of sociology or culture or personality development.” - Flannery O’Connor
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As a Catholic who has lived his entire life in the South, she’s exactly right. I would never have found Jesus if it weren’t for those friendly folks at Campus Crusade for Christ when I was in college at a major southern university. (Learned a lot about St. Paul’s epistles also—EVERY Catholic should read them, they aren’t very long. “Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ” - St. Jerome) Although it is a public school, the student body is surprisingly devout and the gospel is openly discussed on campus. My evangelical roommate taught me more about Jesus and scripture than all the years of CCD and Catholic school.
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When my “Bible Study” kept spinning their wheels trying to figure out on John 6, I saw the deficiencies in Evangelical Protestantism. They do, indeed, have a distorted image of Christ. But it is better than no image at all.
When I was a young Catholic, I don’t ever remember the Church requiring Bible study or Bible reading at home - nothing The 1st and 2nd reading plus the Gospel - all read at Sunday Mass was about it for the Good Book. We had our CCD programs, the 10 Commandments upon which the church elaborated and expounded; in college - Maryology, theology, philosophy.
A piano student, I had to receive permission from my priest to attend my recital at a local Presbyterian Church-we were not allowed in non-Catholic churches. This was the late 50s.
Somewhere between then and now, the Church realized (possibly/probably) most non-Catholic church goers were proficient at quoting the Bible and it brought them closer as ‘religious friends’ - Perhaps it was Vatican II that realized how little we were actually receiving of Christ’s word. Once they (Vatican et al) gave us the Go sign, Catholics went out and bought Bibles (many did not even have Bibles in their home) and started reading them and learned the church had biblical scholars who would interpret whatever questions we had. (It wasn’t as if we could interpret the Bible for ourselves - too many different/incorrect interpretations - and we gladly accepted the guidance.
It is the Bible that gives Catholics and non-Catholics a common ground in the South….there will always be difference but they are miniscule and interesting topics for discussion.
To this day, however, I will never be in the same league as my non-Catholic friends in my Biblical knowledge - and I am sorry (for me) that I am not - especially when I realize all I have missed.
Posted by JD on Sunday, Jul 8, 2012 6:27 AM (EST):47 messages in and NOBODY has posted this?”
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I paraphrased it, thank you for posting it:
Posted by Kathleen on Monday, Jul 2, 2012 2:39 PM (EST):I think if you read Flannery O’Connor you’ll get it.Folks in the South may not be predominantly Catholic, but “Christ is still in the conversation” here.People aren’t ashamed of faith.
SOOO true coming from a small town in Georgia that has no Catholic church ,I am now a Catholic and am truely home and tell everyone I can about the church Jesus founded,so many people do not even know why they belong to there denomination except ther parents went there,well I was the same way until I studied and did alot of reading and found out the truth formyself I am truly home.
@shirley kersey who comments re Protestants: [“I am now a Catholic and am truely home and tell everyone I can about the church Jesus founded,so many people do not even know why they belong to their denomination except ther parents went there.”] This comment reminds me of my parish priest who once commented in his homily: “I am Catholic because my parents were Catholic and they raised me to be Catholic.”
Re “I am Catholic because my parents were Catholic and they raised me to be a Catholic” would applied to me. But then I set out to investigate my faith and realized that the “the Truth” did resided in the “One Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church.” I have never wavered no matter the scandals, the harm the progressive Catholics do nor whatever the Lord will allow Satan to work against his Faithful flock. His grace and promise to his “Rock” Peter and my freewill to choose to believe in this universal church has never wavered. I thank God everyday for this grace because there is no way I would have persevered of my own strength.
To God be the glory, in Jesus’ name, more power to your efforts. Godspeed as we KJOH (Keep Jesus in our Hearts).
I must be living in the wrong part of the south. In my little area of Arkansas Catholics are as rare as rain in the desert. I have even had protestants ask me if Catholics believe in the New Testament! Moving down here from Catholic heavey Chicago has been a real eye opener!
Sounds like a lot of false hope - as usual, the ‘growth’ is mostly because of a wave of immigrants and rootless cosmopolitan ‘Catholics’. Of course there are some converts, but urban NC already is starting to get the reputation as a liberal yankee invaded madhouse.
Many protestants are realizing that Catholic doctrine is actually very conservative. The RC church’s official positions on divorce, fornication, same sex amrriage, birth control, and euthanasia are in fact more conservative that virtually all main line Protestant denominations and, despite some foolish and even bad leaders in our 2,000 year history, the teachings have never changed. The church always snaps back from the decisions of poor leaders because, unlike Protestant denominations, it is protected by the Holy Spirit. Plus, the Bible was compiled and preserved by the Catholic Church. I love bringing up these issues with my Protestant friends. It’s our job to evangelize.
@New Yorker: [“because, unlike Protestant denominations, it is protected by the Holy Spirit.”] How very uppity and Yankee of you. I didn’t know the Holy Spirit does not exist in the lives of conservative Baptists and Evangelicals. [“I love bringing up these issues with my Protestant friends. It’s our job to evangelize.”] You call this evangelism ? ? ?
Casting Crowns, certainly there are great Christians in the Protestant world. That’s not at all the issue. What I said was that the doctrines are not protected and subject to change by men. I say that because there are so many main line deominations that are now promulgating divorce, same sex marriage, artifical contraception, and, yes, even abortion. During the reformation in the 1500’s every main line Christian denomination was in lock step on these issues and now, most have drifted far away because they are more influenced by the secular world then by the Holy Spirit. And, what is wrong with discussing these issues politley? If the apostles worried about offending the pagans, we wouldn’t have any Christian churches. I have to say the devout Protestant has excellent knowledge of the Bible, much better then the average Catholic. But, they are not strong on history.
open your hearts to the truth about the historic church you find out about the miss consception the protestant minister have been telling you and sometime they dont know. god bless ps be not afraid to go too RCIA CLASSES IN SEPTEMBER . IBELIEVE THEY PRETTY MUCH START THE SAME TIME, WE WILL PRAY FOR YOU
I’d have to say that for all parties involved, the most dangerous thing is ignorance of one another’s faiths. We are fortunate to live in times when people can more easily see for themselves (via the internet) what various Christian traditions (including we Catholics) believe. However, people today have fewer reasons other than willful ignorance, intellectual laziness, or a desire to feel morally superior towards others to continue to presume the worst out of one another’s belief systems as Christians, or what is worse, to pass eternal judgment in one’s mind on one another purely on the basis of what “brand” of Christianity one is. It would be frightening if God were so shallow - He isn’t.
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