Texas and Dinardo US Catholic Story of the Year

When one looks at the American Catholic Church in relationship to the Worldwide Church one got a sense something was missing. That there needed to be an update to show shifting demographics. That is that Catholicism was no longer the bastion of Cities in the North and Midwest. This could be seen in the rapid growth in the South and Southwest. It seems in the 21 st Century Texas was needed to be represented among the Prominent See's of the World. Well it happened.

Whispers in the Loggia has a excellent post on Cardinal Dinardo of Houston. It looks at his life from Pittsburgh , to the Farms of Iowa, to the gateway to Latin American Houston Texas. A great read. However he also shows the significane of this move beyond one man.

Great read at THE CHURCHMAN OF THE YEAR: The Reluctant Prince.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts
Lone Star Country needed a cardinal before 2007. Rome just bided its time 'til its choice got there. And, in a rare triumph of Vatican clairvoyance, the bet has paid off spectacularly.They say that "everything's bigger in Texas," and the customary bounce of energy that a local church gets from the red hat is no exception. According to the locals, the elevation "has breathed new life" into an already booming, energized fold. Since arriving home, the new cardinal has been welcomed by crowds of thousands at every turn, his post-liturgy reception lines running into the early hours of the morning.

A stronger sense of identity and unity is already being felt among the multiethnic mega-flock, and several parishes have noticed a curious uptick of calls about RCIA programs in the weeks following the November consistory.The Houston press -- which had, according to one local, primarily "covered [the archdiocese] when the news was bad" -- provided acres and hours of the finest, most enthusiastic elevation coverage ever seen on these shores
. And most significantly of all, in the very city where the first Catholic president sought to assuage panicked Protestant clergymen that the White House wouldn't take its lead from the Apostolic Palace, some of the most effusive testimonies to the advent of a Roman prince have come from H-Town's ecumenical and interfaith communities.Texas -- and Houston in particular -- likes to view itself as the "New America," and not without reason. With Catholics recently edging out Evangelicals as the state's largest religious group, the new America has bred a model of American Church gaining in strength, size and reputation, an ascendancy now recognized with the elevation of a new breed of American Cardinal -- the post-institutional prince of the church.......

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But for all these, the week belonged to the upwards of 700 Texans. The group's diversity and excitement turned heads even among their fellow cheering-sections, and as their chants bounced off the city's walls, one longtime Vatican hand said the "radiant" Houston crowd had provided the natives with a much-appreciated sign -- that, for all the bad headlines of recent years, "the church in America is still very much alive."The show of unity wasn't a one-off occurrence. "Everyone really gets along here," DiNardo said shortly after the elevation was announced, ticking off a list of the archdiocese's cultural groups: the Hispanic majority, a historically prominent African-American contingent, vibrant Vietnamese and Filipino communities, the world's largest concentration of Nigerians outside their home country, and more.

Almost since the beginning, tensions between rival ethnic factions have been a mainstay of the church's American journey... that is, until the Southwest.The region's newest honor isn't just papal recognition of a metropolis and its momentum, but of the energized, collaborative model that, following generations of Establishment suspicion, earned Southern Catholicism a place at the civic table not through confrontation, coercion or compromise, but a commitment to the common good and the credibility of its witness.

It is a real good article and gives a great view of the man that is destined to be the most influential Catholic In America who is a Texan to boot now,