IN THE popular imagination, religion in the US Deep South, home of rednecks, Scarlett O’Hara and the Ku Klux Klan, was always a heady mixture of Confederate pride, bigotry and hellfire fundamentalism. But things are changing, and one of the most striking changes is the rapid growth of a Catholic Church with a particularly Southern complexion.

Catholics account for around 12 per cent of the population of the southern states, but in the booming cities of Atlanta, Greenville and Charlotte, 20 per cent are Catholics and their numbers are growing — up by a third in the 1990s — while Baptists, admittedly much more numerous, grew by less than 10 per cent. In short, Southern Baptists still dominate the religious scene, but the growth of the Catholic population is making itself felt.

The numbers of Catholics are growing because Catholic families are moving from northern cities to work in the technological industries. Their numbers are swollen by Hispanics moving north from the Caribbean and Latin America. In the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, nearly half the Catholic population is Hispanic. The ratio of newly ordained priests in Charlotte is one to 7,000 parishioners — compared to one to around 50,000 in Chicago.

A “New Catholicism” is emerging that is likely to influence the whole US Church. These young Catholics tend to be faithful to the Church’s teachings while being educated and media-savvy. One of their hot spots in the South is the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) in Alabama. Started by a nun, Mother Angelica, the network broadcasts radio and TV programmes worldwide (including to Britain).

The Catholicism on EWTN is accessible and it is also traditional — EWTN likes to say that it makes no compromises about being Catholic. One of its leaders, Father Mitch Pacwa, says: “There’s lots of religious TV out there. When channel-hoppers hop over to EWTN we want them to know exactly what they’re getting.”

Students at the new Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, should know exactly what they are getting, too. Set up by Tom Monaghan, who made a fortune from a chain of pizza restaurants, Ave Maria has ambitious plans to build a new campus and town in central Florida where the Catholic faith will be taught without compromise, and where every subject will be taught with a Catholic philosophical foundation. The college already has more than 500 students.

The college has close links to the Vatican. Cardinals Schönborn of Austria and Arinze of Nigeria have visited its new campus, and its chancellor, Father Joseph Fessio, is not only a friend and former student of the Pope but also the publisher of his works through his own Ignatius Press.

This New Catholicism is young and optimistic, but it is unlikely to tolerate the open dissent that went with the 1970s and the “cultural Catholicism” of generations past. That form of Catholicism is dying, and its death is symbolised by the northern US parishes with plummeting congregations, a shortage of priests and huge debts as they pay off child-abuse scandals. It seems that in the parishes where “anything goes”, everybody went.

Father Timothy Reid, 34, one of the priests who has moved south, told Time magazine that he moved to Charlotte as “it’s more vibrant here because we’re creating a Catholic culture almost from scratch”.

Father Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St Mary’s, Greenville, South Carolina, said: “Here you are not Catholic because your parents came from Italy or Slovakia. It’s because you believe what the Church teaches you is absolutely true.”

Patrick McHenry, 29, a Republican congressman from Charlotte, said to Time: “Southern Catholicism is changing the nature of the Church in America. We adhere to a truer and purer view of Catholicism” — in other words, these are Catholics who sign up to the full Catholic menu, including papal infallibility and the rejection of contraception, abortion, homosexuality and female ordination.

Not everybody is persuaded. The Rev Kevin Wildes, president of Loyola University, New Orleans, asks whether “Catholicism in the South is simply another form of evangelical fundamentalism with incense”.

Old-school liberal Catholics are not the only ones who are worried. While there is a new spirit of co-operation between mainstream Evangelicals and Catholics in America, old-style fundamentalists are also concerned about the new breed of Catholics. Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University, Greenville, has recently been as outspoken in his anti-Catholic comments as the hottest of the old-time Southern preachers.

The clash between the “New Catholicism” and Evangelical fundamentalism is almost tangible. Evangelicals are still suspicious of the Catholic Church and they bristle at the encroachment of Catholics into their heartland. Baptist churches in the region are likely to host conferences to help their people “share the gospel with Catholics”, while for his part, Father Newman, at St Mary’s, Greenville, has started a Centre for Evangelical Catholicism which is dedicated to helping all the people of the parish to “live out their baptismal vocation”.

However, the tension between Evangelicalism and Catholicism in the US is waning. As the main Protestant churches continue to haemorrhage members, money and influence, the two main religious forces in America are Catholicism and Evangelicalism. Despite the historical tensions, these two religious forces are surprisingly convergent; their steady rapprochement and shared conservative agenda has been analysed in the recent book Is the Reformation Over? Many ascribe George Bush’s election to his second presidential term to the fact that he appealed to the New Catholic vote as well as the right-wing Evangelical vote.

The economic vitality of the new South and its increasing political clout (three of the five last presidents were Southerners) means that the future of the whole US will probably be determined there. As the 21st century becomes increasingly driven by religious agendas, it is likely that Catholics and Evangelicals in the influential Southern states will find themselves fighting side by side for a shared moral and social agenda on both the national and the international stages.

The Confederate soldiers used to say: “The South will rise again.” The prophecy seems to be coming true but in ways the old soldiers did not foresee.

Dwight Longenecker is the author of More Christianity: An Introduction to Catholicism for Evangelicals. www.dwightlongenecker.com