In politics and protest, the left is not always right | Opinion
If the headline offends you, this commentary is for you. If it does not, it is also for you.
The truth is that every one of us is far more complicated than the labels we assign to ourselves or to others. Each of us carries a unique combination of God-given gifts and talents, mingled with the brokenness of our fallen nature. Scripture reminds us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and yet each of us also bears the image of the Creator (Genesis 1:27). The human story is always both grace and fracture, beauty and limitation.
I have often said that our faith is inherently experiential. Serving in the Kansas City community, I have seen great variation depending on factors (many of which are out of our control) that influence our spiritual understanding of both the self and our neighbors. People are generally less compassionate and pastoral until they are directly impacted by something. From divorce, to health care access to LGBT+ inclusion, the unfortunate reality is that we often look the other way until we hear a voice we recognize calling out.
We also see this tension playing out most visibly in our political discourse. Social media and the 24-hour news cycle have become arenas in which we ravenously seek to eviscerate one another over differing political views. The Mill Creek Park Fountain just off the Country Club Plaza is often filled with protesters, advocates, counter-protesters — people seeking to take a stand. Unfortunately, what so frequently begins as disagreement often becomes something far more corrosive: a quiet but steady erosion of charity.
This reflection could easily become a book, and I hesitated to attempt such a brief treatment of a subject so complex. The risk of injustice in summarizing a matter of this magnitude is real. Nevertheless, the spiritual stakes are too high to remain silent.
The political left is just as capable of becoming unforgiving, judgmental and hypocritical as the political right. History — both secular and ecclesial — has repeatedly demonstrated that moral self-certainty is not confined to one ideology. We have seen this dynamic play out in our communities, within our parishes and — if we are honest — sometimes most painfully among our own clergy.
We proclaim the Gospel of unconditional love, mercy and forgiveness. Yet how easily we spend the rest of the week assessing and condemning one another from a distance, rarely recognizing that we ourselves are contributing to the widening chasm of division.
Jesus warned his disciples of precisely this temptation when he asked, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own?” (Matthew 7:3).
This is not merely a theoretical observation. It is a matter of lived experience — experience shared both by those I care for pastorally and by the quiet examination of my own heart.
Kingdom of God built upon charity
The early church wrestled with these same tensions. St. Augustine famously wrote during the political turmoil of the late Roman Empire that Christians must remember they belong ultimately not to an earthly faction but to the Civitas Dei, the City of God. Earthly political orders rise and fall, he observed, but the Kingdom of God is built upon charity. Without charity, even the most correct argument becomes spiritually hollow.
The reality is that none of us will carry our political affiliations with us into the Kingdom of Heaven. We will, however, carry the measure of our love for God and neighbor. Jesus himself left us no ambiguity here: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart … and your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39).
If this is the standard by which discipleship is measured, then the question before us becomes both simple and demanding: What are we becoming in the way we engage one another?
It may be time for many of us to step down from our pedestals and return to the narrow path of humility. The Christian vocation has never been about winning arguments as much as it has been about carrying the cross. Christ did not conquer the world through domination but through self-emptying love (Philippians 2:5-8).
After all, what good is it to be factually correct if we sacrifice charity in the process? What good is it to win the argument if we lose the heart?
St. Paul reminds the church that even the most impressive knowledge or eloquence becomes meaningless without love: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
Truth matters. Justice matters. Moral conviction matters.
But without humility, mercy and compassion, even the pursuit of truth can become distorted by ego.
Perhaps the deeper Christian challenge is not simply to ask whether we are right, but whether we are becoming more like Christ.
For in the end, it will not be our ideological victories that testify to the world that we belong to him. It will be our love.
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
Fr. Taylor Tracy serves as the Superior General for the Cor Jesu Society, a religious society that supports clergy in the pastoral care of their communities—specifically those on the margins—throughout the United States and Europe, in addition to providing liturgical and spiritual formation for both laity and clergy alike.