American Catholics, like the rest of the country, are wondering what the re-election of Donald Trump will mean. Thoughts will differ, of course, depending on one’s contentment with the outcome. For many of those who voted for Kamala Harris, uncertainty will be shaped by apprehension. They view the incoming president as a grifter, a threat to democracy, and fear that his planned mass deportation will inflict harm upon vulnerable immigrant communities. They are disappointed in their fellow citizens, especially fellow Catholics who voted for Mr. Trump by a substantial majority. They simply cannot fathom how anyone who believes in church teaching concerning the common good could support such a person.
On the other side, many Catholics who voted for Mr. Trump are, it is not too much to say, elated. They look forward to the reversal of many Democratic policies and cultural trends they see as harmful to their nation and, in particular, its young. They feel that at long last the powers that be, whether from Washington or the upper echelons of the private sector, support what they believe in and oppose what they fear. Most troubling to their Catholic counterparts who supported Ms. Harris, they relate their support for Mr. Trump to their faith. Indeed, among white Catholics, Mass attendance has been correlated to support for Donald Trump; the greater the participation, the more likely.
The political divide among Catholics is severe and seemingly unbridgeable. It creates an atmosphere of tension between those who ought to be friends in the faith. These tensions threaten to break forth into loud disputes at parties or at coffee and doughnuts after Mass. Mostly, they burble beneath the surface of small talk. Each side hopes that no one will bring up the election, Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks or anything political. Such topics are more often reserved for ideological compatriots. In this sense, Catholics are no different from other Americans. We are incapable of handling political disagreement. In other words, we are failing to be faithful citizens in a democratic republic.
John Courtney Murray liked to quote the Dominican theologian Thomas Gilby, who wrote that “civilization is men locked in argument.” For Murray, this signified the capacity for political discourse to uncover the truths that ought to guide society. When I employ this quotation in my teaching, it always garners quizzical looks. How could argument be the basis of civilization? As someone who came of age in the Reagan years, it took me a long while to understand that my college students today have very little experience of political conversation that was not either ideological manipulation or an unproductive screamfest. The idea that people could profitably speak about important matters of disagreement is wholly foreign to them. They have only lived in a world of cancel culture, deep fakes and compelled assent.
A good deal of the fault here, in my view, lies with the common assertion today that dialogue with opponents is a form of capitulation. Why go to the bother of listening to those who hold opinions you find offensive when it is possible to eliminate them from the conversation? Our colleges and universities, which ought to be defending complicated and challenging dialogue, have played a particularly poisonous role in this development. In my experience, any outspoken campus conservative has an arsenal of examples of being shut down by accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia. But the tone of political conversation outside the academy is often no better. For example, the right-wing social media account “Libs of TikTok” has been accused of promoting baseless accusations of grooming and pedophilia against hospital workers at several hospitals that perform gender-reassignment surgeries on minors. The posts led to unacceptable online harassment and threats against the hospitals by phone, including a bomb threat.
I believe these experiences constitute a significant reason why Mr. Trump’s MMA (mixed martial arts) style of politics has proven so attractive to young men of all ethnicities. If politics is a fight, one must give as well as one gets. This is a very dangerous game, of course, since violent political language can easily slide into actual violence. The young man who murdered the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare may not be a Trump supporter, but his actions express the extreme disaffection of young people on both the left and the right. Luigi Mangione has become, tragically, the first cross-partisan political icon of the new era. It is time to reconsider things.
I approach this issue as someone who thrice voted for Donald Trump, at first with trepidation, then with resigned acceptance and lastly with resolution. I am well aware of his faults, the events of Jan. 6 trouble me, and I have my concerns about how his administration will deal with the immigration crisis. Nonetheless, like the various cohorts of which I am part—practicing Catholic, male, married, not rich and of European ancestry—I chose Mr. Trump over the alternatives. I am an outlier only in the fact that I have a doctorate and work in the academy. One of the very few groups of Americans with whom Mr. Trump did not increase his support in 2024 were people with Ph.Ds.
I am not alone, however. Indeed, I suspect that the partisan divide among Catholic academics is considerably narrower than with any other faculty group. Among people I know, the more traditional Catholics tended to vote for Mr. Trump, while the more progressive tended to vote for Ms. Harris or Peter Sonski (of the American Solidarity Party) or didn’t vote at all. No doubt there are exceptions, but they do not alter the basic fact that I believe the Catholic intelligentsia mirrors the general divide of the country. The solution? Catholics must break from the destructive ways Americans talk politics.
