I was talking to a friend about our new Mission Ignite Toolkit, and how every Catholic deserves to have access to healthy, flourishing parishes in their town. I expected nodding, but instead he asked, why?

A little surprised, I blurted “Because parishes are the last, best place to be fully human in our culture.” He paused, nodded, and said, I could see that.

But I kept thinking. I believe that our culture is deeply in danger of losing its basic humanity. We are increasingly disconnected, lonely, anxious, communicating through screens, separated from nature. We are increasingly betraying our covenant to one another through spikes in tribalism, and algorithms that reward hatred and emotional hit and runs. We are consumers who are constantly consumed. Our head space is overwhelmed by how we look to others. We increasingly don’t know how to read, how to rest, how to eat, and how to love. We do not worship at all in a world that feels like less like home, and more like a survival video game.

The original core community is the family. But whether people live in families or not…the most human space for flourishing is the parish church. 

What makes parish churches the last, best place to be human?

1. You worship God there. There are plenty of places of “worship”–a google search engine, a sports field, a political rally–but they are all idols. I enjoy watching sports and cheering on the home team. But if that is my worship, my humanity is warped, and our community as well. True worship activates a wiring we were born with. It connects us and orders us to God and each other. And it is a source of deep peace and joy. Our primary and appropriate place of worship is a parish church.
2. You listen there. You listen to the Word. You listen to the homily. You listen to the Eucharistic prayer. You listen for God. And you listen to each other. Listening is easier in a parish than anywhere else, because he is present in the tabernacle, and the baptized. The world is too often ordered to noise or distraction.
3. You love each other there: no matter what. The parish church isn’t Cheers (the bar from the TV sitcom where everybody knows your name), but…it should be the place where everybody knows your name, and you care for each other, you forgive each other, you bear each other’s burdens, and you hope for each other. Human beings need to love and be loved. Parish churches provide the place for that, live and in person.
4. You learn there. I’ll admit you can learn anywhere. But it is a sacred place to learn about God, and his action in our world. Where else are people studying God in earnest hope?
5. You eat there. I’m not talking about the potluck, although I love a good one. I’m referring to the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Lord is our hope and salvation and we have the incredible opportunity to receive him as Lord and friend every week, even every day. There is no substitute for this miraculous sacrament of everyday holiness.
6. You practice being hope-bearers there. Let’s be honest, there is a lot of anger and despair out there these days. Jesus Christ is our truest hope. And often, the only place people will hear that hope is in their parish church, and with their parish community. Best yet, our hope isn’t anchored on human achievement or political realities out of our immediate control, but anchored in the truth that Jesus died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

Perhaps I have convinced you that parishes are the best places to be human…but the last?

Let me say this: when Pope Leo XIV was elevated this past week, he took the name Leo to honor Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, “On the Condition of Labor.” The 1891 encyclical defended humanity under attack by the Industrial Revolution. Leo XIV said we are in a new, yet similar, change of age: humanity under attack by the technological and AI revolution. I’ll be the first to admit technology–and AI as well–can serve the common good, and often does. But there is no question that what it means to be human in this changing context, and how to preserve human dignity, is being questioned hard, again. 

It says something when teens say they wish they had grown up in an age before cell phones–and they don’t want their kids to live with that.

Parishes are part of the answer. They are where we join together to encounter Jesus Christ in worship and service to one another, and they are the last, best place to be human. God’s people deserve good parishes that honor just that.