The Strengthening Catholic South

The following comes from the NCR:

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.

Southern Catholic Boom Continues With New Seminary

The following comes from the CNA:

A community of cloistered nuns and a future regional seminary plan to occupy newly purchased property in Cleveland County, North Carolina to serve a flourishing Catholic population.

The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration joined with the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Te Deum Foundation to spend $2.9 million to purchase 484 acres in Mooresboro, which is about 60 miles west of Charlotte.

“Most seminaries only teach how to close parishes, cluster parishes, and how to administer to several parishes in light of dwindling numbers of Catholics,” the foundation said. “Praise be to God that this is not a problem in the South!”

The building plans come amid a shortage of Catholic seminaries in Southern States, the Catholic News Herald reported. At present, seminarians from the Diocese of Charlotte attend seminaries in Maryland, Ohio and Rome.

The Te Deum Foundation website suggested that seminarians for southern dioceses would be “blessed” to be able to stay in their own region. In addition to the necessary academics and formation, they could learn how to approach “the everyday challenges of living in the 'Bible Belt'” as well as how to open parishes and build churches.

The Catholic population in the region is said to be rapidly increasing, as the Diocese of Charlotte expects to reach 120,000 by 2030 – twice its current population.

For their part, the Poor Clares plan to build a permanent monastery for their community, which has lived in a temporary monastery in Charlotte since moving from Ohio in 2010. They emphasized that they plan to build the chapel first.

“We figured if we put the Lord first, do His building first, He will provide for ours,” Mother Dolores Marie, abbess of St. Joseph Monastery, told the Catholic News Herald.

The order plan for a cloister of 40,000 square feet, including interior courtyard space, recreation and prayer ages, an infirmary and a cemetery.

Billie Mobley, the Te Deum Foundation president, said she hopes that a group of bishops from the southeast U.S. will join in support for the seminary project.

The Te Deum Foundation is a non-profit organization that operates separately from the Diocese of Charlotte to support seminarians in their education.

Flannery O'Conner: On Southern Catholic Novelists

"The Catholic novelist in the South will see many distorted images of Christ, but he will certainly feel that a distorted image of Christ is better than no image at all. I think he will feel a good deal more kinship with backwoods prophets and shouting fundamentalists than he will with those politer elements for whom the supernatural is an embarrassment and for whom religion has become a department of sociology or culture or personality development."
                                                             Flannery O'Conner 

A New Cathedral for the South!

The following comes from the CNA:

The Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina plans to build a new 2,000-seat cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge announced Sept.7.

The announcement is a “monumental and historic moment in the life of the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh and the state of North Carolina,” the bishop said.

The proposed cathedral campus is on a 39-acre tract of land adjacent to Western Boulevard and Centennial Parkway. The property is a remnant of 400 acres purchased in 1897 by Fr. Thomas F. Price, the “Tar Heel Apostle” who was the first native North Carolinian to be ordained a Catholic priest. He established an orphanage on the site called the Nazareth Community.

Bishop Burbidge said that the planned cathedral’s name commemorates the name of the chapel Fr. Price established at the site.

“It is fitting that the name of our new cathedral is the Holy Name of Jesus,” he remarked.

The location presently hosts the Catholic Center administration building and a smaller office building.

The diocese has contracted with the Washington, D.C. architect James McCrery to develop the cathedral design and to propose the most effective use for planned additions and other potential developments at the site.

The conceptual design for the cathedral is classical in style. Artistic renderings for the cathedral campus also show a two-story gathering hall and a parking facility that is both above and below ground. Bishop Burbidge said that in additional to being the “mother church of the diocese,” he hopes the campus will become a cultural venue, hosting sacred music concerts and lecture series.

The estimated cost of the cathedral campus is $75 to $90 million. The diocese said the project has received $10 million in pledges from a small group of donors in a short period of time.

The Diocese of Raleigh, which covers 54 eastern counties of North Carolina, said the continuing growth of the Catholic population prompted the need for a new cathedral. Between 2000 and 2010, the Catholic population increased about 42 percent from about 152,493 to 217,125 registered Catholics. The diocese estimates at least another 200,000 Catholics, mostly of Hispanic origin, are not registered with a parish.

The diocese’s current Sacred Heart Cathedral, located two blocks from the State Capitol, only has a seating capacity for 320 people, making it one of the smallest in the country.

After the new cathedral is dedicated, Sacred Heart Church will be “retained and honored” as the first cathedral of the diocese. It will continue to serve as “a vibrant part of the sacramental life of the diocese,” the diocese said.

Bishop Burbidge anticipates that the groundbreaking for the new Cathedral Campus will take place in mid-2013.

