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The Journey of Community
I recently had an interesting conversation with Jason Wilde and Peter Land, in which we reflected on the first year of our podcast project and discussed the direction of the project going forward. The conversation will be edited and released as an anniversary podcast episode. In this essay, I want to expand on some of the themes that came up.
Walking as Community
We often think of community as a stable, static thing, rooted in a particular place. Peter Land recently took part in a three day walking pilgrimage, and found a deep sense of community among the participants. It made him reflect on the traveling community that surrounded Christ, and also on voluntary poverty and detachment. When one has to carry one’s belongings, simplicity of life starts to seem more attractive! We’re called to be open to the Holy Spirit, journeying together toward the Kingdom of Heaven. Is the rooted village or neighborhood really the best metaphor for the Christian life? Is such a community even the best setting for the Christian life?
The Dangers of Community
A false sense of security and contentment can certainly be a danger for Christain communities. In my interview with Charles Moore and Rick Burke from the Bruderhof, they pointed out that community members can become attached to their ways of life. They can also slip into seeing the community as an end in itself, as a substitute for following Christ and being open to the Holy Spirit. Communities need to be on guard against becoming self-referential and satisfied with themselves.
Solutions
A spirit of poverty keeps these problems in check. Although factual frugality of life is necessary, being “poor in spirit” means more than merely living simply. Wealth represents an attempt at control, a grasping at security. The rich fool of Luke 12 thought he was all set once his barns were full of grain, but his security was an illusion. Even without material wealth, we can fall prey to a spirit of wealth that desires control and security on individual terms. To avoid this, the community must practice poverty, but must also exercise a “preferential option” for the poor. Poverty comes in many forms, and there are many ways that communities can reach out to the poor of the surrounding community, whether those in need of food and clothing or merely those in need of a listening ear. The community must refuse to treat anyone as “outsiders”, and instead should see everyone as part of their community in Christ.
By reaching out and entering into the life of others, we are freed from false contentment, security, and routine. The life of Catholic Worker communities provides a good example of this dynamic in practice. Not only do they practice voluntary poverty and service to the poor; they invite “outsiders” to participate in the life of the community and host “round table discussions” that provide a platform for dialogue with a diversity of views.
The Church
These same dynamics can affect the Church as a whole. Throughout Church history, there has been the temptation to complacency with how things are, which leads to insular thinking and a focus on the structures of power in the Church rather than on our journey to the Kingdom. As Pope Francis has often reminded us, we are a pilgrim Church on the road with one another, an evangelizing Church reaching out to those on the peripheries. We must never lose sight of the Apocalypse, the coming of the kingdom for which we pray in the Our Father and for which we are called to work in our lives. Only by going beyond ourselves, reaching out toward God and neighbor, can we avoid the stagnation that leads to decay.
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Laudato Si, Episode 2: An Ecological Conversion
This is the second episode in which Malcolm Schluenderfritz and Jason Wilde discuss Laudato Si. Pope Francis has said that Laudato Si is not a “green” encyclical, but rather a “social” encyclical. Our first episode set the stage by discussing the long history of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). In this episode, we discuss Laudato Si‘s call for “ecological conversion”.
The Religious Perspective of Laudato Si
In chapter 2 of Laudato Si, Pope Francis writes:
A spirituality which forgets God as all-powerful and Creator is not acceptable. That is how we end up worshiping earthly powers, or ourselves usurping the place of God, even to the point of claiming an unlimited right to trample his creation underfoot. The best way to restore men and women to their rightful place, putting an end to their claim to absolute dominion over the earth, is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the world. Otherwise, human beings will always try to impose their own laws and interests on reality.
Pope Francis is not discussing environmentalism as a secular scientist might, from a purely material standpoint. Rather, he is calling for a spiritual conversion. A conversion is a turning, a change of heart. In this case, we are being called to turn away from ourselves and toward God, our neighbors, and God’s Creation. Without such conversion, as Laudato Si put it, we will try to impose our own laws on reality. This kind of pride leads to ecological destruction and social dysfunction. Laudato Si contains the following quote from Pope Benedict XVI: “The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast”.
If Christians do not bring their spirituality to bear on the question of protecting the environment, the response to our current crisis will be based on secular ideologies. These ideologies will prove insufficient for the task, and may create greater harm. It is our duty to lead on this issue.
The Common Good
As we discussed in our earlier episode, this is a social encyclical first and foremost, not a “green” one. And so an important component of an ecological conversion is the CST principle of the primacy of the common good.
The world is not ours. The earth is the Lord’s. He made it for us—for all of us. Whenever we work for the common good, or preform a work of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice. Part of the common good we must work toward is a healthy environment.
Common goods differ from private goods in a crucial way. Private goods diminish when they are shared. For instance, if two people share $10, each of them will have less than $10. Common goods, however, are those things that do not diminish when shared.
The very highest common good is the Beatific Vision. It isn’t a scarce resource we need to compete for; even if there are billions of people in heaven, it won’t “run out”. We should try to mirror this perspective even in our earthy lives. If we won’t be in competition in the world to come, then we should try live out that aspect of the Kingdom of God in the here and now.
Here on earth, the common good of a society is something that all share in. It is not merely a collection of private goods. Nor should the common good of society be seen as an attack on the private good of the individual. We see this perverse understanding of the common good in the Gospel, where Caiaphas says that it is better that one man to die for the people. Rather, the common good of society is something that no one individual can provide and that benefits everyone.
Jason brought up an interesting example of a particular common good. The security and order produced by a stable society benefits everyone. In many societies, however, security is not a common good. In such a situation, each private individual and each business needs to provide their own security in the form of armed guards. Those too poor to afford guards have to do without security.
Clean air is a obvious common good. If the air is clean, it benefits everyone. If your neighbor’s air is dirty, your air will also be dirty.
The Throw Away Culture
A key point in the first chapter of Laudato Si is the danger of a “throw away culture”. This isn’t the first time Pope Francis has used the term. In Evangelli Gaudium, he wrote:
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading.
