The Catholic Church in the United States today is facing a crucial test. How will the church lead under what the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat calls an “imperial presidency,” marked by daily attacks on human dignity, religious liberty and the republican constitutional order? Will Catholic leadership accommodate and adapt itself to authoritarian power? Or will it offer leadership to give hope, oppose authoritarian abuses and defend human freedom?
One of the first U.S. bishops appointed by Pope Leo XIV highlights the stakes and possibilities for the church’s response to these challenges. Michael Pham came to the United States as a 13-year-old refugee from Vietnam. Bishop Pham has led interfaith clergy delegations to bear witness and minister at immigration hearings in San Diego. Their presence has caused masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to scatter. Courageous Catholic actions, including pointed denunciations of ICE activities by many bishops and lawsuits challenging federal abuses of power, have intensified over the past several months. Driven less by ideological or policy commitments, and more by a deep love for neighbor, these actions have brought priests, nuns and laity into the streets, courtrooms and picket lines.
If history is a guide, this type of faithful action will be necessary to fight encroaching authoritarianism. Broad-based movements, employing a wide range of geographically dispersed nonviolent tactics like protests, boycotts and strikes, have historically been the strongest bulwark against authoritarianism. When large numbers of people from diverse sectors of society come together across divisions, engage in organized defiance and withdraw support from authoritarian regimes—when workers withhold their labor, businesses apply financial pressure, police and military refuse orders to repress protestors, and priests, sisters and lay leaders are in the forefront—they strip autocrats of their power.
Catholics are particularly well positioned to lead such a movement. They are one of the largest religious groups in the United States, outnumbering any single Protestant denomination, and they are spread across the country. Today, 20 percent of American adults identify as Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center. And many of them are directly affected by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and racialized attacks. More than four in 10 U.S. Catholics are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Fifty-eight percent of Hispanic Catholics were born outside the United States. Many Catholics are likely among those now living in fear of masked agents abducting them in unmarked cars to detention centers, where they risk being lost in a chaotic system. Meanwhile, close to three million Black Catholics are experiencing attacks on the Voting Rights Act and the weakening of civil rights protections.
Religious communities must choose whether to enable authoritarianism or play a critical role in defeating it. Researchers from the U.S. Institute of Peace found that religion has played a prominent role in most major nonviolent campaigns globally from 1945 to 2013 that have challenged authoritarian regimes and military occupations. The sociologist Sharon Nepstad highlighted the moral authority and mobilizational power of religious networks, and she found that religious leaders can provide safe spaces for resistance in the face of indiscriminate regime repression, while triggering international pressure on authoritarian regimes.
This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared in American Magazine. Read the full piece here.