Catholicism in the South: Once a Strange Religion, Now Forging Ahead With Evangelical Fervor

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....

they have been a disappointment to me on a few occasions well, quite frankly, we should not look only to individual members but rather at dogma. There are good Southern Baptists and there is Jimmy Carter. One can't judge SB dogma by Jimmy

have found way to many leaders in the church that are not trustworthy and I think this has spilled over to make me hesitant to trust Priests. -- oh, you'll find dumb priests too, but the beauty is that the priest is just the ministerial priest -- we're all priests and during the mass we have our ONE High Priest, Jesus Christ, present in the Eucharist. It's Him there, at every mass all over the world, presiding.

That weak, fallible tool that is the ministerial priest is just a tool for the High Priest.

Ditto for confession, we are confessing to God, the priest is a tool for this. the priest doesn't forgive the sins, God does and the priest follows.

Melinda, we need to talk.:-)

I’m putting you on my prayer list! Daggum!

This is not the official theology on sacramental confession, but it’s part of how I think of it: IF we think that IHS truly forgives us when we repent, IF we think that His forgiveness more than over-balances our own self-condemnation and the judgments of men, If we realio-trulio thought that through and through, we’d have little difficulty in confessing our sins to one another, much less to some guy in his office or “the box.” [cue scary music.]

So one thing I think I’m doing when I approach confession is that I’m training myself in my belief that the most important thing is not the opinion of men but the Love of God. It’s a version of “put your money where your mouth is.” Leaving aside the sacramental part, it’s just a good discipline. I need to do it more than my current once a month, more or less.

(Also, you get to make GREAT jokes. One priest and I keep promising ourselves we’re going to put up a sign outside his “box” saying, “EXPRESS LANE — 7 sins or fewer only!”)

A young (mainland Chinese) man who was baptized this Easter passed me the other say grinning like an idiot. I said, “Aoxing! What’s up?” He said, “I just made my first confession. It was GREAT!”

A lady I sponsored into “full communion” about 6 years ago was so anxious about her first confession that she asked me to sit with her until she went into the pastor’s office. So we kind of sat there awkwardly the way you do before surgery or something. Then she goes in. Maybe 20 minutes later she comes out smiling. I said, “Well?”

She said, “THAT’s the best weight-loss program EVER!”

IMHO, they both had taken a step deeper into their own faith; they had ACTED on their belief that the Love of God is stronger than their shame and guilt. And they were immediately blessed by the consequent reordering of their priorities.

So, leaving aside the “hafta-gotta” side of it, those Catholics who have had a personal experience of Christ’s love and “know [at least a little] Him whom they have believed” usually experience confession as happy thing.

I went to catholic school for 12 years and we never cracked open the Bible. Studied a lot of catholic encyclicals though. I also went to Catholic school and it was always understood that everything that we read was biblical. You say that "we" never cracked open the bible....who"s "we" ?? if you were interested in learning YOUR religion, perhaps you should have placed it in context and followed up on its history...Catholicism is, of course, the only true Christian religion therefore anything that you read in the bible is of Catholic origin. Your Catholic education should have provided you with an impenetrable force field through which cult or protestant nonsense would be ineffective'

The only real problem I have with the Catholic faith is their error in believing that they have to confess to a priest to keep themselves out of trouble. The Catholics that I know at work have the attitude that they can do anything they want (curse, lie, ect.) and just go confess it tomorrow and it will all be fine. Forgiveness for sin comes with responsibility to not do the

you couldn't be more wrong....Protestants believe that since Jesus died for the remission of all sin, they can act as they please and reccieve forgiveness.... Catholics recognize the redemption qualities of the crucifixion, but also recognize that Jesus said to His apostles, whose sin you shall forgive, they are forgiven, whose sin you shall retain, they are retained. We bvelieve that confession can forgive sin but ONLY WITH THE CONDITION THAT WE REPENT OF THE SIN AND TRY TO NEVER REPEAT IT.....not quite do as you please...

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.