A “throw away culture” stems from a grave lack of respect. In our society, we are encouraged to see things and people merely as useful. When they are no longer useful, they are discarded. Obviously, it is far more serious to throw away unborn children or the disabled elderly than to treat material things in a wasteful way. Still, the spirit behind these actions is the same. Not only that, but the “throw away culture” applied to goods actually is disrespectful both to human beings and to God. Creation is God’s gift to us, and treating it with disrespect is an insult to the giver. At the same time, our cavalier use of material things can directly impact others, and can lower the dignity of those who produce what we consume.
A good example of this dynamic is the way that companies bulldoze fairly new buildings to put up something new, rather than taking the time to build solidly and remodel buildings for new purposes. This disrespect not only leads to a fantastic waste of energy and resources, but it creates a sterile, ugly built environment that depresses the spirit of those who live within it. It also strips the dignity from the labor of construction workers.
Laudato Si‘s vision of “Dominion”
Quoting St. John Paul II, Pope Francis condemns a view of the world focused solely using it for our own ends. It is right and proper to use the world, but this use can’t obscure the inherent, intrinsic value of the things around us.
The wrong understanding of the Christian concept of “Dominion” can lead to this use-oriented vision. In Genesis, we read that humanity is given charge of creation, to till and keep it. This kind of dominion does not mean that we have absolute control. Neither does it justify the abuse of the world. Rather, it calls us to have a steward’s care of what has been given to us.
In an earlier episode with Augustine Tardiff from Madonna House, we discussed this concept. Augustine described his experience of working on the Madonna House farm, which helped him to gain a proper understanding of dominion. In particular, he talked about feeding a calf which seemed bent on making the process as difficult as possible. By taking care of animals, we can come to a faint understanding of the care God has for us. Exercising such care also fulfills our mission to show forth the image of God in which we were created.
The Interconnected Nature of Reality
We’re connected to all of creation. We couldn’t live without it. As Pope Francis writes in Laudato Si:
It cannot be emphasized enough how everything is interconnected. Time and space are not independent of one another, and not even atoms or subatomic particles can be considered in isolation. Just as the different aspects of the planet – physical, chemical and biological – are interrelated, so too living species are part of a network which we will never fully explore and understand. A good part of our genetic code is shared by many living beings. It follows that the fragmentation of knowledge and the isolation of bits of information can actually become a form of ignorance, unless they are integrated into a broader vision of reality.
The interconnected nature of reality means that care of creation is inseparable from care for others. We need a consistent life ethic.
The idea of a consistent life ethic is sometimes abused, or seen as a way to downplay the gravity of abortion. In reality, a consistent life ethic is a matter of reverence for all life, even when such reverence is inconvenient for us. All too often, our modern world tries to avoid inconvenience by replacing life with technology, something we can control. Life is God’s, and God’s way is not ours. Technology, by contrast, is our own thought projected onto the world, and so is more convenient for us.
Lack of reverence is a sin that flows through everything else. If we don’t see trees as a gift from God, that sin will propagate, and affect other life, even human life. That is why Laudato Si is a human life encyclical. Environmental degradation eventually affects human life; this is how that sin manifests. Jason talked about seeing first hand how the destruction of rain forest in Costa Rica has led to poverty, forced migration, and conflict. We have to realize that the seemingly small sin of not caring for life will spread.
The Common Destination of Goods
Going back to the idea of the common good: one of the principles of Catholic social teaching is that the Earth was created for all. No piece of property came with a name tag on it. Of course, we’re not communists. As Catholics, we do recognize the right to own private property, but private property is only legitimately owned if that ownership better serves the universal destination of human goods. Ownership is not an excuse for using the earth’s resources for one’s self.
This is particularly true in environmental matters. If someone owns critical aspects of an ecosystem and destroys them, that ownership is not legitimate. The earth is not theirs to destroy in such a way, and this destruction will affect other people. Modern scientific investigation actually supports this idea of the common good. I can’t just tinker with my property without affecting other people. Paving a parking lot increases stream flow. If enough people pave over their private land, it will end up flooding other people downstream.
The idea of unlimited individual freedom is dangerous. Christ gave up his freedom for us, and we should imitate him. Our culture does not understand Gospel poverty, but we must demonstrate this. We must be willing to give up some of our personal freedom for the Common Good; this allows us to treat others as brothers and sisters. Otherwise our relationship will be adversarial, confrontational.
Voluntary Poverty
In our culture, the traditional Christian practices of poverty and fasting and simplicity of life seem illegitimate. Such asceticism, however, is the only way to live out an ecological spirituality. How many social and environmental problems could be solved with a little more frugality!
For Christians, this is much more than just a matter of practicality. Voluntary poverty helps us to de-clutter our lives. It helps us to honor the idea of the universal destination of human goods. We can’t justify holding onto excess when others are starving. Voluntary poverty is not the same as destitution. Rather, without voluntary poverty, there will be destitution. Our voluntary poverty allows us to alleviate the destitution of others. For more on the topic of voluntary poverty, see our episode here.
The Depth of the Christian Message
Even the modern, secular world has come to realize the potential benefits of a simpler life. For instance, various political figures have called for meatless Mondays to benefit the environment. This has led to absurd situations in which some Christians are protesting against calls for material sacrifice. It would be much better if, instead, we saw such situations as a chance to do something in solidarity with those around us, while at the same time giving the practice a deeper, spiritual meaning.
This is a good example of a general theme: the Christian message is deeper than the secular message. That is the point of Laudato Si. The Church is not opposed to the secular concern for the environment; rather, the Church does environmentalism better than the world. This is a healthier understanding than one which sees the Christian message as merely the opposite of whatever the world is saying at a given time.
The Technocratic Paradigm
A good example of this deeper Christian message is Laudato Si’s warning about the “technocratic paradigm”. Pope Francis writes:
There is a tendency to believe that every increase in power means “an increase of ‘progress’ itself”, an advance in “security, usefulness, welfare and vigour; . . . as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such. The fact is that “contemporary man has not been trained to use power well”, because our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience.
It can be said that many problems of today’s world stem from the tendency, at times unconscious, to make the method and aims of science and technology an epistemological paradigm which shapes the lives of individuals and the workings of society. The effects of imposing this model on reality as a whole, human and social, are seen in the deterioration of the environment, but this is just one sign of a reductionism which affects every aspect of human and social life. We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about the kind of society we want to build.
