An Attack on our Way of Life

by Fr. John Parks  |  07/21/2024  |  Weekly Reflection

This past Saturday there was an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Mercifully, the gunman was not successful in taking his life. I offer a few thoughts on what we can take away from this sad day in American history.

What occurred that day was an attack on our democratic way of life. There was an old Roman orator named Quintillian who said that society always needs men (and women) who can defend justice before a crowd.

Our form of government requires a fundamental belief that the world is rational and that we can adjudicate our differences through vigorous public debate. When we begin to lose confidence in reason-or abandon it all together—as the means by which we navigate societal problems. Then all we have left is power, and power without reason devolves very quickly into violence. Violence –whether through police state control, coercion, or assassination attempts—are all dead ends in moving towards a just, rational, and peaceful public square and society.

Additionally, the ancient Romans had two words for “enemy.” Inimicus meant a fellow Roman who was your adversary but was still seen as your equal (one can see its’ cognate relation to the Latin word for ‘friend’, amicus), and thus still worthy of your respect. The other word for enemy was ‘hostes’ but that was a foreign enemy who was not your equal. They were ‘sub-human’ in some way. When one observes modern political discourse and how we think (and talk) about our political ‘enemies’, so we think of them as inimicus, i.e. mistaken about the direction our country should go in but still my fellow citizen and worthy of respect, or as ‘hostes’ who are somehow ‘less than us’ due to their political commitments and not worthy of serious engagement, rather they can be simply disregarded. I know politicians are given to hyperbole and rancorous discourse—but words have power—and if we make dehumanizing comments about others (e.g. “they are Hitler/Nazis”, “they will destroy our Republic”, etc.) we make it easier to resort to violence to settle our disputes.

Lastly, we should pray. As Catholics we are “dual citizens” of both America and of heaven. We should pray in thanksgiving the assassination attempt was not successful, for the man who lost his life and those injured, and that public civility would return to our political discourse. Jesus –and the power of the Gospel—are the key to cultural renewal as no former president—or current president—can save our souls or restore our culture from the ground up.