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This is a shameless vanity for which I apologize. I am not HTML friendly. I read an article in this weeks Time Magaziner entitled "Bible-Belt Catholics," which discusses the upsurge in the number of Catholics in the Southern states. The author made one statement which I don't belive is accurate, to-wit: Given how overwhelmingly Protestant the South was in the 20th century, it easy to forget that the Catholic Church - which, to its shame, condoned slavery - was a player there before the Civil War.The author gives no attribution for this statement. I wanted to turn the power of...

Charlotte, Feb. 09, 2005 (CNA) - The Catholic Church in the southern U.S. is flourishing and growing at an impressive rate. But its rebirth in the historical Protestant Bible Belt is not only about numbers in the pews, but the creation of a Catholic culture and a strict adherence to Catholic teachings, says a report by journalist Tim Padgett. Catholics make up about 12 percent of the South’s population. While still quite low, Catholics saw growth of almost 30 percent in the 1990s, compared with less than 10 percent for Baptists, who make up the area’s largest denomination. Reported Padgett....

Eight years ago, a handful of Roman Catholic families in Huntersville, a suburb of Charlotte, N.C., started a new parish. The home of their church, St. Mark, was a bowling alley. Our Lady of the Lanes, as they jokingly called it, was an apt symbol of the scarcity--and supple ingenuity--of Catholics in a region known as the buckle of the Protestant Bible Belt. Soon St. Mark was gaining a family a day. Now its almost 2,800 families hear Mass in a cavernous gymnasium as they await completion of a new church. Among the newcomers is Ben Liuzzo, 54, a financial-services...