The idea of promoting a different cultural paradigm and employing technology as a mere instrument is nowadays inconceivable. The technological paradigm has become so dominant that it would be difficult to do without its resources and even more difficult to utilize them without being dominated by their internal logic. It has become countercultural to choose a lifestyle whose goals are even partly independent of technology, of its costs and its power to globalize and make us all the same. Technology tends to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with technology “know full well that it moves forward in the final analysis neither for profit nor for the well-being of the human race”, that “in the most radical sense of the term power is its motive – a lordship over all”. As a result, “man seizes hold of the naked elements of both nature and human nature”. Our capacity to make decisions, a more genuine freedom and the space for each one’s alternative creativity are diminished.
The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy. The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental deterioration. Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue, in popular and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. . . . Yet by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion. . . . We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social implications of technological and economic growth.
Technology, as Pope Francis warns, is not neutral. Every technology has its own inner logic, and imposes a certain shape on society. For instance, the automobile was developed to enable large distances to be covered quickly. It was a luxury item; most people were able to do without it in their daily lives. Now, it has reshaped our cities and our society to such an extent that in most parts of the USA it is a necessity. At the same time, society as a whole is not moving faster; we’re just moving in a different (and more environmentally destructive) way. In a sense, technologies such as the automobile share many of the characteristics of a protection racket. They produce a problem and then claim to solve it, making themselves necessary in the process.
Need for Community
The rejection of the technocratic paradigm is something individuals must pursue as part of an ecological conversion. We need to regain a perspective in which technology is merely a tool, and in consequence, is not allowed to reshape life in a destructive way. Living out this renewed perspective, however, is not possible without a community. In fact, once an individual has experienced an ecological conversion, they will probably find that the concrete change of life they feel called to requires a supportive community.
Closing Advice
For those who are suspicious of Laudato Si, just try reading the first three chapters. Pray and reflect on what Pope Francis is really saying. He’s not asking for some global change from on high, but for us to change our hearts. Converted hearts inevitably change the world. If we want people to “eat well and keep warm” to paraphrase St. James, then we have to be willing to take concrete steps toward that goal. These steps must involve protecting our common home.
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Is it Really Necessary to be Poor?
The story of the rich young man in Matthew 19 clearly illustrates the dangerous nature of wealth. When the topic comes up, however, many Christians quickly point out that Christ only said “if you would be perfect”, and that it would be “hard” but not “impossible” for the rich to enter heaven. After all, while a camel going through a needle may seem impossible, Christ did say that nothing is impossible with God! Going even further, some have claimed that the eye of the needle was merely the name of a narrow gate or pass, through which a camel could pass, if perhaps with difficulty.
Before addressing this argument, it is important to clarify that Gospel poverty does not entail destitution, the lack of basic necessities. Father Dubay’s book Happy Are You Poor explains this very well. Our summary of his book can be read here.
Necessary for What?
God’s mercy being infinite, it is of course true that voluntary poverty is not “necessary for salvation”. The only thing necessary for salvation is to humbly ask for the mercy of God. Someone can live a totally depraved life and be saved by asking for mercy at the last moment. It should be fairly obvious, however, that the message of the Gospel is not “do whatever you want and then ask for mercy at the last moment”. The real question for the Christian should be: is voluntary poverty an integral part of the Christian life?
Further, there is an interesting aspect to the idea of camels squeezing through a narrow gate. There is much debate as to whether the initial word in the Gospel was “camel” or “cable”, whether an “eye of the needle” gate existed, and so forth. Still, at least some commentators think the saying means that a camel could get through, but only if it was unloaded of all its baggage. After all, the rich are not a distinct species; they are human beings like the rest of us, with the addition of a lot of “stuff”. Christ may have been making a humorous comparison between a heavily burdened camel stuck in a narrow gate, and the wealthy who trudge through life spiritually weighed down by their possessions. The birds and wildflowers are carefree, while the rich need many barns to store their goods.
Detachment
The inherently burdening nature of wealth, however, is denied by some Christians. According to them, when the Gospel counsels “poverty” what is really meant is mere detachment. They insist that so long as one isn’t inordinately attached to possessions, wealth is harmless or even beneficial.
For one thing, this idea ignores the vital connection between physical reality and spiritual attitudes. As Father Dubay puts it, for wounded human beings “possessing imperceptibly slips into being possessed.” This is a Gnostic age that downplays material reality, an age which is “spiritual but not religious”. Christianity, however, is firmly rooted in the material, and takes physical actions very seriously. It is ironic that many who argue for mere inward detachment are simultaneously engaged in arguing for the importance of concrete, material acts of religion.
Our age is also an extremely individualist one. It is very telling that when the topic of poverty is discussed, the focus tends to be on the effects wealth may or may not have on one’s individual spirituality. The Gospel does not overlook the personal aspect, but puts even more stress on the social aspect of wealth. Whatever loopholes there may be in the story of the rich young man, there are no such loopholes in the picture presented by Matthew 25, James 2:14-17, and 1 John 3. If we don’t love and serve our brothers and sisters, then we don’t love God. This love can’t remain a spiritual thing of “thoughts and prayers”, but demands concrete action.
Christian love is absolutely incompatible with purchasing luxuries for ourselves while our brothers and sisters are starving. Such selfish actions also expose so-called “detachment” that is devoid of practical results as a pious sham. Someone who was truly detached would be only too willing to give surplus wealth away to feed the hungry.
The Rosary
To me, it seems that there is a fairly watertight case for the essential role of voluntary poverty, at least when the social dimension is taken into account. In one sense, however, the very fact that we’re discussing whether it is an essential practice highlights a problem. Here is an aspect of Christian spirituality that is extensively discussed in Sacred Scripture and that has been recommended in glowing terms by numerous saints. Given all this, why are we debating about whether it is essential? It seems rather like a debate about whether a good night’s sleep is important to academic or athletic performance the next day. Sure, you could possibly succeed without it; but why be so quick to dismiss something of such obvious value?
