I remember being in Florida sometime in the early 1990s and hearing a well-known evangelical preacher give a TV sermon. Actually, it was more like a campaign speech, with well-emphasized points. One that struck me was this: By the year 2050 there will be few denominational churches, as we know them, left.

He referred to the traditional Protestant churches --- Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, etc. --- and even included Roman Catholic churches. Replacing them, he emphasized, will be the evangelical churches, which, he pointed out, already were growing all over the country, while the numbers of those attending the traditional churches had been declining steadily.

Now, some dozen years later, I begin to see evidence that this prediction was not way out, especially in the crowds I see filling the Assembly of God and the Faith Church in the Connecticut area where I live.

But in a new book titled "Holyland USA" (Crossroad), author Peter Feuerherd gives a somewhat different picture that may be surprising for Catholics to face honestly. A respected journalist, he presents good evidence that evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics are "overlapping." He points out:

"A coalition of Catholic and evangelical groups was able to persuade the Bush administration to increase funding for AIDS programs in Africa. ... Catholic churches are developing a more evangelical style in response to wide cultural shifts. ... When Catholics and evangelicals talk regularly about the Bible, prayer and the person of Jesus, they are overcoming the antagonisms that grew out of the Reformation and foreseeing a new age of Christian unity."

The blurb on the back cover states the developing situation clearly: "Why have some Catholics started attending evangelical churches, and why have some evangelicals made the leap to Rome? Why, despite centuries of bitter divisions, are Catholics becoming more evangelical and evangelicals more Catholic?"

The author offers some explanations that deserve serious reflection by Catholics. The most compelling one I found was his very honest story of his own 24-year-old daughter, Audrey. While she credits her Catholic background as "something that reinforced her belief in a higher power," she has left the Catholic Church to join an evangelical church where she feels "at home." Here the services are "dynamic and emotive," emphasizing the "role of Jesus in the here and now," with the congregants mingling for food, coffee and talk after the service.

Feuerherd wonders if he "failed to communicate the beauty that I feel Catholicism has to offer. ... Yet, at the same time, I can't help thinking that these are good people. ... They study the Bible, much more intensely than many Catholics. They believe in a Jesus who ... is as concerned for them as he was for those who touched his garment and for those he healed. ... I wonder, then, if my daughter hasn't managed to find the same divine beauty and power I cherished from Catholicism."

The author quotes Father Richard Neuhaus, a former Lutheran pastor who became an ordained priest of the Archdiocese of New York. Father Neuhaus, founder of " First Things," a religion journal of opinion, maintains that Catholics and evangelicals are forging close bonds, particularly among conservative activists.

The bottom line for Feuerherd, who notes that "the evangelical world has reached into my life," is that something is happening out there that's worth paying attention to."

He is right, and we should commend him for his honest book.

Antoinette Bosco is an author and columnist with Catholic News Service.