Don Yoder and other scholars agree that folk religion does not oppose a central religious body, but represents unofficial practices and ideas that have a dynamic relationship to official religion. As Amanda Banks notes, folk religion "includes those aspects that are often unsanctioned or not canonized by an official religion but are practiced as part of the religious experience" (Banks 1998: 216). Leonard Primiano, who feels that "folk" is a marginalizing term that sets it in opposition to "official" religion, has proposed the term vernacular religioninstead for this type of religion, i.e., "religion as it is lived: as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practice it" (Primiano 1995: 44). As Primiano points out, even members of the religious hierarchy themselves are believing and practicing vernacularly (44-46). The "folk" are us.

In southern Louisiana, however, cultural Catholicism may be a better descriptive term, both because it avoids the possibly marginalizing connotations of "folk" and because it signifies the pervasive influence of non-official Catholicism in this region.

Southern Louisiana, unlike other areas of the South, is a place where Catholics are the norm, a region of cultural Catholicism-not only a religion as it is lived and practiced, but also as it affects the cultural beliefs, practices, worldview, and identity of the majority of the people.

In the culture of the French Creoles, the sacred and secular are often connected m. The Church and its rituals are central in the life cycle and throughout the calendar year-evident from Mardi Gras (certainly at the secular or profane end of the continuum) to All Saints Day (where the sacred is more privileged). The unifying potential of cultural communion and sacramental renewal is present in the rituals and secular sacraments of Louisiana's Franco-Creoles. An emotional connection with the cultural rituals as well as the official sacraments has colored their vision of the world.

Cultural Catholicism in Louisiana is not only a matter of theology. It is based on the traditional interactions and rituals of the French Creoles and others of French Catholic heritage-people who shared not only a common religion, but also a common region, heritage, and language distinctively different from the rest of the country.

Folk elements co-exist with official religion and the official sacraments and sacramentals are adapted and modified through traditional beliefs and practices. They incorporate folk elements without rejecting long standing official practices and beliefs.

A Peculiar People- Set Apart