A Willingness to Give
Sacred Heart, Southport
A man in Southport, NC, is recalling his Baptist boyhood in nearby Wilmington in the 1960s: “When I was in high school, I knew of only two Catholic families in the area. And that was in Wilmington – forget about Southport. To think that now the largest church in Southport is the Catholic church – that is stunning!”
That man is Father Trent Watts, pastor of Southport’s largest church, Sacred Heart. How did this small coastal village grow a Catholic parish of nearly a thousand families? The catalyst has been St. James Plantation, a sprawling, upscale residential community that has attracted a huge influx of Northerners, most of them retirees and most of them, it seems, Catholic. And it’s still growing.
Not that Catholics did not exist in the area before the boom. Mass has been said there since before the Civil War, when Southport was a mission of St. Thomas in Wilmington. One of the Catholics there actually began a small settlement after the war in what is now Maco, where a handful of the faithful built a church and a school. In the 1890’s the settlement was succeeded by a church in Delco.
In the 1930s Fr. Francis J. Howard, based in Whiteville, was saying Mass twice a month at private homes in Southport, staying nights in the town’s Civilian Conservation Corps camp. Finally, in the spring of 1941, a newly built Sacred Heart Church was dedicated by Bishop Eugene McGuinness. In response to the rapid growth of the Catholic population in the ‘80s and ‘90s, parishioners built the current church, which was dedicated by Bishop F. Joseph Gossman in 2003.
If the members of Sacred Heart are distinguished by their good fortune, this vibrant parish is also distinguished by its generosity. “The single most defining characteristic of our parishioners,” Fr. Watts says, “is their willingness to give.” Among its many outreach activities, Sacred Heart has adopted Holy Trinity Parish in Williamston, NC. A large Knights of Columbus chapter and Ladies Guild are also evidence of Sacred Heart’s eagerness to “give back” to those in need.
Another distinguishing characteristic of Sacred Heart’s parishioners, not surprisingly, is their age. In a congregation composed largely of retirees, the spiritual care of those facing illness and death is an ongoing pastoral concern. Something Fr. Watts appreciates most about his flock, though, is perhaps tied to maturity: “More than most,” he says, “they understand the need for their Church and their faith.”