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Comment by EatingWithForks | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually really confused by this claim, as a person raised in a non-white immigrant household. I bought onto the idea of churches as community because my immigrant churches were full of apple picking, group meals in the church itself, thanksgivings at the pastor's house, etc. But someone recently told me in Catholic mass you don't even get a church-wide breakfast?? WTF? How the hell does community get formed if the actual worshipping actions isn't inherently a community building action? Someone told me the guy can bless you if you don't eat the bread, but you can't even ask for a specific blessing, like "my son needs an A, can I get the whole church to pray for him" style stuff.

I'm way more skeptical of the notion of church as a community now. If all the church community is via volunteer charity actions, just volunteer directly unaffiliated with a religion.

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Catholic Churches do plenty of community meals - just not around mass. This is likely due to the former requirement to fast proper to communion.

I think that's bizarre though. Mass is the one requirement everyone needs to do together-- obviously, that's the best time to sit with a meal and gossip. Even on important holidays, easter mass etc. are the few times limited practicing catholics will appear. This is the perfect time to ask how they've been, how're the kids, and welcome them with fresh hot food, maybe invite them to the litter picking up effort next week.

I'm extremely skeptical of church as a community building thing now, because based off of my white friends recollection there's very little actual community around worship itself. There are a bunch of volunteer actions outside of it, but just going to worship isn't itself community. This makes me question why we can't have a generic mutual aid group do this instead, like the Anarchist Soup folks.

The Catholic position would be that that isn't what the Mass is for; it's a ritual sacrifice that meets a real spiritual need. Similarly, the priest doesn't need to be especially likeable or even give a homily in order to say a valid Mass.

None of those have to do with community formation, which is what the subject is about.

Sure, but you're going to be fighting an uphill battle if you want to make the Mass into that.

Right, so I'm pointing out that places of worship may not actually be great Third Spaces. They may not offer the community that people say they do.

They could always offer breakfast after mass ;)

I think it really depends on the church, and in my case I was talking about African-American dominant churches. So there may be a stronger sense of community there than the White Catholic churches.

For me, it was sort of in-between. There wasn't a church-wide breakfast except for some small snacks during the big days (Easter Sunday and Christmas). But there was plenty of donation drives that would provide food for lower income families in the area. And you very much had a chance to worship and ask for a specific blessing, sometimes in a very public manner (This Boondocks clip is surprising accurate portrayal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtP7cbbAFLA)

> If all the church community is via volunteer charity actions, just volunteer directly unaffiliated with a religion.

That's the thing, I have tried. But in my experience, volunteer work to meet friends is fleeting. You won't be making a few deep connections even if you do your best to come every week, you'll see a revolving door of people who may only come once or twice. At least among my age group, there isn't much consistency in participation.

And that fleeting, revolving door seems to be theme of modern adult life. I don't know what in particular made the same people come to pray for some higher being every week, but it's something I haven't seen in any other attempt to meet people in my adult life.

> How the hell does community get formed if the actual worshipping actions isn't inherently a community building action?

Yep, Catholicism (American white-people Catholicism, at least) is weird like that. Maybe it's different in different places or among different ethnic-majority parishes, but I grew up in New Jersey and Maryland, and was dragged to mass weekly by my (devout) parents. There wasn't really any kind of community there; we showed up, took our seats, did the rituals, and then left and went home.

They also put me through CCD (Catholic version of "Sunday school") for 8 years, and while I want on some (more or less mandatory) retreats and activities with my fellow classmates, I don't recall any of those relationships extending outside class. I didn't end up forging any closer relationships with the other kids who went to my regular school, either. Granted, I may not be typical: I decided I didn't believe when I was in 5th or 6th grade, so I did the bare minimum just to get through it; maybe others tried harder and worked to make it more of a community.

I did work for our church's music director one summer in high school (mostly odd jobs and clerical stuff), and would play trumpet in the church's small ensemble for (rare) special events (regular mass just had a piano/organ player), but I didn't really get much out of that, aside from enjoying playing some music.

> but you can't even ask for a specific blessing, like "my son needs an A, can I get the whole church to pray for him" style stuff.

The church we went to in Maryland did have a small section of time devoted to community prayers. It wasn't specific, like they would just read a list of names (I think you had to sign up in advance to get someone on the list), and after each name, the congregation would respond "Lord, pray for them" or something like that.

> I'm way more skeptical of the notion of church as a community now.

I think it just depends on which religion/denomination, and the conditions in the local area. Some churches might do more to try to build community than others. And some churches might actually do build community, but many people who come for services just don't care to participate for whatever reason.

Personally I don't have a positive view of religion, but I do think it's a shame if some community-building has gone by the wayside due to declining church attendance.

>But someone recently told me in Catholic mass you don't even get a church-wide breakfast?? WTF?

That really depends on your individual parish in my experience. The church I grew up going to had donuts after ever 10:30am mass, and the one I go to now has free breakfast. I've also been to ones that have nothing at all.

It's also extremely common for Catholic churches to hold a "Friday Fish Fry" every Friday during Lent

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