Are you angry at the assassination attempt against former President and leading GOP Presidential Candidate Trump? You should be: there is such a thing as righteous anger.
Let there be no doubt that the political Left is waging war. Before his first Inauguration there were calls for Trump’s impeachment. You may remember, too, the mostly peaceful protests on his Inauguration Day, the looted shops, the burning cars, those special hats that so many wore. And that was just the beginning: Leftwing hostility to his Administration was relentless. Actors and artists called for violence against him. Political actors — Members of Congress — have called for violent resistance to him. Calls for his offing have not been exactly veiled, nor do they need to be rehearsed. In fact the less we give voice to that ugliness, the better.
Trump presents himself as the anti-woke candidate who speaks for the millions and millions of Americans and legal immigrants who reject the woke agenda and yearn for a return to at least some semblance of normal, peaceful life in a country that is not at war with itself.
This is why the anger at the attempted assassination is so palpable: an attack against his life is an attack against each and every one of his supporters, and it is also an attack against representative democracy itself.
Righteous anger is a tricky thing. In his book Victory over Vice, the Ven. Fulton Sheen writes, “The one passion in man that has deeper roots in his rational nature than any other is the passion of anger. Anger and reason are capable of great compatibility, because anger is based upon reason, which weighs the injury done and the satisfaction to be demanded. We are never angry unless someone has injured us in some way — or we think he has.
Sheen continues, recapitulating the entire moral theological tradition on anger, “But not all anger is sinful…for anger is not sinful under three conditions: if the cause of anger is just; if it no greater than the cause demands, that is, if it is kept under control; and if it is quickly subdued” (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2004, pp. 3-4 passim.).
Is it just to be angry at the attempt against Trump’s life? Any attempted murder is a cause of just anger — and you don’t have to agree with Trump’s policies, like his candidacy, or even like the man to be angry at the attempt. Any attempt to stifle millions of voices in a federal representative democracy is a genuine source of righteous anger; we noticed no rioting or wanton destruction in Republican-led cities, counties, and states, and the voices I am hearing call for immediate Congressional and police investigation. It seems to me that the anger is controlled.
Will this anger quickly be subdued? That depends entirely upon how long the source of offense continues. Voices now calling to turn down the rhetoric are a day late and a dollar short. Where were those voices when their colleagues and friends called for violence against Trump, or when certain sorts of Catholic Christians were branded by the FBI as “terrorists?” No, the long-suffering have had enough.
As Christians we have special duties here. We must maintain our civility and our composure. But that is not enough: we must imitate Christ on the Cross, who prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” We must pray for a share of that divine and human charity that was willing to die for the salvation of those who were putting him to death — all of us, let me hasten to add: all of us humans, from the beginning of time until the end, are responsibility for the death of the Savior.
Only within the context of that divine and human charity may we exercise our political rights to demand proper investigation and prosecution and to vote according to the demands of a properly-formed conscience, one that seeks the common good over personal interest and that places personal and family good within the context of the common good.
The Left has been at war, for quite some time, with the traditional values of the American people whose commitments and moral outlook are conditioned by Christianity. The war is not just against American Christians, by the way: every culture deeply informed by the Christian value structure has been targeted for attack and destruction. We see this happening throughout the world.
Those waging the war hate Christianity for many reasons. One of them is that Christian morality imposes limits to behavior that those who see liberty as the absolute right to do as one wishes and to act in one’s own interests or the interests of one’s own particular group simply find intolerable. Another is the Faith’s insistence that we have duties of charity toward those who are outside our group — our family, clan, tribe, nation, Faith, because the love of Jesus Christ extends to all. The Faith is demanding.
It is not true that in wartime, anything goes. There are limits to what we can do, even in warfare. The first is that we cannot render evil for evil, and every limiting precept flows from that. The first war we wage is against our love of comfort and our unwillingness to challenge ourselves to be holy. We have to pray — and fast: many of us pray, but how many fast, really fast, for the changes this country and world really require? We also have to recall that “the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). And “we wrestle not against flesh and blood…” (Eph 6:12).
Spiritual means first. Now is the time to double-down into prayer and fasting. Now is the time to step up on frequent Mass and Holy Communion — daily, if possible; frequent Confession — weekly, if possible, the way it always was; and the traditional devotions to Our Lady, the angels and the saints. Now is the time for us to keep reminding ourselves that we are all just passing through to our final destination, and that our battles, with and for ourselves and for others, are for the best possible eternal destiny, for everyone. We have a choice in that matter, and we cannot excuse ourselves from righteous behavior because we are angry: that excuse is the first signal that the anger has passed from righteousness to unrighteousness.
