Posted on 06/15/2014 4:12:26 AM PDT by markomalley
There was the man inspired by the written words of Pope Francis. There was the agnostic professor. And there was the widow of a Baptist preacher.
All of them Tennesseans, and all of them recent converts to one of the world's oldest Christian faiths.
In the South, Catholicism is growing. The Diocese of Knoxville was recently ranked among the top 10 in the nation for its rate of adult conversions.
All Southeast Tennessee Catholic parishes, including Chattanooga's, fall under the umbrella of Knoxville's diocese, one of 195 in the United States. A diocese is a geographic collection of parishes grouped together under the governance of a bishop. And many of the dioceses producing the most converts to the church are right here in the South, according to a recent study by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Rates of Catholicism have always been strong in the Northeast and Midwest. But not in the protestant-heavy South.
So it's no wonder that Catholicism is growing faster here.
Mark Gray, a senior research associate at the Georgetown Center, said marriage is a common driver of Catholicism, as non-Catholics marry Catholics. And in Tennessee, non-Catholics and Catholics are more likely to marry simply because there are not enough Catholics to marry only other Catholics.
In the Volunteer State, about 8 percent of people are Catholic. That compares with 40 percent in Massachusetts and the national average of 24 percent.
"Tennessee is the third-least Catholic state in the country, which is exactly where we would expect these conversions to occur, because that 8 percent are likely marrying non-Catholics," Gray said.
In the Catholic Church, conversion is a commitment. It's more formal and involved than switching from one protestant church to another. And conversion is a commitment to the faith, not necessarily a particular church.
Before joining the church, converts take part in a college-like class that can last from nine months to a year.
"It is a very long program, and it's not something we take lightly, nor do the people becoming Catholic take it lightly," said Marvin Bushman, the director of religious education at Cleveland's St. Therese of Lisieux. "It is a big commitment."
Knoxville Bishop Richard F. Stika said the church is growing from rising minority populations, mainly Hispanics. Knoxville recently established a Vietnamese parish. And this part of the country is attracting more retirees and families, many of whom are Catholic.
"We're a growing Church, both in people who are choosing to become Catholic as well as people moving in from out of town," Stika told the diocesan newspaper, The East Tennessee Catholic.
At St. Therese, Brenda Blevins oversees the Catholic conversion program, called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or RCIA. The Diocese of Knoxville, which includes 47 parishes, receives about 350 adult converts each year through RCIA.
Some come after marrying or dating a Catholic, but Blevins said many of their recent converts were single. And the RCIA program doesn't want people to just marry into the church.
"We want people to be here because they want to be and because they feel a call," she said.
And each convert has his own story. There are the college-age brothers who just joined together. And the widow of a Baptist minister who married a Catholic. Some come from protestant churches; others have never been baptized into any faith.
"I think part of the reason the Catholic Church is growing so much in Southeast Tennessee is because Southeast Tennessee is part of the Bible Belt," Blevins said. "And there are a lot of faithful Christians here."
Polemic? Where does our Lord's words in the Catholic Mass use "polemic"? I've never heard it. I used to watch the T.V. evangelicals use it...but that was a long time ago.
At the Last Supper Jesus did say to the Twelve: "Do this in memory of Me." Without the Church there would have been no handing down of Jesus's life, death and resurrection.
From Wikipedia:
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church that states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error "When, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church."
This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870, but had been defended before that, existing already in medieval theology and being the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation.
According to Catholic theology, there are several concepts important to the understanding of infallible, divine revelation: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Sacred Magisterium.
The infallible teachings of the Pope are part of the Sacred Magisterium, which also consists of ecumenical councils and the "...ordinary and universal magisterium."
In Catholic theology, papal infallibility is one of the channels of the infallibility of the Church. The infallible teachings of the Pope must be based on, or at least not contradict, Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture.
The doctrine of infallibility relies on one of the cornerstones of Catholic dogma: that of Petrine supremacy of the pope, and his authority as the ruling agent who decides what is accepted as formal beliefs in the Roman Catholic Church.
The Church has been around a LOT longer than the 16th century FIRST PROTESTANT defrocked reformer FATHER Martin Luther.
What are Protestants protesting today?
