Saturday, December 21, 2019

The Importance of Catholic Community

In my own experience, something that has destroyed Catholic community is gossip and the shunning that stems from it. And the children suffer the most. From Church Militant:
It is no shocking revelation that people throughout the West (and in some Far Eastern countries like Japan) are demoralized and depressed. There is a (both legal and illegal) drug epidemic in the United States that has killed more people than the Vietnam War. The life expectancy of White Americans is declining for the first time in 100 years. Suicide is increasing at an alarming rate.

 There are many causes for these disturbing trends — the first and foremost being the loss of faith in the civilization that was once called Christendom. However, one of the principal causes of this demoralization and decline of the men and women of the West is the disintegration of community life and what could be called the "loss of the Shire."

As Susan Pinker writes in The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier and Happier (this is not an endorsement of her book!), the greatest single determining factor outside of income (and, one might add, a strong faith) in determining a person's happiness is being a member of a strong community.

This community, Pinker further argues, has two layers threaded through it. The first is a close network of those people on whom one can really rely. These are people who will help take care of someone if he or she is sick, or who will loan money to someone if he or she is in a pinch. These people usually include close family members as well as one's dearest friends. (Read more.)
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