On the Growth of the Church in the South

“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.”

A recent article in the National Catholic Register examined the growth of the Church in the South, including a number of the related factors.

To access the complete National Catholic Register article, please visit:

National Catholic Register: Protestant South Becoming a New Catholic Stronghold (11 MAY 13)