The folly of this dismissal can be seen by comparing Catholic attitudes toward voluntary poverty with Catholic attitudes toward the Rosary. The Rosary is certainly an excellent prayer, but it isn’t mentioned in scripture, and obviously isn’t necessary for living a good Christian life, let alone for salvation. Yet there are Rosary confraternities, books of rosary meditations, programs and articles on how to say the rosary, and organizations dedicated to promoting it. Many Catholics pray the rosary every day. All well and good. The contrast with voluntary poverty, however, is striking. Shouldn’t we put at least as much effort into practicing, promoting, and reflecting on voluntary poverty as we put into practicing, promoting, and reflecting on the Rosary and other non-biblical religious practices? Perhaps if Catholics reclaimed this traditional yet neglected element of the Faith, our Church would be transformed.
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The Maurin House
In this episode, I interview Tyler Hambley from the Maurin House, a new Catholic Worker House in the suburbs of Minneapolis.
The Hope of the Poor
Tyler’s first experience of Catholic Worker-style life came when he was a divinity student in Durham, North Carolina. He started gathering with a small group to pray vespers every evening at a local Episcopalian church, and over time the group started meeting after vespers for meals. The church grounds had become a sort of hangout for the local homeless population.
One of the intercession at vespers is “let the hope of the poor not be in vain”. As Tyler explained, we have to let our prayers become a lived reality, not just words. In this case, the embodiment of the prayer started by inviting some of the homeless to their community meals. Over time, friendships developed, and eventually, some members of this group started renting housing together and taking in the homeless. Things developed organically until there were three houses with around 20 people living in them as a community.
Over time, however, Tyler and some of the other members of the community began to feel attracted to the Catholic Church. Eventually, Tyler’s family joined another family from the Durham community to start the Maurin House in Columbia Heights, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Intellectual Influences
The writers Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre had a big influence on Tyler. They taught him the importance of shared practices in community life, of becoming a certain kind of person rather than making certain decisions. Hauerwas says that if one has to make a decision, all may have been lost. If we have to decide whether to act in a virtuous manner, it shows that we are not yet virtuous people. Becoming virtuous means acquiring certain virtuous habits of thought and action.
We can only live as Christians by following a certain tradition as a community. As individuals, the best we can do is try to make good decisions, but as a community we can build a way of life within the Christian tradition.
The Living Tradition
Traditionalism, however, is dangerous, since traditionalists have a flawed understanding of the tradition. They think of it as if it were a static thing that stays unchanged. In reality, however, the tradition is a living thing, a story that we continue. A tradition or culture which is closed off from further experience and further development dies.
The Benedict Option
Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option” is, at least in theory, inspired by MacIntyre’s book After Virtue. There is a lot of good in the Benedict Option idea, but the motivation is flawed. The Benedict Option is presented as an answer to the growing hostility of the surrounding culture. This is the wrong motivation for building community. Fear of the surrounding culture will not produce the kind of practices that will form persons in virtue. (In a recent podcast episode, I discussed the Benedict Option at length with Dr. Cameron Thompson.)
The anger of “culture warrior” Catholics stems from a fear that they will lose access to the comforts and prestige of suburban American culture. The culture warriors are often seen as the opposites of the so-called “liberals”, who are willing to compromise their values to maintain the world’s favor. These two ideologies seem opposed to one another, and yet they are actually the same. Both are unwilling to reject the comfort of our consumer society, embrace voluntary poverty, and follow Christ through self-sacrificing service to the poor.
Radical or Superficial
The real division is not between progressives and conservatives, but between radical Christians and superficial ones. Christianity isn’t compatible with consumerism and the comfortable security obtained through insurance and high-paying jobs. This sort of comfort and security will inevitably undermine the Faith. In contrast, radical communities can provide their members with a different kind of support and security, based on mutual self-sacrifice and trust. For more on this topic, see our blog post about preppers and suburbanites.
The Hospitable Family
Christian parents are called to raise their children, of course. This does not, however, mean that they can ignore the needs of the wider community. In fact, as Tyler mentioned, the Catechism says that Catholic families “should live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor.”
In some ways, care for children and care for the poor are very similar and reinforce one another. Just as Christian couples are called to be open to life and the inconvenient demands it puts on them, we’re all called to be open to aiding the poor in a sacrificial manner. Both kinds of openness are part of building a “culture of life.” In both cases, those who give generously “receive back a hundred fold”. We shouldn’t see the poor or children merely as those we help. Rather, children, the poor, and all the weak and vulnerable mediate Christ for us. That’s a very different perspective than the standard social justice one!
Families living in community can experience a certain amount of tension between the demands of family life and the demands of community. On the other hand, Tyler explained that as a father he feels he needs community. Too much emphasis on the family unit can leave parents as isolated individuals accountable to no one. Accountability and obedience aren’t just for children; parents also need support, guidance, and correction from others.
Advice on Starting a Community
In closing, Tyler gave some advice to those who want to build community. It is best not to start with grand expectations or plans. Instead, it is better to find a few others with similar interests, and start engaging in shared practices: particularly in shared prayer, but also in shared meals and recreation. Out of the friendships that develop a community can grow over time.
Learn more about the Maurin House at their website.
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The Community-Destroying Economy
Over the past ninety years, the American economy has grown dramatically. It is now 19 times larger than it was in 1930. Its growth is exponential; it is doubling at a more or less fixed rate, which means its absolute growth rate is rapidly increasing. In fact, our economy needs to grow to stay alive; without growth, it crashes. (COVID-19 has temporarily halted, and even reversed, economic growth; it remains to be seen if the economy will “recover” in the coming years.)
This need for growth is problematic in a number of different ways. Most fundamentally, we live on a finite planet, and anything that has to grow forever will eventually run into limits of some sort. In this essay, I want to consider a particular question: how does a growing economy affect the development and existence of communities, whether intentional or organic?
Why Growth?
To answer this question, we need to answer another one: why does the economy grow? There are a number of causes driving economic growth. For one thing, our population is also growing. There are more people in the United States today than there were in 1930, and so there are more workers and more demand for goods and services. This population growth isn’t a complete explanation for our economic growth, however; while our economy today is 19 times larger than it was in 1930, our population is less than three times larger than it was in that year. Another reason for this growth is that living standards have risen. Some of this rise is beneficial, since it involves people obtaining better access to basic necessities. This rise, however, is also insufficient to explain the growth of the economy. Even before the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, homelessness was on the rise, and 10% of American households were experiencing food insecurity, and yet the economy was growing rapidly.
Much of the growth in the modern economy is driven by two factors: increased desires, and commodification.
