After last week’s post about authoritarians and authoritarian followers, my thoughts this week focus on civility. Authoritarian leaders have never been known for their civility, because they abandon respectful communication and behavior towards individuals and groups. Their lack of civility opens the doors for extreme polarization and the normalization of cruelty, corruption, and mass disinformation.

As polarization increases and trust in democratic institutions declines, the big question is how people can move forward and maintain a functioning democracy. My point today is that civility is essential. Civility refers to social interactions in which participants maintain respect for one another, and demonstrate respectful behavior toward one another, even when they disagree. Behaving with civility reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings, stereotyping, and conflict. But racism and bigotry are nourished by incivility.

When he was sixteen years old, George Washington (1732-1799), who became the first president of the United States in 1789, wrote down 110 “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” His writing project was an exercise in youthful penmanship, as he copied an English translation of an older text, originally written by French Jesuits. The focus of Washington’s text was civility: polite, reasonable, and respectful behavior. Historians and biographers recognize the influence of these rules in shaping Washington’s character. For Washington, the “Rules of Civility” provided a presidential framework. Throughout his presidency of eight years, Washington demonstrated genuine courtesy, kindness, and consideration in his actions, which solidified his image as a virtuous leader.

A few of Washington’s rules struck me recently, as I was thinking about current events.

• “Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those present.”
• “When you reprove another be without blame yourself.”
• “Let your conversation be without malice or envy.”
• “In all causes of passion allow reason to govern.”

Incivility takes form in rude and discourteous actions, in disparaging emails, in spreading rumors, or simply in refusing to assist another person.

Civility means much more than simple politeness. Civility is about interpersonal respect and seeking common ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences. It is about moving beyond preconceptions and listening to the other and encouraging others to do the same.

Civility is hard work because it means staying present to people with whom one can have deep-rooted and fierce disagreements. Civility means collaborating for the common good. It is about negotiating interpersonal conversations in such a way that everyone’s voice is heard, and nobody’s voice is ignored. Not always easy. Civility means that despite different personal perspectives we still have a larger shared vision and we must collaborate to make it a reality. I have always seen this as the main point of the Parable of the Compassionate Samaritan, in Mark 12:31, where Jesus says: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” THAT is civility.

When civility is replaced by mockery, dishonest accusations, and abusive slogans, people become monsters. History shows amply that monsters often create more monsters. History also reminds us that such a scenario never has a happy ending.

The reflection this week is brief. But the task awaiting us is a long process.

 

Civility begins with you and me, with family and friends, with neighbors and colleagues. We gradually construct what I like to call coalitions of transformation: communities of faith, hope, and support. In her 1964 book, Continuities in Cultural Evolution, the famous cultural anthropologist, Margaret Meade (1901 – 1978), said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

 

 

Authoritarianism has always bothered me because it uses and abuses people. It destroys human freedom to think, act, and live. It manipulates people and often destroys the “undesirables.” The historical Jesus stressed that human greatness is based on compassion and service. His authority was used only to motivate and guide people, and to heal, support, and call to conversion.

Today, authoritarianism is a dangerous virus. “Leaders” who should be trusted for trustworthiness, intelligence, and humanitarian service are becoming hard-nosed autocrats, surrendering to the psychological and mental disorder of authoritarianism. Honesty and integrity are being replaced by self-promoting deceit and dishonesty.

Historically, authoritarian leaders, in church and in civil society, have always found religion a wonderful convenience, which they misused and manipulated to their advantage. Some even published and promoted their own editions of the Bible. Their misuse of religion enabled them to lord it over other people and allowed them to punish their “enemies” guilt-free.

Distorted religion enables authoritarian leaders to bully and denigrate certain groups, like immigrants and LGBTQ people. Values like love, mercy, and compassion disappear. There are only two authoritarian values: faithfulness and obedience to the authoritarian leader.

Right now, I am thinking about three classic historical examples: (1) The atheist and anti-clerical Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) needed backing by the Vatican to promote his National Fascist Party. He therefore married in the Catholic church and had his children baptized. (2) Spain’s Generalissimo Franco (1892-1975) became a cruel and murderous dictator. Although Franco himself was known for not being very devout, he portrayed himself as a fervent Catholic and used religion to increase his power. He used his Guerrilleros de Christo Rey (the Warriors of Christ the King) to implement his policy of torture and executions. (3) And of course, the story of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). Hitler ceased being a Catholic when a teenager, but Hitler and his Nazi party promoted their brand of “Positive Christianity.” He described Jesus as an “Aryan fighter” who struggled against the corrupt Pharisees. Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda and one of his closest and most devoted associates, wrote in April 1941 that although Hitler was “a fierce opponent” of the Vatican and Christianity, “he forbids me to leave the church, for tactical reasons.”

