Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrucic Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thanks for joining us.

Alone and More Miserable than ever. a recent article in the Atlantic magazine highlights

the crisis of isolation befalling the United States.

Despite frequent contact by text and on social media platforms, Americans have never been or felt more

solitary, especially the younger generations. And the consequences are often fatal.

Loneliness is a major cause of the recent spikes in depression, anxiety, and suicide,

which are at unprecedented levels.

Smartphones are often identified as the culprit, but the source of the problem runs much, much deeper.

The fracturing of the relationships that once embedded us in thick concentric circles of family and friends in a larger community can also be

traced to a fundamental misunderstanding of individualism and what it truly means to be a fully flourishing human person.

Today to discuss the loss of our social bonds and how Catholic thought can help heal and reunite us is Bishop Robert Barron.

Well, Bishop, wonderful to have you in the studio again. Today we're going to be

discussing healing antisocial America, but before we get in, what have you been

up to recently?

Oh, a few different things. I was overseas and then I came back from that trip and I stayed in

Washington for a couple days because the USCCB has meetings in March if you're a committee chair.

And one thing I did there was we filmed the first of these roundtables on mental health.

So we're having a whole initiative around this question of why are so many young people

experiencing depression anxiety suicidal tendencies.

So we recorded the first of these.

I was on with two psychologists and the idea is to bring pastoral voices, bishops, and

the mental health professionals into conversation.

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