Washington D.C., Sep 23, 2013 / 15:09 pm
Amid rising numbers of people living alone, the Church must help build relationships and community with those who are not called to the vocation of marriage or religious life, an author says in a new column.
"Being alone is the first thing God pronounces 'not good,' after so many proclamations of the goodness of His creation. And yet being alone is an increasingly common condition in American life," writer Eve Tushnet said in her Sept. 23 column for CNA.
An author in Washington, D.C., Tushnet's work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times and Crisis Magazine. She has written on a number of topics, including her own Catholic faith and same-sex attraction, and she is working on a book about vocational discernment for gay Christians.
In her piece, "All the single laity," Tushnet points out that "the early Church was anything but intently focused on pairing up lovebirds" and as a "quick flip through the dictionary of saints will show," there are "plenty" of people who are not called to the vocation of marriage.