Increased Desires
In our society, we’re constantly bombarded by advertising, and we experience social pressure to “keep up” with the increasingly consumptive lifestyle of those around us. This pressure can make us desire all kinds of things beyond what is necessary for a dignified human life.
Houses today are much bigger than they used to be; while 70 years ago the average new home had 983 square feet of floor space, the average new home in 2020 had 2333 square feet. This extra space is a vacuum crying out to be filled with consumer items of all sorts. In fact, many Americans now find that the space available to them is too small, and the personal storage industry, which hardly existed 70 years ago, has ballooned dramatically.
Fashion contributes to this growth of desires, causing perfectly good clothes and other items to be discarded in favor of the latest and greatest. Software is continually updated, cars are traded in, and “dated” appliances and countertops are scrapped.
Disposable items, mostly made of plastic, are ubiquitous in the United States, and promote economic growth by replacing more durable goods. In general, the faster a given item moves from the store shelf to the landfill, the more the economy grows.
Commodification
“Economy” literally means “the management of the household”. It is how households and societies support themselves. In this sense, vegetables grown in the backyard for personal consumption are part of the economy, as is the work of a child watching younger siblings. Goods and services of this type, however, are not counted toward the GDP of the formal economy. One of the major ways that the formal economy grows is through commodification, by turning social “capital” of this sort into financial wealth. A good example of this is entertainment. In past times, entertainment was a relatively small proportion of the formal economy; people made most of their own entertainment for free. Now, entertainment has become a multi-billion dollar industry, increasing the size of the economy. There are many similar examples in other areas of the economy; in the past, most cooking, mending, and child care was performed by the informal, social economy instead of by the formal financial economy. Even the basic social interaction of conversation is becoming commodified by social media platforms that see us as an audience for advertising. Every time a social interaction is replaced by a financial transaction, the economy grows.
Disruption
This growth produces constant disruption on many different levels. People move across the country as the economic prospects in a given location change. Factories are torn down for homes. Farms become suburbs, and suburbs, in turn, are bulldozed to make room for expanding city centers. Businesses have become ephemeral. Even large businesses now have an average lifespan of only 18 years, and small businesses are even more transitory. Whole industries and the skill sets they require quickly become obsolete. This churning disruption boosts economic growth even further.
Effects on Community
It should be fairly obvious that this growth damages community, both directly and indirectly. Commodification in particular destroys the opportunity for community building. There is a certain trade-off: home cooked meals build community better than fast food meals eaten on the go, but the latter produce more economic growth. Increasing desires make it harder to stay in one place and put down roots, since our society penalizes those who are unwilling to be both geographically and socially mobile. The indirect effects of growth are also detrimental; no community can develop if everything is in a state of constant flux.
Pushing Back
To build community, we need to push back against the drivers of economic growth. It is literally a matter of life and death. The economy needs to grow, or it will die. If we let the growth machine drive us, its hunger will eat up every scrap of social connection in our lives. The process may make us wealthy (if we’re among the lucky ones who end up on top) but it will leave us spiritually and socially dead.
On the societal scale, those with the skills and aptitude to do so should pursue the transition to a steady-state economy not dependent on growth. We’ve come to see exponential growth as normal, but in a wider historical sense it is deeply abnormal. There are other ways to structure an economy.
We don’t need to wait for social transformation, however. We can reign in our desires by embracing the Christian virtue of voluntary poverty. We can resist the pull of hyper-mobility and the restlessness of the modern world in our personal lives. Perhaps most importantly, we can reverse the trend toward commodification. By working together, making music, cultivating conversation, tending gardens, repairing homes, and enjoying meals, we can knit the severed threads of community life back together.
Postscript: At first glance, it seems that economic contraction also destroys communities. I’ve seen this play out firsthand in the Rust Belt. The reason for such destruction, however, is that economic growth had already destroyed older, non-commercialized ways of life. In a sense, the devastation seen when the economy declines is simply a revelation of the preexisting, underlying destruction.
Our current economic growth appears to be unsustainable. It is very likely that many local communities will face economic contraction in the future. This contraction will be destructive, unless communities can band together, reject the narratives of growth, and find non-commercial, community-based ways to meet their needs.
Port image by Fatlouie CC BY-SA 3.0
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The Church is a Thing, Not an Idea
In An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, St. John Henry Newman distinguishes between “real” and “notional” assent and understanding. At the risk of vastly oversimplifying his argument, “notional” knowledge is the sort of knowledge we have of abstract concepts. In a notional way, I assent to the proposition that 2+2+4; I believe this to be true. We also have notional knowledge of many concrete realities that we haven’t directly experienced; for instance, my knowledge of Julius Caesar, and my assent to the reality of his existence, is notional.
We gain “real” knowledge through direct experience. I have real experience of my parents, and can give a real assent to their existence. We can also have a “real” knowledge of some concrete realities we haven’t directly experienced; for instance, Newman explained that he could have a “real” knowledge of a fire in London even when he was hundreds of miles away. This was possible for him because he had direct experience of London, and direct experience with fires, though not with this particular one.
Newman does not mean to say that notional knowledge and assent aren’t real, but rather that such knowledge and assent aren’t based on concrete experience. He goes on to explain that notional knowledge generally does not touch us as deeply as real knowledge.
Our knowledge of God can be either notional or real; Newman calls the notional knowledge of God “theological” and real knowledge of God “religious”. For our spiritual life to grow and develop properly, we need a real, religious experience of God. Our Faith isn’t an abstract proposition, but a living relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jesus wanted this relationship of faith to be a communal rather than a purely individual matter. This is the purpose of the Church: to bring us together in union with Christ as the mystical body.
As with our knowledge of God, our knowledge of the Church should be a “real” knowledge. The Church isn’t an idea or a list of rules. Nor is it the building down the street. The Church is a community to which one gives one’s life. Though the Church is spread across the world, it is also local and particular. William T. Cavanaugh’s book Being Consumed contains the following beautiful reflection on the local nature of the Church:
This universalization of the body of Christ, however, is never detached from the local and the particular, for the eucharistic community is essentially local, gathered around the altar in a particular time and place. Furthermore, the particular is of supreme importance because the Eucharist is not a mere sign that points to Christ; this particular piece of bread is the body of Christ . . . The catholicity of the church is not sustained by a cosmopolitan detachment from the particular . . . “Catholic” means a gathering rather than a spreading out, a unification of the many through attachment to the local eucharistic community. One becomes more catholic, more universal, the more one is tied to a particular community of Christians gathered around the altar.