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All argument/discussion aside: God bless you and your family on this Father's Day.
You forget there is what is called the “priesthood of the faithful” as well as ministry priesthood.
So YOU get to decide on what your "honest confession" to him is.
YOU get to commit WHATEVER sin you want and only have to BELIEVE enough and you will be forgiven.
"Lord, I killed a man and I am REALLY, REALLY sorry." Poof, forgiven, no repercussions, no penance, no punishment.
Gee, that's easy. Just believe that you are forgiven NO MATTER WHAT...and you are. Poof.
You can CONTINUE down you path of sin and just have to say: Lord I am REALLY sorry. Poof. Forgiven AGAIN!
So easy to be a Protestant.
So easy to be a Protestant.
Quite apart from the issue of the instrumentality through which sins are forgiven (a sacrament or directly), Catholics continue down their path of labeling the Bible to be primitive mythology that "never actually happened," in effect calling G-d a (chas vechalilah!) liar.
I'd say having that to answer for at judgment pretty much evens out the Protestants' lack of external instrumentality.
If this is really what is in your heart as belief then you really do not understand The Grace of God in Christ. When Salvation comes to one who believes in Him, their want to is changed.
Your red herring stinks to someone who has Christ in them, The Hope of Glory. Aside from your abuse of the fallacy of the undistributed middle, man cannot forgive sin. ONLY God can do that. When God changes the want to, it makes certain behavior abhorrent to the Child of God. I'm surprised that you don't know that. Or perhaps you do and have allowed your mean streak to get the better of your heart toward a fellow Christian.
Confessing to a Priest does not get absolution form sin. Though their is great good in doing so in the belief that this Priest is servant for God's Grace, it is God Who forgives, not the recitation of Hail Mary's or other canticles.
Guilt-ridden former Catholics are the absolute worse Catholic bashers. A rational thinking person would never abandon the precious blood and body of our Lord and Savior. Total ignorance of the faith is the only reason a Catholic would leave the faith. Devout Catholics don’t leave the faith. I have also known many females that were raised Catholic and attended Mass regularly, then had the misfortune of marrying a Catholic-hating good ole boy baptist/pentacostal and were browbeaten to death by the bum until they started going to his Bible-thumping church and “converted” to his faith. The South is full of these types. You’ll go to my church or you’ll not go to any church. Now get me another beer and speak when you’re spoken to!
Yet the reason that Catholic converts to Evangelical churches, is that they are seeking a deeper relationship with their God, not a lessor one.
90% of them give that reason, that seems to disagree with your claim.
Please do post some, I love stories about people coming to Christ.
After I became Catholic I ran into a group of older women who had known me growing up in the Methodist Church. It was a fundraising dinner and I was waiting on them. They asked if I had become Catholic and I said I had and waited for the lecture I thought I was going to get. One woman graciously said, “I am so glad that you have found your faith home.”
I will repeat what I said this morning, the first half of the RCIA process is the inquiry period. It is where they ask questions.
You have to understand that when you are confirmed you agree you believe what the Catholic Church holds to be true and no one wants anyone to do that in ignorance.
Believe me, they ask all the standard “Protestant” questions. I know I did.
Sorry, too cryptic for my old brain. If you’re trying to toss an insult, be more pointed. If you’re trying to retard some of the flames, well then use love. What flavor of beer would you like?
And of course, he is one of the elite who have received it from on high, no doubt.
That kind of thinking disallows the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
Oh come on, the Catholics on this forum have answered every question that has been asked. Maybe not on every thread but you have been on many of them and if you say they haven’t then you need to search the threads or your conscience.
Our faith story begins at the beginning of time when God created the Earth until today. It cannot all be written in one thread on the internet that is why the RCIA process is so long, in some dioceses it goes for 2 years. The Church wants them to know what they are saying yes to, they don’t want blind followers but willing, knowledgeable disciples of Jesus.
I can’t even remember the name of the thread, something like the “Neverending” thread ran for years back about 1999. There were actually more than several people who converted to Catholicism because of them and even more lapsed Catholics who found their way back to the Mass and full Communion with the Church. I think the religion forum was started because of it.
That is not to say that bashers accept the answers but the questions have been answered and they won’t change the answers to make someone happy or agreeable. It is what it is because it is Truth.
