The archbishop of Washington, D.C. and other Catholic leaders urged the Catholic community to actively counteract polarization and fight for democracy at a March 18 event in Georgetown University’s Dahlgren Chapel.

Archbishop Robert McElroy and three leaders of Catholic universities advocated for faith’s role in supporting U.S. democracy. The panelists promoted religious pluralism and tolerance, drawing on the works of Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J, a prominent Jesuit priest from the mid-20th century whose thought influenced the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom.

McElroy said Murray believed democracy requires both governments and institutions to protect individual rights.

“John Courtney Murray believed that democracy had a twofold in meaning, and he was very strong on this,” McElroy said at the event. “In part, the process had to be democratic, but democracy also has a substantive element. It is the defense of what he called the ‘res sacra,’ meaning dignity of the human person and all those sacred elements within society that can be at risk.” 

Murray was a prominent contributor to the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 Declaration on Religious Freedom, called the Dignitatis humanae, which outlined the Catholic Church’s support for religious liberty in secular states.

McElroy said the government’s growing influence has impacted individual freedoms. 

“We see government now encroaching upon areas of society and culture, educational institutions, the arts, in which we never would have thought we’d be in this boat now,” McElroy said. “This erodes the notion that government has a particular realm where it cannot use its coercive powers to intrude into.”

McElroy has made national headlines for criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies and ongoing operations in Iran. 

McElroy said he is worried polarization in the United States has damaged individuals’ ability to participate in democracy by discouraging open debate.

“There needs to be a substantive consensus among the people in the country about basic issues so that they can come together on an agreement, and that is dissipated,” McElroy said at the event. “That polarization is eating into that.”

“It doesn’t mean that we’re cascading out of democracy,” McElroy added. “But it does mean that institutions which are guardians of our democracy, and sources of our democratic meaning, that those are in disarray now, and also they’re teetering, we have to move to arrest that now.”

A 2022 Pew Research study found that the majority of Democrats and Republicans viewed members of the opposite party negatively and as more immoral than themselves.

Cathleen Kaveny, a theology professor at Boston College and the Boston College Law School, said Catholics should assume the best of others’ intentions in difficult conversations.

“Even people with whom we disagree about fundamental matters are pursuing a good in some sense,” Kaveny said at the event. “And I think the way we have conversation is to try to find out what good they’re pursuing, and then have a conversation to see how maybe our understanding of the good is ordered, but also maybe to confront them with how we think their understanding of the good is distorted.”

Vincent Rougeau, the president of the College of the Holy Cross, said he aims to give his students the knowledge to form their own opinions, specifically in the context of recent conflicts between protesters and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis.

“I think a lot more about how we create citizens who are not tempted to be blind adherents to whatever the state wants,” Rougeau said at the event. “To go back to Minneapolis, when you hear some of the justifications that people were offering for the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good. ‘They shouldn’t be in the way, they should let us do their job, they’re disloyal.’ That’s the civil rights era, my parents were subject to that kind of talk about their demonstrations, even though they were doing the Christian and a deeply moral place. ‘Stay in your lane, your place, get out of the way.’ Is that the kind of society we want to be living in?”

The Trump administration ordered ICE agents to Minnesota in December 2025 as part of its immigration enforcement operation. Minneapolis residents led widespread demonstrations against ICE’s presence, during which federal agents fatally shot Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens, in January.

Rob Vischer — president of the University of St. Thomas, which hosts campuses in Saint Paul, Minn., and Minneapolis — said he saw residents and local organizations exemplifying Catholic values despite political polarization.

“You had so many residents of the Twin Cities who stepped up, and parishes and Catholic schools, I think, led the way in this and kept weekly grocery deliveries going for thousands of households,” Vischer said at the event.

“In my time in the circle with folks who were delivering or buying groceries, I never heard anyone ask someone, ‘Well, what’s your view on immigration policy, or what do you think should be required for asylum or how secure should the borders be?’” Vischer added. “None of that. It was serving people.”

Kim Daniels, the director of Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, who moderated the event, said she felt hopeful seeing Catholics help those in need.

“It made me hopeful to see the witness of Catholics around the country standing up for our vulnerable neighbors, and I was proud of the Georgetown community, and especially Georgetown students, for being here to witness to how we can best serve those in need,” Daniels told The Hoya.

Olivia Smith (CAS ’26), who attended the event, said the panel reminded her of the power individuals possess to defend democracy.

“I think there’s a lot of action that we can do at larger institutional levels, but also starts within your own neighborhoods, within your own friend circles, having physical conversations, and I think that was a major thing,” Smith told The Hoya.

“It alleviated some of those questions I felt, or the helplessness I felt, about being able to enact a lot of change,” Smith added.

McElroy said bishops should contribute to public debate while still remaining politically neutral. 

“We, as bishops, are trying to contribute to the public debate and to help form conscience within the Catholic community and society as a whole,” McElroy said.

“We, certainly as bishops, are called to be politically homeless in the environment, and act in that way,” McElroy added. 

Vischer said the Catholic Church prioritizes supporting people, not ideological stances.

“We serve people, not ideas,” Vischer said. “It doesn’t mean that argument over ideas or argument over ideology doesn’t have a place — it does. But above all, we are called to the ministry of accompaniment.”