The murder of Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband, the attempted murder of Minnesota State Senator John Hofman, the arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta which resulted in the death of a police officer, the murder of Charlie Kirk, and the two attacks against Donald Trump during the last presidential campaign are just the tip of the iceberg of political violence that is undermining American society’s stability.
The nation is on the verge of reliving the blood-stained nightmare of the 1960s – a series of high-profile murders etched in the country’s memory to this day.
In the face of this dramatic ‘state of the nation’, one could choose to exploit the wave of political violence to reap maximum partisan dividends, or roll up one’s sleeves and embark on the arduous path of national reconciliation. However, even here, America is divided: on the one hand, there is the instigating use of political violence; on the other, there is the attempt to find a way out, as Utah Governor Spencer Cox urgently said: “Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history, or the beginning of an even darker one? We can respond to violence with violence; we can respond to hatred with hatred. And that is the problem with political violence: it metastasizes. Because we can always point the finger at the other side. At some point, we must find a way out; otherwise, the situation will worsen.”
Then there are those who walk a tightrope, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called on the democratic side of the country not to frame every difference in political views as an existential threat to the US democratic system.
However, he forgot to mention that the Republican side of the political spectrum also fuels the same tension and indirectly legitimizes political violence. As Robert Sullivan pointed out in an article published yesterday in America, labelling political opponents ‘un-American’ or ‘traitors’ (as Trump has repeatedly done) is playing with fire. Claiming that a sitting president does not ‘love America’, an accusation levelled at Obama by Rudy Giuliani and others, certainly does not turn down the temperature.
The United States has now reached the threshold of the extreme outcome of the culture wars, which have supplanted the bipartisan procedures of negotiation and compromise between the two political souls of the country that had guaranteed substantial cohesion and stability in the nation’s fragile balance for decades. This has also led to the extinction of politics as a means of resolving social conflicts among citizens within the institutional sphere.
Denying the citizenship of part of the American people (which is what it means to call political opponents anti-American) opens the door to the institutionalized justification of political violence. It is not only the United States that is facing a real test of politics; the very nature of politics is being called into question, as it is being reduced to a mere reflection of social conflict rather than a means of mediation and institutional reconciliation.
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What is urgently needed at this moment is not just words, but high-quality practices capable of bringing the Gospel’s values to the heart of the political violence shaking the nation, from the American Catholic Church. However, the Church’s active participation in decades of culture wars has compromised its ability to credibly present itself as a civil entity for non-violent encounters between the divided souls that make up the United States.
A few days ago, during his first formal interview, Pope Leo XIV said that he “feels American”. Though read by many as little more than a joke, this simple phrase takes on extreme importance at this moment in time. To feel American is to be familiar with the destiny of the United States. This means committing the papacy — and with it, the Holy See — to impartial attention and care for what is happening within the American nation today.
Speaking about the dramatic conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, Pope Leo emphasized the Holy See’s efforts to demonstrate “extreme neutrality” with regard to them. This does not mean refraining from condemning evil or remaining silent, but rather keeping the door open to ending violence without one side achieving victory over the other.
Translated into the context of the United States, this “extreme neutrality” marks the end of the Catholic Church’s alignment as a national entity that takes sides in the culture wars. Born and raised in Chicago, Prevost begins to establish connections with the highest tradition of American Catholicism, which provides a space for resolving social tensions and differences of opinion on ethical issues, as outlined by Cardinal Bernardin in The Seamless Garment: Writings on the Consistent Ethics of Life.
Today, Pope Leo could succeed where Cardinal Bernardin failed, reviving this ideal horizon which aimed to prevent the Catholic Church from becoming an active player in the culture wars. This could be achieved by being understood as a non-partisan position in American affairs. This is possible because Prevost’s American identity was shaped by diverse affiliations and experiences. He has empathy for the disadvantaged and presents himself on the US scene as a figure above the parties but within their narratives.
At this moment, Pope Leo in the exercise of his universal ministry should give time and space to the United States and its Catholic Church, because the destinies of the world are decided there, whether we like it or not.