A more charitable political discourse does not mean pretending that the stakes of our disagreements are lower than they actually are in order to be nice to each other. Instead, it is a recognition that mere vehemence in our political rhetoric often serves to maintain the terms of our disagreement more than it helps us reach a political solution or compromise for the sake of the common good.
General recognition that our political discourse is a problem in need of remedy can be seen in the popularity of books such as Monica Guzman’s I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times (2022) and Peter Coleman’s The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization (2021). Their solution is as simple as it is powerful: If you wish to understand why someone disagrees with you on an important matter, ask them and be genuinely curious about what they might say. Any temptation to short-circuit conversations by jumping to conclusions, attributing your interlocutor’s position to ignorance or, even worse, to bigotry must be resisted.
Rather, I must be intellectually humble enough to wonder what experiences or beliefs have led someone to view the world differently from myself. This means seeing that the precipitate certainty to which many of us are drawn is the enemy of true understanding. We must accept that the truth of things is rarely under the control of a single perspective. Finally, if the encounter between differences is to be authentic, I must be open to the possibility that the other might say something worth hearing. Indeed, I might even change my mind. In sum, these authors promise that a combination of humility and curiosity is the best solvent for partisan rancor and polarization.
Such ideas ought to resonate with Catholics of all political stripes. To return to Murray: He was convinced that the church’s tradition of rational discourse about moral truth enables Catholics to make a distinctive contribution to the American experiment. He wrote: “Where this kind of language is talked, the Catholic joins the conversation with ease. It is his language. The ideas expressed are native to his own universe of discourse.”
After all, our greatest minds hold that truth is best pursued by way of disputation, testing conclusions against the objections of other truth seekers. Our greatest mystics affirm humility as the necessary first step in any path toward knowing God and thereby knowing ourselves. Our view of the goodness of creation means that human reason is naturally disposed to the true, just as the will is oriented to the good. We are not surprised, therefore, when truths and examples of goodness are found outside the borders of the church. Indeed, we are convinced that even the most difficult questions lend themselves to rational discourse and debate. Finally, we are commanded to extend the same grace to others that we ourselves need from God.
Given all this, Catholics are without excuse when we dogmatically dismiss the views of our neighbors, much less our fellow believers, simply because we disagree with them. Rather, we Catholics ought to be at the forefront in establishing a better way for Americans to discuss matters of political significance. Our colleges and universities ought to be distinguished by their commitment to the free exchange of ideas in the search of a greater truth.
The first step will be, of course, for Catholics to abandon the rhetorical habits of the moment and to recover our tradition of seeking truth together. A progressive Catholic might ask a fellow believer why they voted for Mr. Trump without resorting to name-calling. Likewise, a Catholic Trumper might earnestly inquire into the fears her friends have of his rise to power. In each case, there must be a readiness to credit the other with reason and a desire for the good. Disagreements won’t vanish, nor should they, but our understanding of reality will deepen.
I tried this myself shortly after the election. Assuming that I was speaking to a fellow Trump-voter, I was taken back to hear criticism of Mr. Trump coming from someone I respect a great deal. I had a choice, either listen or rehearse the same old talking points. I listened and came away with a new appreciation of the one-sidedness of my own position. I had been encased in a bubble of partisanship and was grateful for being forced to think new thoughts.
In contrast to some other proponents of dialogue, Catholics have a strong sense of the objective character of truth and believe that some political views are better than others. We are required to stand for justice and keep the plight of the poor at the forefront of our concerns. However, matters of public import are rarely that simple. The issue of immigration in our country, for example, involves competing claimants for being considered “the poor,” and people of good will may differ on where they focus their solicitude. It is important to show concern for the poor seeking entry into our country, but it is also important to acknowledge where their needs may conflict with the needs of vulnerable U.S. citizens. Whose concerns should have preference? Many other issues that are hotly debated must be understood with nuance. There might be a clear political or moral answer in each case, but they will not be attained apart from careful deliberation informed by charity and humility. Catholics should be leaders in this style of conversation; our doing so would represent a distinctively Catholic contribution to the American future.
