I was surprised by what Brooks identified as the three causes of conflict: Trump, race relations, and the handling of sex scandals involving leadership. No mention of abortion, the defining moral issue of our age! No mention of sexuality/gender, the primary polarizing item for us Catholics!
I found myself grateful as a Catholic that, notwithstanding polarization and conflict, our acrimony has not reached the level described by Brooks. I wondered that in the face of fierce political and theological disagreement, there remains a level of serenity. I asked myself why this is.
It occurred to me: while politics is very important to many of us and theology itself is fundamentally constitutive of our identity (and an obsession of mine), neither are the most important things. More important for Catholic identity are: our sacramental life, the life of prayer and contemplation, the love we share with those close to us, our concern for the poor and suffering (including the unborn), and our unity under the hierarchy.
To be clear, the three polarizing realities identified by Brooks are not so much theological as political, moral, prudential. Disagreement over Trump, race and sex scandals is troubling for our Church, but relatively speaking that discord is weaker than what unites us. As a Catholic, I myself have strong convictions about these three issues but none of them is a hill on which I would want to die. What hill would I die upon? The hill of innocent human life, the hill of sexuality/gender as sacral-sacramental gifts...these are at the heart of our faith and I will gladly die on these hills. But let us consider what unites us as Catholics.
1. Our sacramental life is our unity. When we gather at Eucharist, baptism or any of the sacraments we share a unity that transcends political differences: we are Democrats and Republicans, anarchists and power elites, Trumpians and Bidenites...but none of that matters for that one hour mass. It is not unknown but rare and clearly taboo for a priest at mass to endorse or condemn, say, Donald Trump. A powerful Catholic intuition allows us to put aside politics to join together in Christ. This realization that politics is important but not everything is a wholesome, salutary thing: nothing is as nauseating in "woke" culture than the imperialistic invasion of political ideology into every shared sphere of human life from football to the academy awards! Athletics, entertainment, research, and journalism are all themselves analogically "sacraments of unity" that need to retain a certain autonomy and immunity to politicization as they heal and absorb the wounds and traumas of political/cultural conflict.
2. Prayer and contemplation are a rest, a liberation, a recreation, a sabbatical from the combat of politics. Evangelicals, descended from the Reformers, largely lost the traditions of medieval monasticism and are poorer for it. A person of prayer will be able to prudently situate her politics in the scheme of things and avoid inflating ideology into idolatry. Related to this: a devotion to Mary also helps to soften and qualify the tendency of politics to become shrill, indignant, suspicious and enraged.
3. The love we share, as family and friends, is also deeper and stronger than differences in policy and principle. Even those of us with the fiercest convictions are able to relativize them and temporarily put them aside in favor of the tenderness, affection, reverence and loyalty we have for each other.
4. Care for the poor and suffering is another powerful unifer. While broader policy positions of how to address such suffering is a source of disagreement, more concrete actions of mercy are unifying. In my own family we found that our sometimes impassioned political differences seemed to fade when we set to work on Magnificat Home, our residence for low-income women. We are all together in this. As a matter of fact, while I am firmly on the conservative side of things, I would guess that a rather large majority of our supporters are quite liberal. But that discussion never comes up. It has its place, but it is not everything.
5. Lastly, the apostolic authority of our hierarchy is a source of unity and serenity. The Catholic Church has been buffeted with far worse sexual scandals than the Evangelicals. But the divisiveness is less. We are actually united, liberal and conservative, in our disgust with the abuse of young men by ordained priests. The proposed solution to it divides us: is the ordination of married and women priests the answer? Or a revival of classic sexual chastity? These issues of sexuality and gender strike at the heart of Catholic identity and are far more significant than the passing phenomena of Trump, race and recent sex scandals.
The objectivity of the hierarchy is helpful. Lacking this, Evangelical churches are more vulnerable to personality cults. This is why the scandals are so destructive for those communities. By contrast we Catholics are loyalty to the office of priest-bishop-pope regardless of the moral character of the individuals. We are hardly immune to cults of personality: Francis and John Paul both elicited such personal loyalty. And intensive renewal movements are often founded by charismatic individuals including a diablolical character such as Fr. Maciel. But McCarrick is probably more typical: brilliant, energetic, charming, good with money...he manipulated and climbed the clerical power structure to the very top. But his downfall was not heart-breaking for any of us like that of, say, Jim and Tammy Baker.
Part of what our hierarchy has offered us, over the last century, is a remarkable body of social teaching. Brooks mentioned that the Evangelicals lack such. It addresses modernity clearly; it draws upon the moral law; and does so with a level of abstraction that allows a flexibility and variety in prudential judgment so that rigid ideology is avoided. It allows us, for example, in the case that a pope should wander beyond moral law into prudential judgments (on, say, global warming, national boundaries or capital punishment) to respectfully but confidently and peacefully develop a contrary policy opinion while maintaining unity in faith and morals, in our sacramental communion, in obedience to authority.
Pope Francis is examplary of this centripetal pull of the hierarchy. He is fiercely polarizing in his actions and words, but by virtue of his petrine office he unifies us. I count myself among his fiercest critics, yet I am not anti-Francis for four reasons: First, he is our shepherd, our spiritual father, the vicar of Christ...whatever his personal shortcomings. Secondly, in his homilies he manifests a profound, passionate, personal love of Jesus Christ. Thirdly, he is exemplary in his care for the poor and suffering. Lastly, he has a fundamental (if erratic and convoluted) allegiance to the Church and her traditions (in a creative if confused fashion.)
As we surrender ourselves gratefully into Deep Catholic Peace/Unity, let us pray for our Evangelical brethern:
Come Holy Spirit of Unity, of Love, of Truth! Come and heal the divisions among the Evangelicals!! Come and heal the Divisions between the Churches; Come and Heal the Divisions among us Catholics! Come and Fill us with Joy, Hope and Peace!
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