Does God want you to fast from the Internet on Sundays?

A Catholic scribe suggests, for believers, this would be a worthy first step toward sanity

Consider this post an early take on Lent 2025 or, maybe, a very late meditation on this year’s stack of New Year’s Resolutions.

Looking ahead: For those in Western Christian traditions, Lent starts with Ash Wednesday on March 5. For the Eastern Orthodox, Great Lent begins this year on March 3, following the rite of Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday, March 3.

During the fast, the Orthodox strive to fast from meat, fish, dairy, oil and wine. In the West, the concept of fasting has become more complex (see this “On Religion” column for background), but most Americans focus on the whole “give up one thing for Lent” thing. In other words, many people make a singular Lenten “resolution” of some kind.

In recent years, I have seen more and more people saying that they will try to give up social media during Lent. In the past, there were Western Christians who tried to fast from television. In other words, lots of people “get” the huge role that digital screens play in their lives.

This brings me to a recent “Catholic Perspective” essay by John Horvat II on the website of The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property that ran with this headline: “Why I Will Be Making My Sundays Internet-free in 2025.”

As you would imagine, Horvat had to wrestle with some practical details linked to that resolution, which he kept in 2024 and has decided to renew for the year ahead. For starters, how did he define this fast?

That means I cut off any connection with the Internet, be it email, websites or videos. It does not include phone calls or text messages. This Internet fast allows me to dedicate my Sunday to other things.

It is not easy to break with the frenetic intemperance of always being connected. People expect you to answer things right away. We also have the illusion that we are so important that the world needs to be linked to us at all times. I have found the world turns just the same with or without my connection.

OK, the sports fan in me will ask this practical question, in an age in which increasing numbers of Americans have their television or televisions plugged into Internet connections, as opposed to old-school cable networks. Is Horvat talking about getting his smartphone under control or screens culture in general?

Note that his smartphone is not going away, completely. He allows calls and texts, which — for starters — means that he can be reached with emergency contacts (and many contacts linked to work). The key, from my perspective as a 70-something online scribe, is that he has decided to fast from email and almost all work online. What does he do for a living? Various online websites refer to him as a “scholar, researcher, educator, international speaker and author.”

My interpretation of his essay is that he is striving to unplug from work (as opposed to entertainment), in an age in which the Internet has turned most of us, to varying degrees, into plugged-in laborers. This is especially true for folks (tmatt raises his hand) who have moved the vast majority of their work into home offices.

In other words, the issue of workaholism looms in the background here for adults, as opposed to the social-media hooks that dominate so many young lives.