The Diocese of Raleigh has created a website for the new cathedral at http://www.holynamecathedralnc.org.

A Different World by Bucky Covington

So I am in a country music mood... I do live in a Country music free zone in NJ. This is a good one from Bucky! It actually reminds me of growing up... more or less! Keep smiling and enjoy the memories!

Servant of God Henrietta Delille of New Orleans declared Venerable

This is great news for the city of New Orleans and for the Church. Soon we may be able to celebrate another kind of Saint from the city of New Orleans! The Sisters of the Holy Family continue Mother Delille's work today in 4 States as well in Central America. The following comes from the CNA:

Benedict XVI has approved the cause for the canonization of a Spanish religious sister and cleared the way for the beatification of eight other individuals. Among others advancing on the road to declared sainthood is Servant of God Henrietta Delille of New Orleans, who was declared to have lived a life of "heroic virtue."

Sixteen new decrees regarding cases of possible saints were approved in the Vatican in a meeting between the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Archbishop Angelo Amato, and Pope Benedict on Saturday morning.

A miracle was approved for the cause Spanish sister Boniface Rodriguez Castro, foundress of the Congregration of the Missionary Servants of St. Joseph. According to Vatican Radio, she showed exemplary humility in her life, continuing to live with dignity and faith even after being sent away from the order she founded in support of working women, bearing the contempt of her fellow sisters and living a life of silence.

She was exonerated and recognized for her holiness only after her death in 1905.

Among the eight candidates now authorized for beatification are three 20th century martyrs: German diocesan priest, Fr. Gerhard Hirschfelder, who died in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau in 1942; Slovenian Luigi Grozde, lay member of the Catholic Action group who was killed "out of hate for the Faith" in 1943; and Bishop Szilard Bogdanffy of Romania who died in jail in 1953.

The single American to be recognized in this most recent round of decrees is Mother Henrietta Delille, foundress of the Louisiana-based Congregation of Sisters of the Holy Family. A free woman of African descent, Venerable Henrietta Delille started the African American congregation in 1842 with the goal of educating the children of slaves and caring for the sick, poor and elderly.

The order carries on the original mission of the foundress today, providing education to youth in more than 20 institutions in the United States and offering care and shelter for the elderly.

According to the order's website, the Sisters of the Holy Family also have a presence internationally in Nigeria and Belize.

Dates for the canonization and beatifications have not been released but will be announced by the Vatican as they are scheduled.

Catholic Hot Spots!

I posted something from Whispers yesterday on Hotlanta and the growing Catholic presence in the Georgia community. Here is more on the Catholic stateside "hotspots" (hat tip to Intentional Disciples):

Detroit/Ann Arbor area:
While the city of Detroit is practically a third world city, southern Michigan is humming with serious, creative Catholics. The starting point here seems to have been the enormous charismatic covenant communities that began in the late 60's. Despite a well publicized break-up in the 80's, many former members of the communities still live in the area. Ave Maria radio, Renewal Ministries, Domino's Pizza, and Sacred Heart seminary are among the premier Catholic Institutions in the area. To give you an idea, one local Ann Arbor parish I visited has two houses of vocational discernment (one for men, one for women) - and it isn't the Newman center.)

Corpus Christi, Texas:
I've written about CC at glowing length here. Here the renewal began about 8 - 9 years ago with the emergence of a series of gifted evangelizers who have been given support and the freedom to be creative by their bishop. Several of the approaches that have had a huge impact are home-grown. This is a heavily Hispanic city but in a very bi-cultural way since many citizens are 3rd and 4th generation Latin immigrants so the divide between Anglos and Spanish speakers is greatly softened. Charismatically flavored evangelizing processes from Puerto Rico and Mexico are part of the mix.

Boise, Idaho:
Renewal began in Boise about 14 years ago when a particular evangelization process (called "the Evangelization Retreat") reached a couple major parishes in the city from a parish in California. Two years later, one of the parishes, Sacred Heart, came looking for help with discernment as the first question that newly awakened Catholics started to ask was "What does God want of me?" So the Called & Gifted process has played a significant role in Boise.

Denver area:
Here the catalyst was the 1993 World Youth Day. In the years since, Archbishop Chaput has invited a number of lay movements and other leaders to the city which has built upon the foundation laid 16 years previously.

(One of the things that I am just beginning to grasp is just how much of a Christian hot spot the Colorado Front Range area is. It isn't just Colorado Springs but the Denver area and the foothills and eastern side of the mountains are also brimming with fascinating Christian initiatives.

For those interested in some serious number crunching on why Catholics leave in the first place and some fascinating insights into the millions of "hidden" spiritual seekers in America, read Looking for God.

