I do not need to remind you that we live in fraught times.

Today is the 45th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero. It seems to me that he is a particularly apt figure for us as we try to navigate the chaos and cruelty that has come to characterize our political life.

I sometimes feel an affinity with the Psalmist’s lament in Psalm 12:

Help, O Lord, for good men have vanished;
Truth has gone from the sons of men.
Falsehood they speak to one another,
With lying lips, with a false heart.
…
It is you O Lord who will take us in your care
and protect us forever from this generation.
See how the wicked prowl on every side.
While the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men.

I do not claim to know what is in the hearts of our political leaders, and I am particularly cognizant of the admonition of Jesus not to judge. But it must be said clearly that many of our government’s policies are both evil and cruel.

The head of Caritas International, the Vatican’s main charitable agency, calls the Trump Administration’s cutting of foreign assistance programs “reckless,” and an “unhuman affront to people’s God-given dignity.” He says further that it will “jeopardize essential services for hundreds of millions of people, undermine decades of progress in humanitarian and development assistance, destabilize regions that rely on this critical support, and condemn millions to dehumanizing poverty or even death.”

Domestically, the campaign against immigrants is meant to sow what Margaret Chase Smith describes as the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear.

Here Archbishop Romero’s words cut through the fog with forthright clarity. In a homily in September of 1979 he says
It is inconceivable that someone is called ‘Christian’ and does not give preference to the poor as Christ did. It is a scandal when today’s Christians criticize the Church because she is concerned with the poor. This is not Christianity! Many believe, dear brothers and sisters, that when the Church says ‘for the poor’ she is becoming communist, she is being political, she is opportunistic. This is not the case, for this has always been the teaching. …Let’s say to everyone: we must take the cause of the poor seriously, as if it were our own cause, or even more, for it is indeed the very cause of Jesus Christ.

And in a homily the day before his death, he addresses those carrying out the government’s policies, “In the name of God, in the name of our tormented people, I beseech you, I implore you; in the name of God I command you to stop the repression.”

So what shall we do? Elon Musk has said that the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. But I submit that such an attitude is the antithesis of Christianity. Empathy, mercy, solidarity is, in the words of Dreamer keynote Brenda Flores, “our superpower.” Pope Francis titled his 2016 book The Name of God is Mercy.

Addressing President Trump directly in a prayer service following his inauguration Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde said

In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. … I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.

For expressing these sentiments she was denigrated, vilified and threatened.

Edward R. Murrow reminds us that not every story has two sides. There is no morally relevant argument on the side of policies that result in starving children.

In today’s poisonous political climate, the temptation is to withdraw, to dismiss what’s going on as “just politics.” But that is not an option for Christians. Love of neighbor must include supporting and improving the institutions that affect people’s lives, and in a democracy the working of those institutions depends on the political process. Issues that affect the common good are being debated. We cannot be absent.

In Fratelli Tutti Pope Francis teaches us that

whereas individuals can help others in need, when they join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the “field of charity at its most vast, namely political charity.” [165] This entails working for a social and political order whose soul is social charity. [166] Once more, I appeal for a renewed appreciation of politics as “a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good.”

And Washington Cardinal Archbishop Robert McElroy:

We must speak up and proclaim that this unfolding misery and suffering and, yes, war of fear and terror cannot be tolerated in our midst. We must speak up and say: ‘Go no farther’ because the safety [and] humanity of our brothers and sisters, who are being targeted, are too precious in our eyes and in God’s eyes.

I want to end with a story about Archbishop Romero’s last moments. Many of you have heard me tell it before, but it bears repeating here. It was told to me by a religious sister who was present at the mass during which he was shot.

Romero was celebrating mass for the mother of a journalist friend who had died. He spoke of her love for her family and neighbors and the many small acts of kindness she did to make their lives better. When he finished the homily, he turned and began to go around the altar for the offertory prayers. But he stopped, turned back to the congregation and said, “Everyone can do something.”

Everyone can do something.

Fr. T. Michael McNulty, SJ
Marquette University Center for Peacemaking
March 24, 2025