Pope Leo said “log off”

Pope Leo just did something I never thought I’d see from a bishop let alone the pope. He proved he understands online Catholic culture.

In a recent tweet, the Pope acknowledged the good happening through Catholic media. People are learning about the faith and converting.

I’ve seen this myself. I’ve had several listeners have told me they came into the Church because of my podcast. Friends have converted through Pints with Aquinas. There’s real fruit online, and it was nice to know the Pope has seen that fruit.

But then he addressed something that’s been bothering me for my entire decade in Catholic media: sometimes the faith developed online is restricted. It is either purely emotional or purely intellectual. The intellectual and emotional dimensions of faith are both important, but neither encompass everything Catholicism is. Both have limits.

The problem with disembodied faith

Pope Leo warns of a “disembodied” faith that only reaches the immaterial parts of man.

The intellect and the passions are immaterial parts of the human person, they can be engaged anywhere. Online content (including Catholic content) can only engage one of these two parts of the person. So, Catholic content can lead to a “disembodied” faith. You could call it the “nondenominationalization” of Catholicism.

Nondenominational Protestantism is founded on the idea that the faith can be engaged anywhere, and the physical church is secondary. For them, as long as you are emotionally or intellectually engaging with your faith, you are practicing Christianity.

Catholicism is the opposite. The local community is as important as the intellectual and emotional connections to Christ. But online content is eroding the local community.

We practice our Catholicism online and in private. We have our own little brands of the faith based on the influencers we like. We find people online who think and talk and act like us.

Maybe we go to Mass on Sundays—but we church hop, drive furthr for better liturgy, go to different parishes depending on our mood. We don’t have a home to live our faith out in real life.

I’ve been guilty of this too. Every young Catholic I know has fallen into this trap—living our faith with a small group of friends (usually online) instead of investing in our actual local parish.

Your parish is begging for you

This is bad for you and bad for the Church.

It’s bad for you because when trials come, you’re alone. There’s a reason God sent the apostles out two by two. We need community: real, embodied, inconvenient community. Not just people who agree with us online.

It’s bad for the Church because we have hundreds of thousands of devout Catholics who’ve consumed some of the best Catholic media ever created…and parishes closing.

The parish down the road is begging for you to teach, to evangelize, to build community.

It reminds me of the parable of the talents. The master gives three servants different amounts of money. Two invest it and double what they received. One buries his talent in the ground. The master rebukes him: Why didn’t you use what I gave you?

Young Catholics are burying our talents. We’ve received incredible formation, something Catholics decades ago didn’t have access to. We have knowledge, passion, and conviction. And we’re not using it. The Body of Christ needs you. Not in an abstract way. The actual parish down the street needs you.

Stop church hopping

Your local parish needs you, but you won’t know what they need until you actually join.

Stop church hopping. Go to the same church every week. Talk to people. Get involved. Yes, maybe the liturgy isn’t great. Maybe it’s poorly run. Maybe it’s too liberal or too traditional or too whatever.

None of that changes unless you show up.

The faith isn’t meant to be an intellectual or emotional experience. It’s meant to be embodied.

Pope Leo is right and we need to listen.