Free Republic

In came Latin, incense and burned books, out went half the parishionersPost-Vatican II North Carolina Catholics seek a spiritual homeReligion scholar Maria Lichtmann felt a strangeness overcome St. Elizabeth of the Hill Country Parish in Boone, North Carolina, four years ago.Fr. Matthew Codd, the then-pastor at St. Elizabeth's, was joined by a group of seminarians who went through the church's theology library and removed books deemed heretical, including those of spiritual writers Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton. The books were later burned, she was told by a parish staff member.Lichtmann, a retired religious studies professor at Appalachian State University, left...