Posted on 05/09/2013 7:45:12 AM PDT by marshmallow
Dixie Catholics credit the strong Southern sense of community, and dialogue with faithful Protestants, with helping to power the Church’s growth there.
LINDEN, Va. — In the waves of turbulence that rippled throughout the Catholic Church in the 1970s, the nuns of St. Dominic’s Monastery found themselves forced to leave their longtime home in Wisconsin in search of a new one.
The nuns moved to a temporary residence in Washington, D.C., while looking for a permanent setting conducive to the cloistered, contemplative life they sought to lead. It would be more than two decades before they found one. When they did, it was what may seem a most unlikely place: the rural northeast of Virginia, considered one of the Protestant Bible Belt states of the South.
The story of St. Dominic’s Monastery’s southern move may be the story of U.S. Catholicism. New data shows that some of the fastest growing dioceses in the country are deep in the U.S. South.
The third fastest developing diocese is Atlanta, which saw the number of registered parishioners explode from nearly 322,000 in 2002 to one million in 2012 — an increase of more than twofold, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Atlanta also has the largest Eucharistic Congress in the country, with an annual attendance of about 30,000, according to an archdiocesan official.
Atlanta is not alone. Charleston has seen a 50% increase in parishioners over the last decade. Charlotte grew by a third, as did Little Rock. The Diocese of Knoxville, established just 25 years ago, is now the 25th fastest growing in the nation — and would rank near the top if those official figures counted as many as 60,000 unregistered Hispanic congregants, according to a diocesan official.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
The real problem is Catholics eagerly voting democrat, they didn’t choose Clinton and Clinton, and Al Gore, and Obama and Obama, because the GOP was LESS pro-life and conservative than those democrats.
As far as California, after several posts, you seem to have the same view of Catholics voting democrat here as voting for democrat presidents.
It is strange to be running into such strong pro-democrat arguments on freerepublic.
Catholics voting pro-abortion democrat, is a problem, not a wonderful thing to be defended.
In my world, the fact that the majority of non-catholic Christians vote against the officially pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-God democrats is a good thing.
the fact that most Catholic Christians vote FOR the officially pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-God democrats is a bad thing, and costs us not only elections, but moves both parties and the nation left.
Catholics grow in numbers because the democrat party wrote a law to import them by the tens of millions, which replaces the whites leaving the denomination.
Why would a person be happy at the growing power of the anti-God left, because of Catholic immigration?
What is the end game here?
How much better was Dubya than Gore and Kerry? What changed between Clinton's watch and Dubya's?
No bimbos in the Oval Office? What else? Bush blew out the deficit?
Wow!
You really mean all your posts on this thread.
Even on FR, the democrats and democratic voters have determined support.
Tis true...What these Catholics apparently don't realize is that their religion is not growing...These additional numbers are just transplant illegal Catholics from Mexico...They not only will bleed the U.S. taxpayers dry, they'll drain the U.S. Catholic religion dry...
And like you said, many of these illegals are moving to non Catholic churches but there is still enough of a net increase in the Catholic religion that it's a positive on their membership books...
Really??? I know former Catholics who quit your religion years ago and they still get mail showing them as members of your religion...
Might be the same as most Catholics...How many kids are in your immediate family???
That answer differs from country to country. The average Catholic family in the USA is not statistically much larger than the American national average. This trend highlights the fact that many American Catholics are ignoring the Pope's edicts on birth control and many more are now practicing the church-sanction family planning practices which includes ovulation monitoring (avoiding sex during ovulation periods). In many other nations, the average family size for Catholics can run between 4 and 7 children.
So, the Catholic religion, U.S. does no better the the Protestant religions and the general public combined...Maybe you ought to get that giant plank out of your eye...
Like White Southerners, only maybe not as much.
It isn't white American Catholics colonizing America, it is Catholics from more pure, Roman Catholic nations.
Well, first of all it sounds like your gripe is with Hispanics or Latinos and you just don't want to put it that way.
