At a beautiful Catholic church in White County there is something that’s just a little bit different. St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, just a mile from the square in Cleveland, has a married priest at the helm.

The Rev. Thad B. Rudd, priest at St. Paul, is married to wife Sherri, and they have three children and eight grandchildren.

Rudd, raised in the Episcopal church, formerly was an Episcopal pastor, but he said he found the church taking a turn he was not comfortable with.

"People like us had been alienated from our denomination and had no place to go," Rudd said. "The Episcopal church I grew up in was extremely Catholic ... we never considered ourselves Protestant, we were the Anglican Catholic. This was the natural journey for me."

Through the pastoral provision in the Roman Catholic Church, pastors from other denominations can convert to Catholicism and lead a parish.

"We petitioned the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II," said the Rev. Thad B. Rudd, priest at St. Paul. "This is back in the early ’80s and ... one of his cardinals established something called the pastoral provision."

"So I applied to Rome to this cardinal, and his name was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now called Pope Benedict XVI; the letter I have is from Cardinal Ratzinger, from the Pope himself."

The pastoral provision has been in effect in the Roman Catholic Church since the 19th century, according to the Rev. Theodore Book of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

"The pastoral provision came about in the context of the relation with the Anglican Church, the Church of England," he said. "And it happened largely as a result of the Oxford movement ... there was a movement of a lot of people in the Anglican Church towards the Catholic Church. They saw that as a more complete expression of what they already believed as Anglicans."

There are only two married priests in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Rudd and the Rev. David Dye at Mary Our Queen in Norcross.

Book also explained that in the 1960s there were many Anglican priests, or Episcopal in the United States, that were interested in becoming Catholic.

"The pastoral provision did several things," Book added. "It allowed Anglican priests to be ordained as Catholic priests, even if they were already married, and it also allowed them to, as Catholics, use a form of worship that was based on the Anglican ceremonies. So that the prayers would be like the Anglican prayers."

Many people have a misunderstanding that a priest living a celibate lifestyle is part of the Roman Catholic doctrine, not so according to Rudd.

"Celibate clergy is a tradition, it is not doctrine. The Pope could change this with a stroke of the pen," said Rudd, who has been in the Roman Catholic Church nearly 18 years now.

Book added that celibacy is more of an expression of the priesthood.

"We would say that celibacy is part of church discipline, but it expresses our doctrine about the priesthood," he said. "It is not essential that a priest be celibate, but it expresses very well what we understand the priesthood to be.

"Actually, there are a lot more married priests in the Eastern Catholic rites. Most of the Catholics in this country is what we call Latin rite Catholics."

Before serving at St. Paul, Rudd was a chaplain in the U.S. National Guard in Desert Storm and then with the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Atlanta. His first parish was St. Clements in Calhoun.

"They had lost their priest, and the archbishop said he wanted me to go to Calhoun for three months," Rudd said. "I stayed a little over three years, but I’m not a pastor, I am the administrator of the parish.

"There are married Catholic priests now who are now pastors of their parish.

"In order for that to happen the bishop has to petition and really work for out of Rome, and it’s just not that big a deal to some bishops."

St. Paul in Cleveland, once one of the smallest parishes in Northeast Georgia, now has about 350 families and is continuing to grow.

"The Catholic church is the fastest growing church in North Georgia," Rudd said. "The church goes through fads. Now the church is in the entertainment business. The young people are coming back to the church because they want that tradition back."

According to the Associated Press, there are 1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide, 62 million in the United States, making it the largest single body of Christians in the nation.

Rudd, who has been at the St. Paul for six years, said the growth of the church has brought many wonderful people to the parish. Recently the church had their annual fall festival and raised more than $20,000 for the church, and many members of the church volunteered for the community event.

"In all my years I have never seen a parish like St. Paul’s," he said. "It’s a parish where people really do love each other and work together."