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."
Catholics on this forum have attacked the veracity of the Bible, supported Protestant-created higher criticism, and relentlessly pushed evolution and heaped ridicule and scorn on any and everyone who disagrees with it.
Catholics on this forum have also attacked the most conservative region of this country with ethnic slurs (like "Bible-thumper" or "good ole boy" or "Cletus" or "snake-handler") which would do the most depraved new age transgender thing proud.
Hey tonto, if I got anymore to the right I’d run into the Atlantic Ocean. For the vast majority of my life I listened to those fake and fraud good ole boy Bible thumping loudmouths milking their congregation for every cent they can get their hands on, then hopping in their cadillac with some 30 year old bimbo and getting out of town before he got the hell beat out of him the next day. So I definitely know what I’m talking about, and I’m not talking about Billy Graham, who I grew up listening to, or Oral Roberts. There were some good preachers, but the majority who traveled the backroads of the south were shysters, cut and dry.
It is very sad indeed. It was in Mexico that the largest conversion to Christianity was accomplished by God through Our Lady of Guadalupe. But then you have to know history and the revolutions, several of them against the Church and even now the restraints on the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church can still not own land in Mexico and there are many anti-Catholic laws on the books. It does show how intimidated governments are against Christians and especially the Catholic Church. Which, according to Christ is a good sign.
I would also have to ask how many of them were cultural Catholics and how many were participating Catholics. My DIL was one of the former. She was baptized Catholic and received 1st Communion but only went to Midnight Mass at Christmas. She knew little of the faith and thought she had to be whatever her husband was. She was also young and clueless as so many are.
I pray for them, I pray for their souls and I rely on the Divine Mercy of God to convert them. As for me, I just try to live my life as an example.
Hispanic Catholics leave the faith for the same reason anyone else would. IGNORANCE OF THE FAITH. End of story.
I have to know all that simply to point out that the Hispanic Catholics who leave the catholic church for a more bible oriented church think the bible wasn’t used enough in their Catholic services?
I don’t think so.
I don't think so.
For the vast majority of my life I listened to those fake and fraud good ole boy Bible thumping loudmouths milking their congregation for every cent they can get their hands on, then hopping in their cadillac with some 30 year old bimbo and getting out of town before he got the hell beat out of him the next day. So I definitely know what I’m talking about, and I’m not talking about Billy Graham, who I grew up listening to, or Oral Roberts. There were some good preachers, but the majority who traveled the backroads of the south were shysters, cut and dry.
You forgot that because their parents are siblings, their inbred stunted minds can't comprehend the glorious Catholic truth of evolution and higher criticism (unlike illiterate Guatemalan peasants, I suppose)[/sarcasm].
So you're saying that Jefferson Davis would have supported evolution? Considering his position on slavery, you might be right.
Second reason for growth is simple economics here. Our job market is still fairly strong and the recession didn't hit here hard as it did in the early 1980’s. It's a great area to relocate to. That said in this area there is a an increase in churches in Protestant churches as well. My neighbor a Church of GOD minister has started several including one in our neighborhood. The same with my Moms neighbor he is a preacher and formed a church. Churches that do close due to lack of membership usually are not empty long nor are many re-purposed for other uses. Four or five churches within two miles of me have 1800's dates and I'm in a rural area. All are some sect of Baptist.
No sir you definitely do NOT know the totality of Christian life outside the RC compound. I've said this elsewhere and I will say it again, it is gross error to generalize from one's own limited "bad church" experiences to the full spectrum of Christian experience outside your particular denomination. It amount to bearing false witness against your neighbor.
For example, I have Catholic relatives who participated in murder of the unborn. Not theoretically, but really and truly. I have not given in to the temptation to generalize that horrific experience to all Catholics. Are you glad for that?
OTOH, the vast majority of Christian leaders with whom I have had real, personal contact are so completely opposite your stereotype that it amazes me such a stereotype can exist anywhere but in the minds of committed atheists and/or leftists. It's really breathtaking to see such blind prejudice here on FR.
When we go to the Bristol Nascar race we attend Mass at a Catholic church just west of there.
Great little congregation.
Thank you!
I don’t think so, people don’t generally leave their lifetime Catholic denomination, often having practices in two different countries even, for a more intense experience in another Christian denomination, because they had never experienced the Catholic church.
So true.
You are so right. I'm not even chrstian, but the absolute scorn and downright hatred of rural America (especially the South) by Catholics on this forum is unbelievable. They claim to be the ultimate target and antidote to the Left and modernism, but they combine a leftist vocabulary of demonization with internal modernism teachings.
I'll never understand this hatred. Never.
Why would a Catholic go to a NASCAR event? To yell insults at the "good ole boys" and "inbred Bible-thumpers" as they drive past?
No, the Catholics go to watch the races like everyone else. I live just outside of Knoxville. I have both Catholic and Protestant family. You'll see them both engaging in the same recreational and entertainment events. We even went as far as to gather the family together and have reunions and picnics. LOL.
The one family member thrown out of church membership? An elderly uncle who was sick was asked to leave a Primitive Baptist church he was a deacon in, had spend vast time working for, and gave money supporting, and he helped build. Their reasoning? The unmarried woman living with him though not in his bed {along with the woman's brother also living there} caring for him till his death.
The woman was there because she was asked by my aunt to take care of him when she passed. The woman was her family. Needless to say his will got changed.
I have met plenty of Catholics who are servants of Christ. My wife & I have benefited from their ministry even though I am Baptist. GOD called them to be where they are just as he calls others to be where they are. A specific church a specific or multiple gifts and missions. Being Protestant or Catholic doesn't send us to hell nor does Jewish. It just waste a lot of needless effort arguing about it for the most part. Go where GOD calls you to go. Where a person is called to is between them and The Lord. It is not another persons choice to make for them.
While I don't argue with the basic premise that most of the growth among Catholics is through immigrants, whether from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, or Latin America, there is one little thing I'd point out:
Neither do many of us understand these feelings of hate. But they are feelings....only......it’s what people do with the feelings that is troublesome.
LOL From what I’ve seen rather than answers we get obfuscation, change of subject, forced inference, or outright ignored when we ask Biblical questions.
And priests who molest little boys and their superiors who covered for them and shuffled them from diocese to diocese for fresh game are better just how?
Some shyster "preacher" who bilks the flock and has a bimbo is worse than that just how? At least he's with a consenting adult female.
That puts him light years ahead of a priest who took vows of celibacy and broke them in one of the most heinous ways imaginable, and then lifts up those hands in the mass to *consecrate* the eucharist. And then he picks up the hosts and lays them on the unsuspecting parishioners tongues, right in their mouths.
I can imagine the reaction of the congregants should they know what those hands had been doing.
And it's by the grace of God that HE didn't strike them dead for posing as a holy man of God knowing what he had been doing the night, the week, the month before.
What staggering hypocrisy.
Your rants against Protestant preachers fall pretty flat in light of Catholic church history.
LOL Going back even to the 70s I’ve seen a lot of name calling at Nascar races, but never much religious stuff.
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