Secondly, are those countries really "more pure, Roman Catholic" nations?
There's always been plenty of tension between the Catholic Church and folk religious practices whether of native American or African origin -- and there are plenty of converts to Protestantism or Pentecostalism among recent immigrants.
Also, consider Asian immigrants, who aren't exactly flocking to the Republicans lately either.
“Why would a person be happy at the growing power of the anti-God left, because of Catholic immigration?”
As I keep pointing out, Protestants are more universally guilty of the anti-Godlessness that you keep smearing Catholics with. You appear to think that baby-murder is ok as long as people vote a certain way. You seem more concerned with politics as opposed to the daily murder Protestants are committing. For goodness sake man, pull the log out of your eye. Yes, there are bad Catholics. That doesn’t make Protestants any less guilty of murder.
If Protestants would stop their rebellion against God and practice real “pro-life” policies in their personal lives, the South would not have a demographic issue with Catholics. That’s not the Democrat’s or Mexican’s fault. That is the fault of people who murder their babies with pills and condoms no matter what their religion.
Yeah, Catholics vote democrat, and don’t use the left’s argument that immigration is about race, I hope that you are a pro-life conservative who cares about our future and what immigration is doing to destroy it.
And yes, an almost purely Catholic nation founded by Catholics, run by Catholics, manned and populated by Catholics, and where non-catholic voters have always been a tiny minority, that until recently was like 96% Catholic, and is still more than 77% Catholic, is a more purely Catholic nation than the US.
I assumed your comparison about "more pure Catholic nations" was between today's immigrant sources, say, Mexico, Peru, and the Dominican Republic on the one hand and yesterday's immigrant countries, like Ireland, Italy, Germany, and Poland on the other, and not to the United States, which, given the large Protestant population is obviously less Catholic than any of the others. The other question -- whether today's Mexico is really more Catholic than Italy a century ago -- is harder to answer.
If you're a hold out against attitudes that have become common in many different parts of the world, good for you. Chances are you're more right than wrong. I can't see stigmatizing as "Catholic" attitudes that are common to people of various religions in certain parts of the world. West Coasters, Northeasterners, Europeans tend to think in similar ways, regardless of their religion. Catholic versus Protestant isn't as important a determinant as other factors.
But of course, none of this is going to convince you of anything.
And what about those Asian-American Democrats?
You seem to just want to rant about religion and people who aren’t Catholic, rather than voting and our pro-life struggle against the anti-God leftist, democrat party in America.
But yes, in a democracy, voting against abortion does more to make it illegal, than voting for it and the party that officially promotes it as part of their political platform.
And yes, the Immigration Act of 1965 is the fault of the democrats, and the issue is Mexican immigration and the resulting democrat vote.
There is no sin that is beyond God's ability to forgive. Studies show that many, many lapsed and apostatized Catholics reconcile with the Church before death......in other words, we'll keep a light on for ya.
Man, that was all over the place and off the subject, and no one is dumping on “other people’s religion”, unless you mean the anti-Protestant stuff on the thread, where people don’t care about the politics or the democrats winning elections, but want to say strange angry things as we have seen in some of these posts.
Well put.
—— Thank the Lord and St. Barbara it was never “wreckovated!” -——
I’m getting the feeling that the architectural assault on the Church has finally come to an end. Our new parish church is pretty decent, considering the budget. And l know of one classical, turn-of-the-century church in MA, near Boston, that has been restored.
—— Isn’t anybody here concerned that so-called “conservative Americans” think all that’s necessary to be pro-life is to be anti-abortion, all the while using artificial birth control to block conception and stifle human life before it begins? -——
I’m concerned, but not very hopeful for them.
It’s an easy sin to rationalize.
Don’t be eager to dismiss good Christians voting AGAINST abortion and to preserve life, in defense of people voting FOR abortion and the entire radical left, anti-God agenda.
It isn’t an easy public posting and participation role to rationalize.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
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