Mormonism thrives in heavily Catholic northeast

By Jason Szep

BELMONT, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Stepping into a Mormon temple is like watching a cinematic take on heaven: everything glows in white -- from the rich upholstery to the ivory outfits of worshippers and polished marble floors.

It's also a step more people are taking in the heavily Roman Catholic U.S. northeast, where Mormon numbers have jumped 37 percent in 10 years, nearly double the religion's national growth rate of 21 percent, church data show.

"The number of new members here is just utterly amazing," said Allan Barker, president of the Massachusetts temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the faith is formally known.

The once-isolated sect based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is now one of the world's fastest-growing and affluent religions, with 12.9 million members globally. More than half live outside the United States, including a flourishing Latin American flock.

Sociologist Rodney Stark, who predicted in 1984 that Mormonism would eventually rival Catholicism, Islam and other major religions with 267 million members worldwide by 2080, said aid lavished on new converts by a lay clergy rooted in international business and other top-tier professions explains much of the global appeal.

"The fact that the church provides substantial social services is very attractive, especially when you start getting into places where social services are really lacking," said Stark, author of "The Rise of Mormonism".

"Mormons tend not to ever appear on the welfare rolls because the church tends to step in and take care of them," he added. "Elderly people will get their houses painted by a group of guys from the local church over the weekend. There's a lot going on there that doesn't meet the eye."

Church officials and religious scholars attribute its growth in the northeast to a steady influx of Hispanic worshippers, the allure of top-flight universities in Boston and New York, and to turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church following a clergy sexual abuse scandal that erupted in Boston in 2002.

"Catholicism has stumbled," said Jan Shipps, president of the American Society of Church History, adding that Massachusetts's Mormon governor -- 2008 White House contender Mitt Romney -- also boosted the church's profile.

Tim Wilson, a 32-year-old former Catholic, said news that U.S. bishops moved priests known to have abused minors to new parishes instead of unfrocking them sealed his decision to join the Mormon faith in December 2002.

"I didn't have any vested interest in belonging to an organization that would conduct such an awful situation among its priests," said Wilson, a research executive.

However the Northeast's 333,000 Mormons remain vastly outnumbered by its estimated 20 million Catholics.

RETURN TO ROOTS

But the expansion marks a historical triumph in a region where Joseph Smith, a Vermont native, founded the sect in 1830 in upstate New York a year before being persecuted and forced to flee to the Midwest.

But as it expands, Barker and other Mormon leaders are quietly bracing for a possible new threat to the church's image.