Sacrosanctum concilium outlines the same idea:
41. The bishop is to be considered as the high priest of his flock, from whom the life in Christ of his faithful is in some way derived and dependent.
Therefore all should hold in great esteem the liturgical life of the diocese centered around the bishop, especially in his cathedral church; they must be convinced that the pre-eminent manifestation of the Church consists in the full active participation of all God’s holy people in these liturgical celebrations, especially in the same eucharist, in a single prayer, at one altar, at which there presides the bishop surrounded by his college of priests and by his ministers.
42. But because it is impossible for the bishop always and everywhere to preside over the whole flock in his Church, he cannot do other than establish lesser groupings of the faithful. Among these the parishes, set up locally under a pastor who takes the place of the bishop, are the most important: for in some manner they represent the visible Church constituted throughout the world.
If we are connected to the Church through the local Eucharistic community, then in a certain sense it is almost impossible to fully join the Catholic Church in the USA. It is almost impossible to gain a real, experiential knowledge that would enable us to give a real, as opposed to a notional, assent to the Church’s claim on us.
It is perfectly possible to have a loving relationship with Christ—he can be encountered everywhere. It is perfectly possible to enter one of the many church buildings, and receive life giving sacraments. In a sense, however, the Church can only be joined if that building contains a true community gathered around those sacraments, a community to which one can give one’s life. All too often, our church buildings contain merely a disconnected collection of individuals showing up to a “Mass stop”. Even if we participate in extra-liturgical activities, we tend to go our separate ways, living and working apart from one another.
This perhaps explains why some individuals join the Church only to leave it again. They’ve heard about the Church; they give a notional assent; but not finding the concrete reality, nominal assent can never become real and vivifying. Discussing this problem, the priests who host the “Catholic Stuff You Should Know” podcast said ‘there is nothing to bring them (converts) into”!
Newman does point out that it is possible to come to real knowledge, and therefore real assent, without direct physical experience. He explains that if someone tells him there’s a fire in London, he can get a real knowledge of it, in part because he’s experienced fires and cities before. In our case, however, this indirect route to real knowledge is very difficult. The Church is a kind of community, and most of us have never experienced a real community. Our so-called communities tend to be more voluntary and accidental collections of individuals with a high turnover rate; perhaps it isn’t surprising that this experience shapes many Americans’ participation in the Church.
This means that for most of us, the Christian life is out of reach, since the Christian life is fundamentally about participation in the Church. We can live “as Christians”, since that can be done anywhere. One can live as a Christian even in a concentration camp or on a desert island. We’re each personally responsible for our response to God’s Grace. Yet the “Christian life” remains out of reach for the isolated individual.
The essential nature of community for joining the Church may also explain why Christianity declines in wealthy countries and thrives in poor ones. Wealth is largely a means for avoiding the necessity of community life, as I address in this blog post.
What can be done about this? We have to enrich our faith, moving from nominal to real knowledge. We have to find others to gather with: as Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in his name, there he is in their midst. Such gathering must eventually move on to commitment, formal or informal, or one has not truly “joined” anything. And further, such gatherings should not be separate from the parish structure. There are various nominally Catholic groups that capitalize on the desire for community, and build themselves up at the expense of the local church. Even if, at present, the parish is merely an uncomfortable and empty shell, it provides the structure that assures our local community is really an instantiation of Christ’s body, a branch on the vine, not a lopped branch doomed to wither.
By building local community, we can renew the Church by being the Church, by making it once again an “ekklesia” or assembly, instead of merely a building.
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Let Us Dream, Episode 3
In this episode, Malcolm and Peter Land continue discussing the first chapter (and some themes from the second chapter) of Let Us Dream by Pope Francis. This is the third part of a series of episodes. The first episode is here and the second episode is here. The following are some of the points we discussed.
Indifference
According to Pope Francis, we face a pervasive “virus” of indifference. He says:
We see it in the story of the poor man Lazarus in Luke’s Gospel. The rich man was his neighbor; he knew perfectly well who Lazarus was—even his name. But he was indifferent, he didn’t care. To the rich man, Lazarus’s misfortune was his own affair . . . He knew Lazarus’s life but didn’t let it affect him. . . . Hence people judge situations without empathy, without any ability to walk for a time in the other’s shoes.
Here in Italy you often hear people say che me ne frega when you have a problem. It means “So what? What’s it got to do with me?” In Argentina we say: y a mi que? They’re little words that reveal a mindset. Some Italians claim you need a healthy dose of menefreghismo—”so-whatism”—to get through life, because if you start worrying about what you see, how are you ever going go relax? This attitude ends up armor-plating the soul: that is, indifference bulletproofs it, so that certain things just bounce off. One of the dangers of this indifference is that it can become normal, silently seeping into our lifestyles and value judgements. We cannot get use to indifference.
The attitude of the Lord is completely different, at the opposite pole. God is never indifferent. The essence of God is mercy, which is not just seeing and being moved but responding with action.
We are all tempted to avoid seeing or hearing about things that make us uncomfortable. Often times, we don’t want to hear about the poor, because then we might realize we are required to care for them. This is an ancient problem in the Church. The Shepherd of Hermas, written in the first half of the second century, discusses the rich who hold back from joining the Church for fear of being asked to help the poor! We have to resist this temptation, have to widen our gaze and be affected by the struggles of others.
This willingness to see has to come before we make changes. Otherwise, we’ll end up seeing other just as problems, and impose our own solutions on them. To avoid this, we need to break out of our own perspectives.
Indifference not only blocks out the people around us; it also blocks out the movement of the Holy spirit. The Spirit of God is always attentive, always responds to us in a relational way. We need to imitate this openness so that we can see the new things God is trying to do. Indifference cuts off this possibility.
Showing Mercy to Others
We are supposed to be showing God’s mercy to others. By reflecting on our own failures, we will realize how indebted we are to God’s mercy. Everything we have is a grace from God; we aren’t inherently better than others. If we’re virtuous, this may simply be the result of a better background and other unearned gifts. This perspective makes it easier to show mercy to others.
