CLAYTON -- Generations of Susan Barbour's ancestors played host to Catholic church services in their home near Smithfield. As one of the few Catholic families in Johnston County, they didn't have a church to attend on Sunday mornings.
Now, 84-year-old Barbour is a member of St. Ann, the county's only Catholic church. She has seen the congregation expand over the years to about 4,800 members. When it outgrew its small church in Smithfield, St. Ann built a big church near Clayton nine years ago.
"About time," said Barbour, who still lives in her family's homestead on Brogden Road.
In this swath of the Bible Belt, where Protestant churches abound, Catholicism is growing. The St. Ann parish has about twice as many members as it had five years ago, pastor Michael Clay said.
Catholics say the growth is a result of a combination of factors. Many people from the North, where Catholicism is more common, have moved South. And Johnston, a county of about 160,000, has seen a rising number of Hispanic residents. The county is now about 11 percent Hispanic.
At St. Ann, about half the parishioners are Hispanic, Clay said.
The church hosts four services every weekend, including a service in Spanish. St. Ann, which holds 600, has up to 2,500 worshippers on weekends, Clay said.
The rise of the Catholic church is another example of transformation in Johnston, a community that has become more populated by people who want to live near Raleigh and Research Triangle Park.
The county has about 375 churches, said Kelton Hinton, head of the Johnston Baptist Association. Many are Pentecostal. Johnston has 63 Southern Baptist churches and about as many Free Will Baptist churches, Hinton said. Methodist churches are also popular.
St. Ann has come a long way since 1935, when it built a church on Seventh Street in Smithfield that could hold about 100 people. Now, it hosts fish fries during Lent, the weeks leading up to Easter. It has a food pantry for the needy and donates baby blankets to charities.
Clay said he thinks local people are becoming more understanding of each other's religious differences.
Muriel Evans, 65, of Wilson's Mills agrees. But that hasn't always been her experience. When she moved to North Carolina from North Dakota in 1975, she said, a neighbor asked her which church she attended. Evans said St. Ann.
"She patted me on the hand and said, 'Don't worry, honey, we won't hold it against you,' " Evans recalled.
Barbour, who lives in the house where her grandmother and great-grandmother held Mass, said she feels like an outsider sometimes. Her social circles are made up of mostly Methodists and Baptists.
"All of my neighbors, there are no Catholics out there," Barbour said.
St. Ann is still trying to catch up with its growth. The church does not have a place for Sunday school classes, so they are held at a movie theater in Smithfield.
"We are desperately in need for a place to have meetings and for our children," said Helen Shearer, 86, of Selma.