I dare you to discuss your theology and see how many non-Catholic Christians agree with every doctrine and tenet, that is why there are so many denominations.
As opposed to whom? A priest hiding behind a screen hearing an anonymous confession? How is HE supposed to be able to discern the heart if we can't even discern our own?
YOU get to commit WHATEVER sin you want and only have to BELIEVE enough and you will be forgiven.
As opposed to *You can commit whatever sin you want and all you have to do is confess to a priest and be absolved and forgiven.* Ted Kennedy and Chavez come to mind....
The Catholic church teaches no different than what non-Catholics are condemned for. They just go through a different means.
"Lord, I killed a man and I am REALLY, REALLY sorry." Poof, forgiven, no repercussions, no penance, no punishment. Gee, that's easy. Just believe that you are forgiven NO MATTER WHAT...and you are. Poof.
Dang straight it's easy. Because that's what forgiveness is all about.
If you have to do penance, you are not forgiven. You are working off a debt owed, paying the penalty yourself. Problem is, we CAN'T pay the penalty for our sin. That's why Jesus had to die.
But you're also mistaken in one other thing. We are not forgiven because we believe we are forgiven. We are forgiven because God promised in His Word that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9), and we know that God cannot lie.
You can CONTINUE down you path of sin and just have to say: Lord I am REALLY sorry. Poof. Forgiven AGAIN!
Nope, because anyone who have been born of God does not sin with impunity. A person who is not born again cannot possibly understand the revulsion one feels about sin. Even when we do it, it is not without consequences. However, eternal separation from God is not one of them. Additionally, God will not allow a child of His to sin with impunity. If one wants to continue to sin, God will chastise them, and discipline by a Father is no fun.
Easy to be a born again believer. Who knows if it's easy to be a Protestant. Some Protestant religions are as bad as Catholicism with their works based religion with it's rules and regulations and legalism.
No insult, just my observation of living the first 58 years of my life in the protestant world of Catholic-hating, of being born and raised in the South, around the Jimmy Swaggart crowd that think the Pope is satan on earth. Not all of my former protestant friends put down Catholics, but the majority did. Good to see Catholicism coming to the land of bbq and hushpuppies.
Guess again.....
Yeah, they’ll just fit right in with all the hating going on.
Some of the most devout Catholics being the worst haters.
I know several of these people, and one of the reasons the majority of them give is that Catholics don’t read the Bible. That is when I know that they surely weren’t paying attention!!!! because the whole Mass is pretty much directly from the Bible!!!!!! Three readings and a Psalm from the Bible, the priest’s words, from the Bible.
Who knows the dynamic and who knows the fruit that will come from it. I know several reverts whose time away from the Church led them to a fuller understanding of the Church and the faith. This isn’t about numbers, it is about Truth and Faith and wanting all the souls that God loves to rest in eternity with their Creator.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. And after all that Southern business you finally show your true colors, and it didn't take long.
"Bible-thumper" and "good ole boy" are used sarcastically by Leftists and deviants as ethno-cultural slurs against conservative rural Southern Protestants. By choosing to use these terms you have once again exposed American Catholicism as the urban, liberal, anti-rural religion it is.
Meanwhile, you think it's just fine for sincere converts to be chased out of the Catholic Church by evolutionists and higher critics. So . . . does this mean Jefferson Davis believed in evolution?
It is strange that among the most religious and devout Hispanic Christians, they missed all that bible centered life when they were attending catholic church and went to another denomination where they say they found it.
“”Latinos are turning not just to Protestantism but to its evangelical strain for a variety of reasons. Above all, Latinos who convert say they want to know God personally, without a priest as a middleman. More than 35% of Hispanics in America call themselves born-again, according to the Pew Forum, and 9 out of 10 evangélicos say a spiritual search drove their conversion. “People are looking for a real experience with God,” says Paredes. That direct experience comes largely from exploring the Bible. “We do the best to preach with the Bible open. When they read the Bible, they find a lot of things they didn’t know before. They may have had religion, but they did not have an experience.”””
Ah, I see. A self-hating redneck.
So, do you suppose your Pope Pius IX would have put up with having such trashy, ignorant, bigoted people in his nice intellectual church?
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