To say that the American political landscape is fractured right now may be the understatement of the 21st century. To say that these fractures have only deepened in the wake of the attempted assassination on July 13 of former President (and current Republican presidential candidate) Donald J. Trump is to state the obvious. To blame one candidate or the other, one party or another, for this state of affairs is at best to tell a half-truth, which, as the Catholic historian John Lukacs used to say, is often worse than a lie.
An ideological divide
The ideological divide that runs through the very heart of our nation is, increasingly, running through the heart of Catholics in the United States as well. Ideology is another one of those half-truths, because it takes some reality or principle that is true and blows it out of proportion. Having elevated a portion of the truth to the position that should be occupied by the whole truth, the ideological mindset leaves no room for the fullness of the truth, which is why it is so destructive not only to political order but ultimately to the role of the Church as our Mater et Magistra, our Mother and Teacher, who guards and reveals that fullness of truth not only to her members but to the entire world.
This destruction has resulted in the elevation of politics to the role previously occupied by Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, in the Western world, and nowhere more fully than here in the United States. Rather than approaching the world of politics as Catholics, in full possession of the truth, we approach the Church as members of this or that party, adherents of this or that conservative or liberal ideology, looking for confirmation of our preconceived notions in the truths that the Catholic Church teaches. We spend more time having our ideological preconceptions reinforced by FOX News or MSNBC, or the talking points of the Democratic or Republican parties, than we do in liturgical worship and the study of Scripture and the Fathers of the Church and Eucharistic adoration and even prayer.
Only truth brings healing
And then, when the world needs our witness to the fullness of truth, to the peace and unity that only belief in Jesus Christ can bring, we take to social media and engage in the same ideological distortions as those who do not know Christ and his Church, because our hearts and minds and imaginations have been shaped by those things on which we spend our time.
This is not the witness to which we are called by our baptism and our confirmation and our every Eucharistic reception of the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Rather, as St. Paul urged the Church in Ephesus, we must build up “the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, … so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ” (Eph 4:12-16).
With every passing day, our country needs our witness to the fullness of truth, to the joy of unity, to the promise of peace more and more. Our answer to political violence, whether rhetorical or physical, cannot be more such violence, even if it is merely rhetorical. It cannot be convincing ourselves that we are justified in doing violence to the truth in order to further our preferred ideological distortion of it.
Now more than ever, we need to stand up for the fullness of the truth, to resist the temptation to join in the ideological chorus of left or right that can only divide and never unite. As adoptive sons and daughters of God the Father, we have been given a great gift, but the only way we can keep that gift is by sharing it with the world, living the truth in love, healing the wounds of our political divide, and boldly proclaiming that unity and peace will never be found in political parties or leaders, but only in Jesus Christ.