Any other areas in the US or elsewhere that you would consider to be a Catholic "hotspot"?

Where is the Church Growing? Hotlanta!

This comes from the Whispers site:

In a recent list of the Stateside church's "hot spots," the archdiocese of Atlanta topped the bunch -- and not just alphabetically, either.

"The diocesan staff are openly disciples," the cite read, "orthodox, wonderfully creative and not driven by fear."

Suffice it to say, the fruit is considerable -- in the heart of the Bible Belt, the North Georgia church has seen a more than fivefold increase in membership over the last two decades, exploding from 150,000 in 1990 to within striking distance of 800,000 today... and -- as if that wasn't enough -- a concurrent increase by half of the diocesan presbyterate (121 in 1990 to 181 today), with eight more priests ordained last weekend... and, what's more still, they can't build or expand the schools quickly enough.

Oh, and -- while we're at it -- over 2,700 adults were received into the local church there over the last year.

If all keeps up -- and by the looks of it, the rate of the rise just keeps accelerating -- it won't be long before a red-bird comes home to Peachtree Street. In the meantime, though, earlier this month the Southeast's second-largest local church (after Miami) hosted another edition of what's become its marquee event: the Eucharistic Congress, which (again) grew by half this year to an estimated attendance of some 30,000 and, in its 14th year, has entered the rarified realm of Stateside Catholicism's largest gatherings alongside Los Angeles' Religious Education Congress (40,000 yearly) and the 100,000-plus who throng to suburban Chicago's Maryville Shrine every 12 December for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

A full state of podcasts from the weekend are up and running and, in its last edition, the local Georgia Bulletin devoted the entire shebang to the weekend-long event -- its closing Eucharist presided over by the patron saint of the press -- so get up to speed....

Meanwhile, in an even more recent development, against his protests, The Wilt has gone a-Twitter.

Happy 75th Birthday Elvis!

Louisiana: The Happiest Place on Earth... well in the USA!

I knew this! If you grew up in Louisiana you already knew this:

People in sunny, outdoorsy states -- Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida -- say they're the happiest Americans, and researchers think they know why.

A new study comparing self-described pleasant feelings with objective measures of good living found these folks generally have reason to feel fine.

The places where people are most likely to report happiness also tend to rate high on studies comparing things like climate, crime rates, air quality and schools.

The happiness ratings were based on a survey of 1.3 million people across the country by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It used data collected over four years that included a question asking people how satisfied they are with their lives.

Economists Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick in England and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., compared the happiness ranking with studies that rated states on a variety of criteria ranging from availability of public land to commuting time to local taxes.

Probably not surprisingly, their report in Friday's edition of the journal Science found the happiest people tend to live in the states that do well in quality-of-life studies.

Yet Oswald says "this is the first objective validation of 'happiness' data," which is something he says economists have been reluctant to use in the past.

"Very loosely, you could say that we prove that happiness data are 'true,' -- such data have genuine objective informational content," he said.

"Moreover," Oswald added, "it is interesting to uncover the pattern of life-satisfaction across one of the world's important nations."

Ranking No. 1 in happiness was Louisiana, home of Dixieland music and Cajun/Creole cooking.

Oswald urged a bit of caution in that ranking, however, noting that part of the happiness survey occurred before Hurricane Katrina struck the state, and part of it took place later. Nevertheless, he said, "We have no explicit reason to think there is a problem" with the ranking.

Rounding out the happy five were Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona.

At the other end of the scale, last in happiness -- is New York state.

As if to illustrate the problem, residents attending a meeting Wednesday in rural Queensbury unleashed their anger and cynicism at a state government they described as corrupt, self-dealing and too quick to increase taxes. It was a tirade that had one lifelong resident saying he was ready to flee "this stinkin' state."

Oswald suggested the long commutes, congestion and high prices around New York City account for some of the unhappiness.

He said he has been asked if the researchers expected that states like New York and California, which ranked 46th, would do so badly in the happiness ranking.

"I am only a little surprised," he said. "Many people think these states would be marvelous places to live in. The problem is that if too many individuals think that way, they move into those states, and the resulting congestion and house prices make it a non-fulfilling prophecy."

Besides being interesting, the state-by-state pattern has scientific value, Oswald explained.

"We wanted to study whether people's feelings of satisfaction with their own lives are reliable, that is, whether they match up to reality -- of sunshine hours, congestion, air quality, etceteras -- in their own state. And they do match."

Oswald and Wu used data from CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System collected from 2005 to 2008. The survey, launched in 1984, collects information on a variety of health measures.

The research was supported by Britain's Economic and Social Research Council.

