For a year or two, I have considered starting a blog about being Catholic in Silicon Valley. We have a rich and diverse Catholic community here, some interesting local church history, a few challenges that aren’t found everywhere else and in general, there’s no shortage of topics. I enjoy writing and blogging and think I can make this a helpful resource – I hope so!
There are enough blogs, books, periodicals and other avenues for people to argue about theology, liturgy, apologetics, ethics, church law, abuse, scandals, church politics and on and on. I won’t promise to entirely avoid topics that could step on toes, but those areas aren’t the point of this blog.
Instead, the primary focus here will be on areas that I hope will help to grow or build faith, community, and a sense of belonging among Catholics who may feel a little disconnected or alienated for whatever reason. (Those reasons will surely come up but again, they won’t be the focus of the blog.) We live in a pluralistic society and many of our friends who are not Catholic may wonder about certain practices or beliefs, and discussing some of them may also be helpful to them as well.
Who am I to write about any of this?
The area of alienation & belonging (which is broad and includes everything from shunning to ecumenism and more) has been of interest to me for over 30 years. I do have some background in theology (BA & MA) and am a fairly avid blogger on other topics and hope that the cross section of these two can be put to good use here.
By the way, I’m a layperson, a businesswoman, a wife and a mom. I have kids who ask hard questions! I’m in the trenches, probably just like you.