Loneliness is not just a feeling “other people” have. It is touching nearly half of Canadians, including many faithful Catholics in our pews each Sunday. Community in Communion explores how churches across Canada are quietly, faithfully responding to this hidden crisis and why that matters for our health, our parishes, and our common life.
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A 2025 survey by Cardus asked pastors and church leaders about social isolation and loneliness in their congregations. It found that these have grown in recent years, affecting about one in five congregants, especially seniors, those who live alone, newcomers, and people living with disabilities or low incomes. Yet churches are already responding through worship and the sacraments, pastoral visits, small groups, food programs, youth and seniors’ ministries, phone check-ins, and bringing Communion to the sick and homebound.
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The report names real challenges, such as limited volunteers, aging congregations, and tight budgets. But it offers hope by showing that ordinary parish life itself is a powerful remedy and by calling on governments and community partners to recognize and support this work.

Here in the Diocese of Calgary, this resonates deeply with our call to Renewal. Renewal is not an abstract strategy; it is about becoming more intentionally a Church of encounter and communion. In Christ, no one is meant to be alone. Every invitation, every visit, every moment of welcome in our parishes becomes part of God’s work of drawing people out of isolation and into living communion.​ 

​Written by Deacon Brian Kinahan for Faithfully. Ordained as a permanent deacon in 2023, Deacon Brian has been assigned to St. Augustine’s parish in Taber. He has been a parishioner for 0ver 18 years having held many different ministry and volunteer roles within the parish. He and his wife Linda have seven children and eleven grandchildren. 

​Photos credit: Deacon Brian Kinahan.