I also see this trend where I live (Charlotte, NC). However, I don't like it and suspect it does more damage than good to the overall Church. It's a network effect and echo chamber problem all rolled up into one. Most Catholics will pick the church that aligns best with their "brand" of Catholic. And to be fair, because these churches ar…
I also see this trend where I live (Charlotte, NC). However, I don't like it and suspect it does more damage than good to the overall Church. It's a network effect and echo chamber problem all rolled up into one. Most Catholics will pick the church that aligns best with their "brand" of Catholic. And to be fair, because these churches are so homogenous, it's a cycle that's hard to break once started. Then you get different Catholic cliques in a city that are fairly insulated from each other and even look down on the others (for example, I have been informed that my church is for the "Catholic Lites". In turn, I have heard the church this guy attends is for the pre Vatican II heretics). These cliques would dissolve easier I imagine if what separated us was just distance instead of ideology. I think forcing all of us to go to our closest church would probably be uncomfortable for most involved and make different factions within the Church live with one another instead of the current state of self segregation. It's bad enough our social media and news media (this outlet excluded) is self filtered to create an echo chamber, I really don't think our interactions with the body of Christ should be.
I also see this trend where I live (Charlotte, NC). However, I don't like it and suspect it does more damage than good to the overall Church. It's a network effect and echo chamber problem all rolled up into one. Most Catholics will pick the church that aligns best with their "brand" of Catholic. And to be fair, because these churches are so homogenous, it's a cycle that's hard to break once started. Then you get different Catholic cliques in a city that are fairly insulated from each other and even look down on the others (for example, I have been informed that my church is for the "Catholic Lites". In turn, I have heard the church this guy attends is for the pre Vatican II heretics). These cliques would dissolve easier I imagine if what separated us was just distance instead of ideology. I think forcing all of us to go to our closest church would probably be uncomfortable for most involved and make different factions within the Church live with one another instead of the current state of self segregation. It's bad enough our social media and news media (this outlet excluded) is self filtered to create an echo chamber, I really don't think our interactions with the body of Christ should be.