Culture is rarely changed through reason or argument; it changes through repetition, glamour, prestige and making certain lifestyles appear desirable, admired and high status. As Catholics, I think we sometimes underestimate this.

For years, many have approached cultural decline primarily through critique. We denounce moral confusion, lament the collapse of family life, fear the artificial intelligence moment we find ourselves in and point out the consequences of the sexual revolution. These are all valid points, of course, but what we are misunderstanding is how human beings are actually socially formed.

Most of us do not wake up one morning and rationally reason ourselves into moral change. Because we were created for communion, we absorb change gradually and socially, through our families, friendships, wider communities and increasingly through the podcasts, books, influencers, celebrities and popular culture we consume daily. Human beings are profoundly imitative creatures and we are shaped by what the people around us celebrate, reward, admire and normalise.

And there is truth in the idea that we become like the people we spend the most time with. In previous generations, that influence was largely physical and local. Today, however, our social formation is increasingly digital. If we spend more time consuming the lives, values and aesthetics of influencers than engaging with our real-life community, they too begin to shape our desires, assumptions and aspirations. This is not something to gawk at, fear or poke fun at, but something to understand more honestly.

Think about it: status is socially engineered. One of the clearest examples of this is the history of the bikini. When the bikini was first introduced in 1946, it was considered so scandalous that mainstream models reportedly refused to wear it. The designer eventually had to hire a nude dancer to model the garment because no one else would, since the bikini was seen at the time to be both socially embarrassing and morally transgressive. Yet within a generation, it became normal beachwear.

How? It wasn’t that human nature had fundamentally changed in 20 years, but rather that the status attached to the bikini changed. Hollywood actresses such as Brigitte Bardot helped glamourise it, and popular music reinforced it through songs such as “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”. Magazines, cinema, advertising and celebrity culture slowly transformed the bikini from something shocking into something expectedly fashionable and socially unquestionable.

This is how cultural revolutions often happen. First, something is presented as daring and strange, then sophisticated and empowering. Eventually, it becomes inevitable and anyone questioning it is framed as behind.

The modern world understands something many of us have forgotten: people are moved by beauty and belonging far more than by lectures or understanding. Entire industries exist to manufacture aspiration: fashion, film, music, advertising, influencer culture and celebrity branding; and they do not merely sell products but a promise of identity. They tell people what kind of person is worthy of admiration. And too often, Catholics surrender this territory entirely.

We can be guilty of speaking about virtues as though they are a list of restrictions rather than a compelling vision of human flourishing; we can defend marriage while neglecting to portray its beauty, and we can talk about family values while failing to create communities that people genuinely want to belong to. The same is true with how we approach the subject of modesty without a formula to continue cultivating mystery, elegance and dignity. The idea that how we dress, for example, is superfluous or gratuitous misses the mark completely.

Because on the other side, secular culture offers belonging everywhere. It offers aesthetics, storytelling, identity, ritual and an abundance of aspiration. It understands that human beings hunger not only for truth, but for beauty. And as Catholics, we should be able to offer all of this and more, because alongside truth and beauty, we also offer goodness.

Historically, the Church understood this profoundly. Catholicism did not merely preach doctrines, it built cathedrals, commissioned breathtaking art and composed music that lifted the soul. It understood that beauty evangelises because beauty awakens our desire for transcendence.

Today, however, many Catholics have retreated from the cultural imagination altogether. We often approach art, fashion, media and aesthetics defensively rather than creatively. We critique culture while allowing others to shape it. But if status can be engineered in destructive ways, it can also be rebuilt in life-giving ones.

How do we make holiness attractive again? How do we tell the story of strong families as aspirational rather than restrictive? What if integrity, self-mastery, faithfulness, motherhood, fatherhood and genuine joy carried the same cultural prestige as career success, influence and social status?

This does not mean mimicking secular trends with a thin veneer of religious branding, but recovering the confidence to create culture rather than merely consume or condemn it. Moral arguments alone are rarely enough to persuade people. We must also become culturally compelling; not through vanity, but through beauty, excellence and witness.

Our daily etiquette matters: how we present ourselves; how we speak, serve, host, create, dress, celebrate, tell stories, share music, display beauty and talk about our faith all shape how Catholicism is perceived because culture is formed through atmosphere as much as through argument.

If we truly want to renew our culture, we cannot simply critique the alternatives on offer, we must build something even more beautiful.