Evangelization and the City, by Casey Chalk

“Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as our own,” declared Pericles in his famous funeral oration to honor the Athenian dead and the glorious city for which they died. Many paeans could also be sung of the great cities of Christian history – Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, Paris, Vienna, Kiev – for which men of faith in ages past willingly shed their blood.

Yet for many conservative Catholics today, the city has lost its luster. It is, its critics argue, a den of crime and iniquity, but also the place where all the worst of liberalism and modernity are on display: social atomism, materialism, technological utopianism, and the self-aggrandizement of the managerial class. In the city, you can’t even see the stars. …

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