[Apologetics] Protestant South Becoming a New Catholic Stronghold

[DianneD]

Protestant South Becoming a New Catholic Stronghold (7077)
Dixie Catholics credit the strong Southern sense of  community, and dialogue with faithful Protestants, with helping to power the  Church’s growth there.
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by STEPHEN  BEALE  05/08/2013 

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.
Dioceses like Knoxville stand in stark contrast to former Catholic  strongholds like Boston and Philadelphia where parish consolidations, school  closures, and dwindling priests are the norm.
“Instead of us closing parishes and closing schools, we’re doing the  opposite. We’re in total growth mode,” said Deacon Sean Smith, chancellor for  the Diocese of Knoxville.
When Knoxville was established as a diocese in 1988 it had 37 parishes. It  has since added 14, including four mission parishes. It has also expanded three  parishes, built a new high school, and opened one middle-elementary school.  Meanwhile, the number of parishioners has doubled.
Bountiful Vocations
One telling indicator is vocations to the priesthood. Knoxville expects to  have 23 men in graduate seminary next year. Contrast the Archdiocese of Chicago,  which has 37 times as many parishioners but only three times as many graduate  seminarians next year, at an anticipated enrollment of 70. Boston, which is  nearly 30 times the size of Knoxville, will have 60.
“There’s excitement here in Tennessee and I would say in the Southeast in  general,” Smith said.
That sentiment is shared by the nuns at St. Dominic’s Monastery, who have  found a thriving local Catholic community that boasts nearby Christendom  College as another institutional gem.
“We ourselves are astounded by the depth and beauty of the Catholic culture  and community that surrounds us,” said one nun, permitted to speak only on the  condition of anonymity because of rules governing the cloistered life of the  monastery. “We never felt so loved by the surrounding community.” The Southeast  does not have a monopoly on exponential growth. Among the top 25 high-growth  dioceses, nearly half are in the U.S. Southwest, stretching from Fresno,  California, the second-highest ranking diocese, to Laredo, Texas, the first. But  there, Hispanic immigration is behind most of the growth, according to Mark  Gray, a research associate at the Center  for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
In the Southeast, however, something different is happening. In a region  where churches sit on seemingly every street corner and billboards belt out  Bible verses and calls for repentance, local Catholics say they have found  fertile ground for the renewal of the Church.
“Our Protestant brothers and sisters have done us a great favor. Talking  about faith here in the South is like eating, breathing, and sleeping,” said  Randy Hain, a managing partner at Bell Oaks Executive Search in Atlanta and  co-founder of The Integrated  Catholic Life, an online magazine. “There’s an openness about faith here  which makes it easier to be open about your faith if you’re Catholic.”
Smith, who grew up in Colorado, suggested that it is easier for Northern  Catholics to take their faith for granted because most of their friends belong  to the Church. “It doesn’t really challenge the Catholics there to know their  faith as well or be able to explain it clearly,” added Lisa Wheeler, founder of  Carmel Communications, a Catholic marketing firm in the Atlanta area.
But in the South, where they are a decided minority in predominantly  evangelical Protestant population, Catholics must constantly defend their faith.  As a result, they come to cherish it, Smith said.
Streams of Converts
Dialogue with Protestants has produced a steady stream of Catholic converts,  who now constitute one of the driving forces of growth in the region, Wheeler  said.
When Hain, himself a convert, was received into the Church in 2006, there  were 27 members of his confirmation class. His wife’s class, in the same year,  had 33. At the time, there were 1,900 registered families his parish, St. Peter  Chanel in Roswell, an Atlanta suburb. Now, there are more than 3,000, according  to Hain.
Converts do more than just fill pews: they bring enthusiasm and passion for  their faith with them into the Church, said Hain and Wheeler, a fellow  parishioner at St. Peter Chanel. Such energy is reflected in the breadth of  ministries at the parish, which number more than 60—and that’s not counting the  many independent ministries run by parishioners. The Integrated Catholic  Life is one example of the broad reach of the parish: the other co-founder  of the site is a deacon at St. Peter Chanel. 
Besides converts, transplants are a second source of growth. In Knoxville,  many out-of-state arrivals are known as ‘halfbacks’: people who moved from the  cold North to Florida, only to move half-way back, settling in eastern  Tennessee, where they can enjoy four seasons, without the cold weather, Smith  said. Atlanta has the added allure of being a major transportation hub for  business, Wheeler said. 
Hispanic immigration is still a factor in regional growth, but it is  mentioned more as a secondary contributor than as the leading cause.
Strong Sense of Community
Another potential advantage working favor of the South: a greater sense of  community associated with the predominantly rural character of the region, as  contrasted with the dense urbanization of many Northern states.
The difference between rural and urban dioceses can be measured in terms of  vocations. “I have seen a trend over the last ten years where the most rural  dioceses are tending to generate more seminarians per capita than the major  rural metropolitan dioceses,” said Father Thomas Baima, the vice rector at  Mundelein Seminary in the Chicago area. He says higher-density cities have  greater mobility, meaning young people don’t put down roots and make those  long-lasting connections to parish communities out of which vocations arise.
Every single state in the U.S. South has a lower population density per  square mile than each state along the Boston to D.C. urban corridor, U.S. Census  data shows. At the extreme ends, New Jersey has just over 1,195 residents per  square mile against 56 in Arkansas, as of the 2010 Census. In the middle,  Pennsylvania has nearly 284 residents per square mile while Virginia has just  over 202.
Even a large city like Atlanta is more decentralized. Most of the metro  population is in the suburbs outside city limits, where communities coalesce  around church and school, Hain said.
Lessons for the North
Catholics in the South say their experience holds lessons for their Northern  counterparts. Wheeler says Southern hospitality has also rubbed off on local  Catholics.
“I think that is something that is missing from many parishes in the North,” Wheeler said. She noted that some of her extended relatives in the Northeast  have moved to Protestant churches due to a lack of hospitality in their local  parishes.
Hain believes that if Catholics in other areas were as open about their  faith as Southerners are, there would be a resurgence in the Church.
“Let’s worry less about offending others,” Hain said. “Let’s worry more about  practicing our faith.”
Stephen Beale writes from Providence, Rhode  Island.


Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/protestant-south-becoming-a-new-catholic-stronghold#ixzz2SuMnim8O
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