Catholic Texas

Texas is really growing and the Catholic Church is growing along with the state! The Lone Star State is the place to be. Check this out from Whispers:

On a related note, every top-tier posting on the nation's appointment docket might now be put to bed, but the new vacancy in Texas' capital makes for a significant trio of Lone Star dioceses set to receive new chiefs.

What the three lack in prominence, see, they more than make up for in numbers, with each showing ever-expansive growth over recent years. Bottom line: it's all worth keeping an eye on.

Beyond the Austin church -- its membership doubled since 1990 -- Bishop Edmond Carmody of Corpus Christi (diocesan pop. 400,000, tripled from 1980) reached the retirement age of 75 in March, while the nation's most-Catholic diocese -- the million-plus Brownsville church, where Catholics comprise nearly nine-tenths of the Rio Grande Valley's inhabitants, all told -- likewise looks toward a successor for Bishop Raymundo Peña, who sent his letter over in February.

Its Catholic contingent likewise trebled in size since the 80's, the latter especially portends even more of a boom -- at the close of its first synod in 2007, fully half of the Brownsville fold was reported to be age 25 or younger, a stat one'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else on these shores.

All three fall in the province of Galveston-Houston, home to the American South's first cardinal... himself still awaiting another auxiliary -- or, better still, two -- to help keep after his own charge, all 1.5 million of it.

At mid-decade, Texas' 5 million Catholics overtook Baptists to become the mega-state's largest religious group.

Louisiana's own L'Angelus

This is some cool Cajun music from the family band L'Angelus. Here is a link to their website as well!

Jerry Clower and Marcel Ledbetter!

More from the classic southern comic Jerry Clower!

Jerry Clower and Uncle Percy Ledbetter!

Jerry Clower is too funny! Enjoy!

Aaron Wilburn Comedy

Aaron Wilburn is really a funny guy! I love his Southern humor!

James Longstreet: Confederate General, and Catholic Convert!

I was at Gettysburg just yesterday and would love to spend a week there! I have always been interested in the Civil War and, naturally, in the South! I was very interested to find out that General Longstreet was a Catholic convert! Very cool! Here is the story as I found it at McNamara's Blog:

In the aftermath of the American Civil War, General James Longstreet (1821-1904) became a scapegoat for the South’s woes. He was remembered as the general who argued with Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, the one that befriended Ulysses S Grant (they were actually lifelong friends), and the one became a Republican. He was also the one that became a Catholic. Today marks the day in 1877 that Longstreet was received into the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans. It was Father Abram J. Ryan, known as “the Poet-Priest of the Confederacy,” who was instrumental in his conversion. Ryan’s poems about the “Lost Cause” were longtime standard reading for southern schoolchildren. In 1904, Longstreet’s funeral was conducted by an ex-Confederate soldier named Benjamin Keiley, who was by then the Bishop of Savannah.

Remembering the Battle of Fredericksburg

The Battle of Fredericksburg, fought in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, from December 11 to December 15, 1862, between General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the American Civil War. The Union Army suffered terrible casualties in futile frontal assaults on December 13 against entrenched Confederate defenders on the heights behind the city, bringing to an early end their campaign against the Confederate capital of Richmond.

Comic Relief: Redneck Medical Definitions!

Thanks Uncle Johnny for the laugh!

Little Rock Vocations!

The Holy Spirit continues to do good things in the South! I had to add this news article from CNS on the promising vocational signs coming from Little Rock, Arkansas. We have 2 young men in our own Salesian formation program this year from Arkansas as well:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (CNS) -- The Diocese of Little Rock is emerging from a 41-year priest vocations slump, with 29 seminarians currently studying in seven different schools in the United States, Italy and Mexico. The diocese has not seen numbers that high since 1966, the last full school year before St. John Home Mission Seminary closed in Little Rock. The workload of Msgr. Scott Friend, diocesan vocations director, has increased significantly compared to vocation directors in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s who oversaw as few as seven seminarians. He keeps busy meeting prospective seminarians, helping the men complete entrance paperwork and visiting each seminary or college to check on the men. This year the diocese accepted eight new seminarians. Msgr. Friend attributed the increase to a variety of factors, some of them interrelated. Among the factors cited by Msgr. Friend are: family support, Catholic schools and parish religious education, peer-to-peer youth ministry, good priest role models, the Knights of Columbus, the Serra Club and lots of prayers.

Vocations are clearly a team effort and if we all do our part God will bless us for sure! Let's keep praying and working for vocations!

Rebel With a Cause: Bobby Jindal's Spiritual Journey

The Wall Street Journal put out a wonderful article on the faith of our Louisiana Governor. It's a simple look at the faith of this wonderful man of real change!