Bible-Belt Catholics

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If Hispanic Catholics find affirmation in the South, Northerners often experience a transformation. Dianne Rider, 45, was a doctrinal moderate when she lived in Yonkers, N.Y. As a parishioner at St. Mark, she is a strict adherent to Vatican instruction. One reason: in a region where the first question you're asked when you meet someone is often "What church do you attend?," Rider is in constant contact with Evangelicals and other Protestants who are still mystified by Catholics and frequently "call us onto the carpet to explain what we believe. It has helped take me back to the basics of my faith." Says the Rev. Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, less than two hours south in Greenville, S.C.: "Here you're not Catholic because your parents came from Italy or Slovakia. It's because you believe what the church teaches you is absolutely true."

Such evangelical Catholicism, as Newman calls it, also lends itself to Southern-fried flavors like more exuberant hymn singing, intense Bible study, spirited preaching and what Evangelicals call witnessing--personal and public professions of faith usually foreign to the more philosophical, communal and inward Catholic style. Some church observers say this trend, while ecumenical, could undermine the "intellectual heritage" of the faith, says the Rev. Kevin Wildes, president of Loyola University New Orleans, which in 2002 opened the Center for the Study of Catholics in the South. "The question is whether Catholicism in the South simply becomes another form of evangelical Fundamentalism with incense."

Yet for a church that has suffered so many setbacks in recent years, it's hard to argue with such success. Southern dioceses like Charlotte not only boast some of the highest numbers of priestly ordinations in the U.S.; they're also a magnet for new clergy from the North. The current generation of U.S. Catholic seminarians, weaned on the strict dogma of Pope John Paul II, is more conservative than its predecessors who came of age in the 1960s and '70s in the wake of Vatican II. Many, like the new parochial vicar at St. Mark, the Rev. Timothy Reid, 34, an Indiana native, are drawn to the more orthodox spirit they see in Southern pews. Says Reid: "Here it's more vibrant because we're creating a Catholic culture almost from scratch."

It is a culture that is also attracting religious outsiders. Southern Catholics say their real strength is not in the influx of co-believers coming into the region but in the rising number of native converts. In an area where many consider Catholics idolaters, the adult catechumen class at St. Mary's in Greenville, site of conservative Protestant Bob Jones University, has leapt to more than 60 members from a minuscule number a few years ago, according to Newman, who converted from Protestantism in 1982. Beth Burgess, 42, a lifelong Presbyterian, is converting despite the open disapproval of her parents. She feels she needs a deeper "historical perspective of faith," a sense of what the Catholic Church's "1st century fathers believed." She may end up playing a larger role than she imagined in how 21st century Catholics believe. --With reporting by Maggie Sieger/Houston and Constance E. Richards/ Greenville