By Fr. Caleb La Rue
“There is only one Savior, and you are not Him.”
This phrase was repeated frequently throughout my time in the seminary. Professors and formators would use it to remind us that we cannot save mankind. Jesus already did that. Our calling is to extend His victory over Sin and Death to all those entrusted to our care.
It is easy for priests to forget this simple truth and to develop “savior mentalities,” to think that salvation relies upon us. It leads to all sorts of problems: workaholism, inability to entrust others with the work of the parish, and just good old-fashioned arrogance. Worst of all, it leads to priests not leading their people to Jesus, but themselves.
Losing sight of our Savior is easy to do, not just for priests but for all people. It’s easy to replace our Savior with any number of things, believing that our jobs, money, prestige will be what saves us. In an election year, it’s easy to replace our Savior with our particular candidate of choice.
Think about the average political ad. They are shot and scripted in such a way that you would think the candidate they are presenting was going to solve every problem you have. That’s their purpose, to convince us that if we elect so-and-so everything that is wrong in our life will be better. Candidates become presented as saviors, the anointed ones sent from on high to save the world.
And if a candidate is the savior, then their opponent is the devil. Again, think about the average anti-campaign ad. They are shot and scripted in such a way that you’d think the candidate they were attacking was hiding in the bushes waiting to murder you in your sleep. These ads do everything they can to convince us that if you vote for so-and-so, you might as well be voting for the literal devil.
It is easy to get caught up in these dichotomies, one candidate the savior, the other the devil—and it is true enough that as Catholics we are called to identify evil as evil and good as good. But we are called to do this with policies, not peoples. We should be unafraid to speak out against policies that are evil and to call them as such. We should, however, be very wary of demonizing or canonizing any political candidate.
When we canonize a candidate, we become blind to their faults, to the policies and practices that they hold that are contrary to what we know to be truly good. When we demonize a candidate, we become blind to the policies and practices that they support that are in accord with what we know to be truly good.
Perhaps most insidiously though, when we demonize a candidate, we do not just stop with them. Anyone who supports them becomes demonic as well. And we do not talk with demons. We do not reason with or negotiate or engage in any kind of conversation with demons, we cast them out, drive them away, do everything we can to protect ourselves from them.
This is well and good when we are talking about true demons. This is a tragedy when we are talking about other people, human beings who we disagree with. Yet we do it. We shout, we drive people away, avoid talking to them, cast them out of friendships and (God save us) families because we cannot agree on a political candidate. And we do it convinced of our own righteousness, convinced that we are the ones serving the greater good, because our candidate is the savior, and theirs is the devil.
We are not called to be silent, to not acknowledge what we believe for the sake of a false sense of harmony. But we are called to never lose sight of the other as a person. Not only does anger and vitriol not ever convince anyone of anything (no one has ever thought “Huh, they were a total jerk to me, they must be right. I will change my beliefs now”) but it can harm the relationships that matter most. The people we disagree with are not demons, but human beings. Human beings who we believe are wrong, who may be objectively wrong, but who remain human beings. We can never lose sight of that fact. If we do, we become the very thing we claim to be fighting against.
Think of the ancient martyrs. They did not shout or bully others into believing what they believe. They gave witness to the truth of their beliefs by their actions, and in doing so converted an Empire.
The power of witness remains the same today. In a time when virtue signaling is the new barometer of righteousness, we cannot just signal virtue but live it. That is what will truly change our country. Voting for a candidate we think is right does not absolve us of the personal responsibility we all share to actively shape our world for the better. Support a crisis pregnancy center, mentor a refugee family through Catholic Social Services, volunteer at or donate to a food bank, pray for the conversion of our political leaders.
Truly virtuous actions lead to truly virtuous lives, and it is only through the living out of virtue with the grace God gives us that we will extend the victory of Christ throughout the world.
Father La Rue was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Lincoln in 2014. He is currently pursuing canon law studies through the Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
