by the apparent lack of understanding. The Catholic Church, among it's many myriad of things, is supposed to be a center of social activity for the parish family.
If we start eliminating events, activities, trips, simply because they are social in nature we risk relagating ourselves even further to the 'Sunday-morning-only' mentality.
Even in the context of a social event one begins and ends the evening with prayer and does activities and games with a faith twist. But to inject fun, socialness, and that sense of community that used to have dances held on the weekends at churches, families milling about, kids playing games now seems more commonly reserved for a few special weekends a year, rather than the norm.
By deigning ourselves above such nonsense we are creating an even wider gulf between those who understand and embrace their faith and those who have a passing interest. We need to reach out to those and show them the wondrousness of the church - and, to be honest - we need to do some of that as a purely social part.
If the people on the sidelines start socializing with their fellow parishioners they make friends; their kids make friends and soon everyone starts relating their faith ona daily basis based upon the make up of their gorup of friends and they have a vested interested in the faith because it intrudes on every aspect of their lives, as it is supposed to.
But, instead there is a growing idea among certain people that if it isn't truly, authentically, 100% Catholic at all times, forget having fun, what's the point. It hurts me. My own participation in the Church my entire life has been on all levels - the social, the fun, the faith, the learning, the worship.
We cannot effectively separate out the parts. When we do we lose so much.
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