Hard teachings

Seems to me that any honest Catholic has found some of the Church’s teachings to be hard. This goes back to the days when Jesus walked the earth. This post found via Fructus Ventris brings up the teaching with which I have the greatest difficulty. Evidence of it dates from the late second century, per this article. I speak of the idea that Christianity is compatible with life other than that in the midst of a city. Since we are called to serve our neighbors, it seems like we’re trying to shirk that responsibility if we spend all of our lives in some remote place where there are relatively few neighbors whom we’ll contact only rarely.

Of course I understand that all civilizations need farmers and we simply cannot consign them to a life without the benefit of the Church, so the difficulty sets in. On the one hand the rural life (which really would include contemporary suburban life with its very high degree of isolation from one’s neighbors, despite their close physical proximity) removes the Christian from many significant opportunities to be of service, but on the other hand the Church cannot abandon a whole class of people because of their domicile and occupation.