Russell Ledbetter | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | April 30, 2008

As transplants from the North and Midwest continue to relocate to warmer climates, the Catholic presence in Iredell County and throughout the South grows.

“Who are the Northerners relocating to the warm, Southern region?” asked Father Kurt Fohn of St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church in Statesville. “The Catholic Church has exploded from North to South as Italians and Poles and the Irish and now an incredible influx of Hispanics relocate here.”

In Iredell County, membership in the Catholic Church jumped 83.6 percent between 1980 and 2000, according to the Association of Religious Data Archives.

Father Vincent Curtin, pastor at St. Therese Catholic Church, said the Mooresville parish had more than 400 families 20 years ago. Today, St. Therese has 2,700 families.

“An increase from 400 to 2,700 families is an awful lot of growth over the last 20 years,” Curtin said. “We are getting migrating Catholics throughout the country and native Carolinians marrying Catholics. We have at least 30 new registrations each month.

“I think we’re keeping up with the growth rate, and our basic challenge is how to serve them as our parish gets larger and larger. We’re either going to have to build a new church or expand.”

Serving the Spanish-speaking population
St. Philip and St. Therese Catholic Church in Mooresville offer services in English and Spanish on a weekly basis.

“I read it (in Spanish). And they say they understand it, but I’m the only one who doesn’t understand it,” said Fohn, 73, who moved to the U.S. from Germany in the 1960s.

St. Philip has approximately 1,500 parishioners, Fohn said. Between 400 and 600 Hispanic members are on the membership roll.

St. Therese serves some 150 to 200 Hispanics for a Spanish-only Mass at 2:30 p.m. each Sunday with bilingual priest Father Jim Beyer of Taylorsville.

Hispanic numbers swell to some 700 in attendance on Christmas Eve, Easter and during the Dec. 12 Our Lady of Guadalupe celebration, according to St. Therese Latino Coordinator Ibis Centeno.

“It is a different type of Latino here than on the West Coast, where I come from,” Centeno said. “Here there are more restaurant and factory workers — and that’s just in Mooresville, while on the West Coast, there are more Latinos who are farm workers and involved with landscaping.

“The reality is it is different in every area. For example, the Colombian community in Statesville is huge.”

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