Attention
It can be difficult to be attentive, particularly in the modern world. As I pointed out in a recent essay, the evil in us tends to resist “re-collection”.
One practice that can help to build attention is to go for a walk without an agenda, merely to experience the surrounding reality. By turning off the constant stream of mental “commentary” and experiencing things for themselves, we’ll develop the skills we need to pay attention to God and to our neighbors.
This matches the advice given by a Desert Father to a young monk who was having spiritual difficulties and wanted to know if he should pray special prayers or perform other spiritual exercises. Instead, the young monk was told to just sit quietly in his cell, eat when he was hungry, drink when he was thirsty, and sleep when he was tired. This was supposed to help him get back into touch with reality, with life stripped down to the basics. We’re dependent beings, and we need to realize this.
The Media
The media can help us to be in touch with reality . . . or it can keep us away from reality. Media platforms can become performative, catering to the prejudices of listeners, profiting off division and distortion. Such platforms can make it impossible for us to have the perception of reality that Pope Francis calls for.
When dealing with media, it is important to avoid platforms which take a polarizing stance. A media outlet which takes as given that there is only one answer to every question and that all opponents are evil or stupid is unlikely to be a good guide.
Searching for source documents is also important. Even if reporters and journalists aren’t intentionally spinning a narrative, quotes and summaries can only get one so far. If a document or book or speech is under discussion, reading it for oneself can be very clarifying.
Even more importantly, we have to deeply experience reality. In this way, we can become “media” for others. If we become truly quiet and attentive, and so get in touch with the reality of things, we can then become an ambassador of truth for others. We can act like the Apostles, who had a deep experience and knowledge of Jesus Christ and then went forth to proclaim his Gospel to the world.
Discernment
Discernment is a key theme throughout Let Us Dream. We’ll be discussing it in more depth in upcoming episodes.
One of the prerequisites for discernment is the awareness that one does not have all the answers. We have to begin by asking questions, both about the situation and about what God wants us to do in the situation.
We can’t be quick to jump to an answer or reject a particular way of thought. Polarization is superficially attractive, but the Catholic way is often the “both/and”. We see this “both/and” solution being applied to many of the most famous disagreements in Christian history; Jesus is both God and Man, we need both Faith and Works, we revere both the Bible and Tradition, we value both celibacy and marriage. We have to hold divergent perspectives together in charity.
Peter Land discussed experiencing this in his own life. At college, he found that the students were more or less divided into “conservative” and “liberal” groups, and each group attended different events and listened to different speakers. He found that by attending a wider range of events and speaking with a wider range of people, he could come to a deeper understanding.
Starting with Small Things
We have to start with little things, little habits that we need to break or change. Peter gave a good example. He discussed learning to clean up after himself when he was living at college; that change of attitude helped to produce a change in the overall culture of his college dorm, making it more responsible and charitable.
Discernment should be started there, in the small things. Focusing on the big things can be counterproductive; big things grow from small things.
Trust in God
Trust in God is vital to true discernment. We’re inadequate to the task, and yet called to it. That’s why Pope Francis calls us to realize that we don’t have all the answers. We have to trust in the Lord to open doors that we don’t even know are there.
We have to be willing to be led into the void, onto the water, into a foreign land like Abraham was. We’re called in this time to create new ways for the future, by being open to God’s grace.
St. Peter’s Basilica by Vitold Muratov, CC BY-SA 4.0; Let Us Dream Cover image, Fair Use
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Attention as Prayer
In Simone Weil’s beautiful essay “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God”, she explains that prayer is simply the turning of one’s attention to God. It isn’t a busy activity, but rather a peaceful practice of being present before God and attentive to him.
Attentiveness can only be gained through practice. According to Weil, the development of this capacity for attention is the real purpose of school work. Each particular subject has a “useful” purpose, but any subject serves to build the capacity for attention, and this deeper purpose is more important. Even if someone has no natural aptitude for their studies, the attempt to concentrate is still beneficial for building attention.
This means that a student should strive to do the work well (otherwise they would not be truly attentive) but without worrying too much about goals or ends. Instead, they should strive to do each thing for itself and as a preparation for prayer.
Weil explains that every time we pay attention, we “destroy the evil in ourselves.” Evil divides and dissipates. This can be seen in the division between God and humanity, in conflicts between individual human beings, and in the internal battles we each fight against our lower tendencies. By concentrating, we “pull ourselves together”, overcoming the evil impulse to dissipation.
What is Attention?
To pay attention well, we need to know what attention is. Weil writes that attention is a negative effort, the act of holding the mind open in the presence of something. “Jumping” on a concept or idea too quickly is not attention, and can close the mind to the truth. At the same time, we can’t “jump” away from the idea or person before us. Weil describes attention while writing as waiting “for the right word to come of itself at the end of the pen, while we merely reject all inadequate words.”
This negative effort of attention is hard for us. We’re very busy, and we want to stay that way: it makes us feel important and protects us from ourselves. We don’t like to be “re-collected” with ourselves and passively present before God in prayer, or before another human being or even an idea. Yet this is what Christ asks us to do. In the Gospel, the servants who were found patiently and attentively waiting are called blessed.
Attentive Community
This virtue of attention is necessary for community, and also fostered by it. Weil points out this connection:
“Not only does the love of God have attention for its substance; the love of our neighbor, which we know to be the same love, is made of this same substance. Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle.”
Community is all about giving others our attention, emptying our souls of self so we can take the other in; so we can, as Weil put it, say to the other “What are you going through?” Without this attention, community becomes soulless and sterile. “Companions” are literally those who share bread with one another; in a more extensive sense, they are those who share their lives, share their attention.
Imitating Christ
In doing so, we’re imitating Christ, who emptied himself for our sake. Not only will we imitate him, but in imitating him through attention we will truly find him. It does not matter what we are doing, whether studying, working, or serving our neighbor: if we are open and attentive to the things around us, we will find him there before us. For “in him we live and move and have our being”. All things are kept in being by the loving attention of God, so that when we look on anything with love and attention, our gaze meets his.
“Prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux -
Family Missions Company
In this episode, Malcolm interviews Gerry Martins, a member of Family Missions Company. They discuss FMC, the Alleluia Community, listening to the Holy Spirit, and voluntary poverty.
Personal Background
Gerry is from Mumbai, India. He is a cradle Catholic, but he and his family were not fully practicing their faith before an encounter with FMC. While they were on a vacation, they just happened to find out that Family Missions Company would be having a retreat, and decide to attend. It was a life-changing conversion experience. Gerry’s family eventually discerned a call to join FMC, and traveled to the FMC headquarters in Louisiana to receive formation.
Family Missions Company
Frank and Genie Summers founded FMC in 1995, drawing on their own experience as family missionaries. In the early 80’s, they had been living a materially successful but secular lifestyle, and their marriage was falling apart. After a conversion experience, they dedicated their lives to serving the poor and preaching the Gospel. For the next decade, they served as lay missionaries around the world. When the returned to the USA, they felt called to found FMC to train other families. They saw it as meeting a need, since there was a lack of resources for Catholic mission families. Today, there are around 300 FMC missionaries stationed around the world.
FMC was deeply influenced by the Charismatic renewal. Missionaries try to remain open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They focus on discipleship, on helping others to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus. The organization also emphasizes voluntary poverty and trust in God.
Alleluia Community
Gerry Martins took a course through the Alleluia Community’s Spiritual Direction School. Later, he returned to work with the Alleluia Community to start a campus of Encounter School of Ministry. Encounter Ministry aims to bring people’s charisms alive.
We interviewed the Alleluia Community in an earlier podcast episode. In this episode, Gerry mentioned that the community is really good at welcoming and integrating newcomers. Some communities can become cliquish and closed to new members; others simply fail to adequately integrate new members. The Alleluia Community, in contrast, has an intentional structure designed to make new members feel at home.
Voluntary Poverty
We discussed the value of voluntary poverty in following the Lord. Gerry pointed out that we shouldn’t be “thing-centered”. Voluntary poverty also helps us to trust God and other people.
Evangelizing Community
One of the problems the Church faces to day is that there is nothing to bring people “into”. It is difficult to make converts without a welcoming community. As a community, we need to share our relationship with Jesus.
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Holy Family House: A New Catholic Worker House
In this episode, I interview Sean Domencic, director of Tradistae, about his experience as founder of Holy Family House in Lancaster, PA.
Holy Family House
Beginnings
When Sean and his now-wife Monica were engaged, they came to realize how important Christian community was to living out the Faith. They started to discuss this idea with a few friends. One of them had a lot of experience with the Catholic Worker, a movement started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. The Catholic Worker movement is best known for providing personal hospitality to those in need in houses where the workers live with their guests. The Catholic Worker’s emphasis on social justice was very appealing to Sean.
Sean and Monica begin discerning opening a house of hospitality. They committed to the idea while attending a retreat for Catholic couples and families interested in community. After that, everything fell into place. They rented a house with two other friends, and named it the Holy Family Catholic Worker House. The local parish helped them to find people who needed assistance with housing, and they quickly filled the available space. They’ve just bought a second house to expand their ministry.
Community Life at Holy Family House
The members of Holy Family House have weekly community meals and round table discussions, and pray vespers together. They still have outside jobs, so they can’t do as much outreach to the wider community as they would like.
The Future of Holy Family House
Although Sean emphasized that those starting community shouldn’t expect too much right away, he also emphasized that they should be open to wider visions of what might be possible in the future. In addition to their houses of hospitality, he hopes that his community can eventually start a Catholic Worker farm. They are also interested in helping to turn their local parish into a real community, with members living near the Church and building up a vibrant local economy of mutual aid.
Christian Community
As well as talking about the development of Holy Family House, we discussed Christian community in general.
Expectations and Vision
Sean talked about how important it is to have everyone involved in a new community “on the same page”. People can easily come into a project with incompatible visions, which only crop up later. They can cause a lot of heartache and trouble down the road. A clear vision gives a community something to coalesce around.
Friendship and Intentionality
In earlier podcasts, we’ve discussed the importance of starting out organically, starting with friendship instead of a blueprint. Sean agreed with that, but pointed out that such a group of friends does need to move on to something more structured. The ability to commit to a shared project is a test of friendship, and can help to deepen it. Even once this happens, however, the community can’t stop valuing the friendships; the friendship and the vision are the two poles between which the community has to keep going back and forth.
Catholic Social Teaching
It is vital that Catholic Communities have an emphasis on Catholic Social Teaching and on service to the poor. As Peter Maurin said, such communities need to be clear about what the world currently is, what it should be, and how to get from here to there. Without this clarity, Christian community can easily deteriorate into a sort of Christian suburb. Sean also pointed out how important it is that a community embrace voluntary poverty. Sometimes those who desire community want to wait until they can do so from a position of economic strength, but this may compromise the community’s integrity.
Consumerism
Consumerism can easily seep into a Christian community that is focused on providing a “good life” for its members. This can sometimes happen due to the seemingly harmless desire of parents to provide a good education and cultural environment for their children. As Sean said, there’s nothing wrong with education and cultural enrichment; he hopes he can provide these things for his future children. More importantly, however, children need to see that their parents are trying to live out the Gospel. Without this, any cultural environment is likely to become hypocritical, and children are quick to pick up on this.
Avoid Division, Embrace Discussion!
Sean and I discussed the fact that we have various disagreements on ideological points, but that we still see one another as allies. We can see one another’s projects as valuable, due to our shared commitments to the Church and our shared interest in social justice. This is in line with the Catholic Worker tradition of the Round Table Discussion. We need to be committed to seeking the truth, but we need to do so in unity with others who may differ from us. As Tim Keller said in a past interview, there will be political and ideological differences in any community, but these differences can’t be allowed to tear the community apart. Without a commitment to unity, the quest for truth will falter as different perspectives are isolated in their own ghettos.
Tradistae
Sean’s Tradistae project attempts to present the tradition of the Church; in particular, it attempts to show that Catholic Social Teaching is a vital aspect of the Church’s tradition. Too often those interested in Catholic Tradition are only interested in relatively superficial aspects of it. The Tradistae project seeks to change this; it includes a podcast, easy essays, and social media outreach.
Building Christian Community as a Means of Evangelization
