American Catholic Refugees

The Catholic Thing

By Auguste Meyrat
But first a note: TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal is in Rome. And in the next TCT podcast, filmed before he left, he discusses with George Weigel the month-long Synod on Synodality that begins at the Vatican this week. Click here to view (or listen to) their conversation.
Now for today's column...
Although many Americans focus on migration coming from south of the border, an even bigger issue has been the mass migration of Americans from blue states to red states in the past decade. Because of the high taxes, lack of social services, and worsening conditions for middle and working-class families, many residents from progressive bastions like California, New York, Illinois, and Minnesota have resettled in relatively conservative states like Florida, Tennessee, or my home state of Texas.
Beyond the changing demography, this migration has affected the culture and politics of the states involved, though not in the way most observers expected. Rather than turning red states purple, the influx of migrants from the blue states made the red states even redder. It's, therefore, more apt to view these newcomers more as embittered refugees escaping a failed state than colonists ready to spread their superior way of life to less civilized parts of the country.
In his new book, American Refugees: The Untold Story of the Mass Exodus from Blue States to Red States, former screenwriter and conservative columnist Roger Simon recounts the story of his own move from Los Angeles to Nashville: "Born a New Yorker, I had come to California as a young man of twenty-one for more than just endless summers and ocean waves. I wanted to be part of the film industry, to write and direct movies. And now here I was, in my seventies, running away to start a new life - of what kind and for what purpose? - in Tennessee."
After contending with an ideologically hostile environment for so many decades, the septuagenarian finally moves during California's draconian COVID lockdown. Although, like most newcomers, he expects to find a conservative utopia where common sense reigns, schools are not indoctrination centers, and people enjoy basic freedoms. Instead, he observes that his new home is at great risk of becoming like his old one: "Nashville and Tennessee would be a test case in this depressing process [of becoming Democrat] whose conclusion is nowhere near resolved."
Nevertheless, Simon quickly finds like-minded "refugees" like himself who form an unlikely coalition of populist conservatives who aim to challenge the complacency of the establishment Republican elite in Tennessee. While newcomers have more dynamism and savvy, their lack of history and unfamiliarity with the state puts them at a disadvantage, with some of the natives seeing them as modern-day carpetbaggers.
Simon eventually makes himself at home, not only connecting with a number of people in his new city but even rediscovering his Judaism due to the ubiquity of houses of worship in Nashville along with the hearty encouragement of his (mostly Christian) friends. His fight for a more conservative Tennessee isn't over by the end of the book, but he is optimistic about where the culture is headed.
In itself, American Refugees is a nice story about an older man making his final odyssey, but its real value is in what it represents. Innumerable parallels are reflected in other migrations happening in the West, specifically in the realm of religion. For, just as people are leaving the blue states for red states, Catholics have been leaving progressive parishes for more conservative ones.
Some of this has to do with the movement that Simon describes. Catholics from the churches in the blue states are now filling up the pews of churches in the red states. And just as Simon re-verted to his Jewish faith, many non-practicing Catholics are encouraged by the surrounding culture to re-vert and come to Mass again.
I've seen this firsthand here in North Texas. Otherwise generic parishes have...