Someone involved with this real estate blog sent me a teaser announcing that Gilbert, Ariz., which municipally speaking is not a city, ranked the second “saintliest” city in America.
The list was in response to an earlier post listing the most sinful cities. Criteria for the first list looked at the sins of:
- Lust
- Pride
- Wrath
- Envy
- Greed
- Gluttony
- Sloth
Research calculated violent crimes per year per 1,000 residents, percentage of disposable income given to charity each year and similar facts.
Well, just like any good catechism class might do, the writers then used the same criteria looking at it from the opposite perspective. The “lust” category became “chastity,” “pride” became “humility” and so on. Check out the blog entry.
The town of Gilbert came in second overall, particularly when looking at violent crimes. See the “Kindness: hugging not mugging” subhead in the blogpost.
The diligence category (the antithesis of sloth) put St. Paul, Minn. — where St. Paul’s Outreach and National Evangelization Teams are headquarted — on top of the list for a low instance of inactivity. The entry reads in part:
An actual saint, St. Paul City, MN, quite literally walked away with first place in this category [diligence] at a mere 15 percent inactivity. Albuquerque, NM was second at 15.9 percent, perhaps explaining its high ranking in temperance. In third place was that walking wonderland, New York, NY, at 16.4 percent.
A chart of the top 50 cities follows online. For the curious, other diocesan cities ranked here:
- 6. Chandler (or 7th, its ranking in the top of the post and in the table at the bottom varies)
- 12. Mesa
- 41. Phoenix
- 44. Scottsdale