Strengthening the bonds that unite us, second. Anciently the Romans said of Christians, not “look at how well they argue,” or “look at how well they’ve organized in the Senate to win it to their cause and influence the Empire,” “look at how they prevail in court agains their enemies,” “look at how successful they are in their careers,” “how generous they are in giving of their surfeit!” They said, “Look at the way they love each other!” The love ancient Christians had for each other was astounding: if one rejoiced, they all rejoiced; if one was in need, the entire community responded. None of “I’ll pray for you, I’ll have a Mass said, I wish there were something I could do!” No: they rolled up their sleeves and supported each other. This was true not only in the time of the Apostles, as is recorded in Acts: this carried through for centuries.
Our love for each other has to express itself in sacrificial terms. First, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the Law of Christ,” (Gal 6:2). I suppose this means first of all putting up with each other’s foibles, complaints, weaknesses, loving each other in them, and only latterly actually helping with concrete material needs. This means that Catholics on opposite sides of the political spectrum need to recall that what binds us to each other is our common Catholic faith. “But I don’t live my faith that way, that’s not the way I was taught.” Fair enough: were you taught to despise those who live it in a different way? How then can you fulfill the commandment above? We must pray and fast for each other, and for the Church Herself, that She, and we as her members, will give effective witness to the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
Then, after we have done all we can to strengthen ourselves and to strengthen each other do we turn to exercise the rights we possess as citizens. We should exercise these rights, tempered by the Christian practices that deepen us in the love of God and strengthen us in love for each other, especially the poor and sick among us. Then, I submit, the first people outside the visible communion of the Church we should seek to support are the poor and the sick outside the fold. Look, we are in a spiritual war that we did not start and that is being waged against us. Spiritual means first, and that means Christ’s priorities in our endeavors. What wins people to the cause of Christ, the Christian Faith, is love in action. What wins heaven, for us and for others, beginning here on earth, is putting Christ’s priorities before our own.
And then we turn to politics. Then we exercise our rights as citizens, organizing to vote, organizing legislative campaigns, bringing our suits in the courts, using all the legal means at our disposal to advance the common good. But note: not at the expense of our faith practice, because there is now something apparently more urgent; not at the expense of meeting our obligations to those who depend upon us, first, our families, and then those of the household of faith; not at the expense of the demands of charity in spreading the faith through works of love.
There is an order to charity. We love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength; and we love our neighbors as ourselves. Our love for ourselves needs to be perfected by Christ’s love for us, and only then can we rightly love our neighbors as ourselves. God first, family and household of faith second, others third: that’s the order. We engage in politics, to the extent we are called to politics, in order to structure society such that everyone in it can live this way: God first, family second, others third.
We are in this situation because our charity has not been well-ordered. We have not put God first; we too often put career and the pursuit of wealth ahead of family; we neglect our duties towards the household of faith; and we rely upon the administrative state to provide minimally for the needs of those outside the nets of faith and family. We seldom sacrifice, except to get ahead; and we all too readily go along to get along, not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting to be disagreeable, not wanting to risk membership in the level of polite society to which we aspire or in which we already live. We have pulled our punches and accepted the incremental gains of our enemies — that’s who they say they are — in the name of “tolerance,” only to find out that tolerance means acceptance of their ideas and that non-acceptance renders one intolerant and therefore liable to whatever those in power wish to heap upon us.
This war will end favorably only if we order our charity rightly and extend it to those who wish us ill. We must fight to gain the standing required for us to be heralds of Good News. We must fight against our disordered passions and sinful impulses; we must fight against our love of comfort and our only-too-willing neglect of those who have a right to our attention and our care; we must fight to see that just laws are enforced and unjust laws are overturned. In that order. Everything we do — everything — must be permeated with God’s love and grace. The battle is His; vengeance is His: ours is to do all in our power to avert that vengeance and to bring God’s mercy to as many people as we possibly can.
There is one other thing God expects of us. He wants us to live in joy. He wants us to live in the peace that only He can give, that peace which is independent of circumstances. How, you might ask, is this possible? “Peace I give you, my own peace I leave you.” The Lord expects us to implore this peace. And if we put order into our charity and our commitments and live our commitments with love, including for those who hate us, well, “the fruit of the Spirit is ….” (Gal 5:22ff).
An acquaintance of mine, Austin Ruse, has written a book called Under Siege: No finer time to be a faithful Catholic. I haven’t read the book, but he has it right: now that there is no doubt as to what is happening in the world at large, there is no doubt that we are commanded to love God first, others second, ourselves last of all in a way that makes it possible for God to extend mercy toward all who implore it. Now we are commanded to discover and live the joy that is possible in Christ alone, and to help others find and live it. How is this possible? Each must discover this for himself, remembering that God wins His wars by doing the opposite of what we expect. The only answer to hate is love: the only answer is to return good for evil. Let each of us discover and return the good that falls to each of us. All of us doing this together may yet win from Heaven the helps we need such that the world is ordered in the way we all yearn it to be: peaceful, beautiful, abundant, joyful — and holy.