“No contact.” It’s a short phrase signifying a painful process wherein people completely cut themselves off from loved ones who they believe have hurt them. It’s also the subject of best-selling author Noelle Mering’s upcoming book, No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them.
In No Contact, Mering explores the increasing number of people who have stopped speaking with parents, family members and friends, often over politics or religion. While the exact number of “no contact” cases is difficult to measure, Google searches for the related term “family estrangement” have surged since 2021, indicating the practice’s growing prevalence.
Mering’s book isn’t the only Catholic treatment of the phenomenon. Psychologists like Greg Bottaro have provided guidance for discerning when one should and shouldn’t cut off ties with family, while catechetical platforms like Catholic Answers have assessed how the practice relates to — and can sometimes be consistent with — Church teaching on honoring ones parents.
But in No Contact, Mering is less focused on individual cases of family estrangement than she is on the role politics and ideology are playing in the broader phenomenon — and what it says about American society.
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