In the 2008 elections, more Bishops spoke out against pro-abortion candidates than in the 2004 election. A few Bishops and conservative Catholics did publicly complain against Kerry in 2004, saying he should refrain from receiving Holy Communion. The increase in the number of protesting priests in the recent national election is significant.
Consider the uproar at Notre Dame over the invitation of Obama to speak at its graduation ceremony. Though the University doesn't sit in the middle of the southern Bible Belt, it does reveal the growing voice of conservative Catholics upset with Obama's decision to federally fund embryonic stem cell research along with financially backing international family planning. No longer is the Southern Catholic fearful of voicing their religious convictions, having been so long a minority dominated by northern Catholic democrats.
The religious changes in the South may be a source of dismay to many institutes of southern liberal studies that populate the Internet. The frustration of those who attempt to change the "new" South into a northern, cultural mirror of the old Rustbelt, find that the South is enigmatic, romantically frustrating, and only to be understood and changed by those who have a sense of place and a true love for all of its perplexities.
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