Catholicism in the South growing

Southern Fried Catholicism ^ | 7-22-2011 | Brad Noel

[GenXteacher]

There is some truth in this article. Twenty years ago you scarcely ever met someone who was Catholic down here. Then when the Yankees started coming, that changed- that, and the Mexicans....

[frogjerk]

Thank you Mother Angelica!

[RnMomof7]

You are right... the numbers do not reflect “conversions “ but relocations..just as the number of liberal democrats is increasing.. My guess is that the catholics in the south are no more observant than the ones in the north ..

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Illegal immigrants? Legal immigrants? Relocated Yankees?

Unless these are conversions to Catholicism, why is this significant?

[WayneS]

Catholicism in the South growing

Good. Maybe it can get rid of that annoying kudzu...

;-)

[surroundedbyblue]

“Thank you Mother Angelica!”

You took the words right outta my mouth

[johngrace]

I moved here from the North. I have never seen so many dedicate christians in my life. I am in between two catholic churches from my home which are overflowing. There will be a conservative catholic bible scholars conference
this week.

[ansel12]

The problem for me is that the Catholic vote goes for Democrats, so this is not something that benefits conservatism.

In fact the real fear of conservatives, is that states like Texas go in the direction of the Catholic vote, like California did.

[Salvation]

The migration trends I note above are long-term but just look at the short-term effects below of the recession on mobility for two counties. The top image is for those leaving (red) and coming to (black) the county which includes the city of Cleveland in 2008 (the source is IRS data and the image is generated from Forbes). The bottom image shows the same for the county including the city of Atlanta. As one can see some of Cleveland’s population loss has been Atlanta’s gain (note we do not know the religion of any of the individuals in the IRS data).

In 2001, the Archdiocese of Atlanta had more than 320,000 Catholics, 131 active diocesan priests, and 77 parishes (note in 1991, the Archdiocese had 176,000 Catholics and 65 parishes). Moving a decade ahead, the diocese now has 900,000 Catholics, 141 active diocesan priests, and 87 parishes. Thus, the number of Catholics increased by 181% in the last decade but the number priests only increased by 8% and the number of parishes by 13%. This means the number of Catholics per parish in the Archdiocese has grown from 4,156 in 2001 to 10,345 in 2011. Ten new parishes have been added to accommodate 580,000 additional Catholics. I certainly do not mean to sound critical in any way of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. In fact this Archdiocese is one of the few that has added significant numbers of parishes in recent years. Thus, even where the needs are recognized and growth is occurring, the arch/dioceses doing the most to focus on new construction still tend to be a bit behind the pace of the rapidly changing distribution of the Catholic population in the United States.

[ken21]

that’s true,

unless they are saved as sean hannity.

[Verginius Rufus]

Parts of Louisiana have been Catholic since before the US acquired the area in the Louisiana Purchase. Maryland had a Catholic minority from the beginnings of English colonization there, some of whom later settled in Kentucky. Some Irish and German Catholic immigrants ended up in the South in the mid-19th century (Edgefield, S.C., has a Catholic church that dates to before the War between the States). Of course outside a few areas the proportion of Catholics was very low.

The change isn't just in the last 20 years but goes back decades to the mass migration of people from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. More recently the influx of Hispanics into the South has increased the number of Catholics.

[Campion]

The "Catholic vote" is pretty closely split. If you exclude "Catholics" who don't actually attend church, it breaks pretty clearly in favor of candidates who are pro-life and pro-family.

Notice I said "pro-life and pro-family," not "Republican". I see no reason, as a Catholic, to be particularly enthusiastic about Mitt Romney. "He's less of a communist than Obama" is the closest thing I can give him to an endorsement.

[Campion]

the numbers do not reflect “conversions “ but relocations

The flipside of that is that the closing of parishes and the shrinking of dioceses in the North reflects those same relocations.

But there are certainly conversions, as well.

[ansel12]

Depending on which polls one uses, the Catholic vote has only gone Republican from 3 to 6 times in our history, they aren’t really 50/50, and immigrant Catholics are farther left than white Catholics, and the church is becoming even less white.

The South, or any region becoming more Catholic does not bode well for conservatives.

[ansel12]

I would think that it is mostly immigration, we can’t pretend to not know that literally millions of Catholics are moving to America from Mexico, almost 10% of their population lives here now.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I would think that it is mostly immigration, we can’t pretend to not know that literally millions of Catholics are moving to America from Mexico, almost 10% of their population lives here now.

It's almost 100% immigration, either from the North or from Latin America. The Catholic Church has no interest in converting "trailer trash." They'd lose their rep as "the thinking man's chr*stian church."

[Pyro7480]

[nascarnation]

Papal face palm.
Gotta love it!

[Biggirl]

Love it!