Changes in the South

Tim Stanley writes about the fascinating evolution of perceptions in the South, where two Catholics (Santorum and Gingrich) are gaining remarkable traction in a region long dominated by an Evangelical form of Christianity that looked askance at Catholicism. From the Telegraph:

Until the 1960s, it [the Democratic Party] was dismissed by snooty Republicans as the party of “rum, Rome and rebellion” – drinkers, Catholics and Southern confederates. But that changed when the Democrats embraced the lifestyle liberalism of the 1970s. Many ethnic Catholics remained within the fold, but the more faithful were driven into the welcoming arms of the prolife GOP. To this day, the electoral divide between Democratic and Republican Catholics is determined by how often they go to church.

Stanley then discusses Newt Gingrich's conversion to the Catholic Faith.

The answer lies in Gingrich’s conversion to the Catholic faith, which he says was due in part to the richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition. The answers he has given in debates have often referred to the evils of the Enlightenment and the need to reassert the kind of anti-secular moral theology that the Catholics do so well. Reading his account of his conversion, one is struck by the sense of certainty that the Church offered him – of the reassurance of its rituals and doctrine.

The flipside of Catholicism’s attractiveness is the comparative intellectual instability within several Protestant denominations – particularly on matters of faith and morals. The Quakers, the Methodists and the Episcopalians have all embraced gay rights to varying degrees. The Episcopalians have even appointed lesbian and gay bishops. This flamboyant liberalism is all well and good for casual church goers who like to see their faith “move with the times”. But it is nothing less than a betrayal to millions of believers who adhered to a certain dogma all their lives, only to see it overturned on a whim. These Protestants have started looking elsewhere for moral leadership and they’re finding it within denominations that their parents once considered heretical.