Some Red State/Blue State Indicia

NEW YORK—For years, churches have worried about empty pews. At St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village, the problem is flipped: There isn’t enough room.

A recent 6 p.m. Sunday Mass felt like a sold-out event. Every inch of pew space was filled, mostly with young adults. Latecomers squeezed into makeshift rows of plastic folding chairs or stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the foyer, peering through glass doors. Others squatted on balcony steps or leaned against walls for the roughly 90-minute service. When Eucharistic ministers moved through aisles to distribute Communion, they had to tiptoe around knees and handbags.

An hour earlier, many of these same worshipers had been eating pizza.

For the past months, two 20-somethings, Anthony Gross and Kate DePetro, have hosted “Pizza to Pews,” a pre-Mass meetup at The Pizza Box nearby. More than 100 young adults showed up the first week; by the third, it was 200. Some drive in from Long Island; others take the train from Boston. Then, like a field trip, the group walks to church together.

“Nobody wants to go to Mass alone,” said Gross, 22, who moved to New York from Wisconsin last summer and found St. Joe’s, as it is known, after asking ChatGPT where to find a young Catholic community. “Better than going to a bar and spending $400.”


A phenomenon I've been observing from my perch at a catholic university.
 
sturg33 said:
What makes this specific tax policy good to the point you felt sharing
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I think veterans generally have sacrificed for the country and it is good policy to provide them with preferential treatment such as tax breaks. I also like that in California such tax breaks are financed by a progressive income tax.
 
nsacpi said:
I think veterans generally have sacrificed for the country and it is good policy to provide them with preferential treatment such as tax breaks. I also like that in California such tax breaks are financed by a progressive income tax.
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Got it. So you see a tax break as a general good thing for the person receiving it
 
sturg33 said:
Got it. So you see a tax break as a general good thing for the person receiving it
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Sure. But that's a juvenile way of framing it. Government provides many essential public goods and other services. Those have to be paid for. And a progressive tax system is a better way of paying for those than a regressive one. ymmv
 
I paid my taxes for the year a couple weeks back.

I wouldnt be able to tell you which essential services and goods i received to justify the bill
 
sturg33 said:
I paid my taxes for the year a couple weeks back.

I wouldnt be able to tell you which essential services and goods i received to justify the bill
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I guess you don't drive over bridges and roads. So you wouldn't know that other drivers are tested so that they don't kill each each other. And I'm guessing you must not fly either, so you are probably unfamiliar with airports and air traffic control and all that jazz.
 
nsacpi said:
I guess you don't drive over bridges and roads. So you wouldn't know that other drivers are tested so that they don't kill each each other. And I'm guessing you must not fly either, so you are probably unfamiliar with airports and air traffic control and all that jazz.
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California literally was issuing cdls to anyone with a pulse regardless of being able to drive or read street signs.

So when do those people get their money back for those failures ?

The guys that had their houses burns the mayor couldn’t keep reservoirs full and won’t allow rebuilds?

What did those people pay for
 
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