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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”. -- Dwight Longenecker in The Times, with thanks to