 

The rise of authoritarianism is a problem around the world. Here are the major symptoms:

1. Ongoing efforts to misuse the media. The distinction between information and misinformation disappears. AI-generated photos and videos are presented as honest information.

2.For authoritarians, truth is called “fake news” while what is actually fake news is announced as real news. As George Orwell (1903-1950) predicted years ago: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

3. Authoritarians impose police surveillance and violence against ideological “enemies”and say they as necessary for public safety.

4. “Immigrants” are arrested. Their families are torn apart, and even their children are incarcerated without explanation. The extreme development of this is genocide.

5. White supremacism, sexism, homophobia, and far-right extremism are not criticized but strongly promoted.

Authoritarian “leaders” can only succeed because because authoritarian followers applaud and support them. Much more so than the average person, authoritarian followers go through life with impaired thinking. Their reasoning is often sloppy and based on prejudiced beliefs and a fierce dogmatism, that rejects evidence and logic. These cognitive defects in authoritarian followers enable them to follow any would-be dictator. As Hitler reportedly said, “What good fortune for those in power that people do not think.”

So, what does one do?

Well, we must first of all acknowledge that authoritarian followers are extremely resistant to change. The more one learns about authoritarianism, the more one realizes how difficult it will be to reach people who are so ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive. Polarization is now extreme and deeply rooted.

We need to educate and promote, starting at home, a balanced education which is: handing on authentic information, teaching people where to find correct information, and giving people the skills to be well-informed critical thinkers.

Our Christian communities, more than ever, must become, in the Spirit of Christ, compassionate and supportive gatherings of multicultural, multi-ethnic, and all-gender, brothers and sisters.

We need to courageously speak out. And we need to help other people courageously speak out. If something is wrong or not true, people need to strongly and clearly state that it is wrong or untrue. Those who courageously speak out need the strong support of friends gathered around them. Going alone is increasingly difficult if not impossible in our cyber-linked world.

We need to be on guard, as well, that we do not become promoters of polarization and vicious partisanship. We need to learn how to work together for the common good, as Jesus says in Matthew 12:25: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

 

 

 

 

One of my friends sent me a note saying he hoped I was not becoming a prophet of doom. That is why I call this week’s reflection “The Tenacity of Hope.” I am not a prophet of doom, and my faith and my knowledge of history give me hope and encouragement. Big problems confront us today. But, if people work together in pursuit of Truth and Moral integrity, these problems can be resolved. For some problems, however, like contemporary authoritarianism, I fear it will take some time. Authoritarianism is a dangerous socio-political virus. It restricts civil liberties, undermines democratic institutions, and uses political repression to maintain control.

Thinking about the tenacity of hope, one’s life perspective is important. My first lessons about the tenacity of hope came from my father’s life events. His father, Alonzo William Dick, was a schoolteacher in Indiana. But he died in 1919 during the great influenza epidemic of 1918-1920. Three of his five sons were too sick to attend his funeral. After his death, the local town authorities in Montpelier, Indiana, wanted to put the five boys in foster-care homes. My grandmother, Mary Ellen Dick, said absolutely not. She had a big challenge in front of her, but she said they were her sons and she would care for them. Fortunately, there were neighbors and family members who encouraged and helped her. It was not always easy, but, on her own, she raised the five boys. They all became wonderfully mature, successful, wise, and kind adults. Their mother had often reminded them – and often reminded me as I was growing up – that “bad things do happen, but we cannot allow them to destroy us.”

Yes, my perspective and optimistic vision are historically based. I look at what happened in the past, what is happening today, and what can happen tomorrow. These days, I also find my current Belgian environment and its history helpful when reflecting about tragedies and the tenacity of hope. Although I was born and grew up in SW Michigan, I now live in Leuven, Belgium. Many years ago, I came here to complete a doctorate, at the Catholic University of Leuven. Two days after my doctoral defense, I was offered a job and have been here ever since. But I am still very much a U.S. American.

Historical reminders are all around us. Our house is close to the Norbertine Park Abbey in Leuven, begun in 1129. In the early sixteenth century, Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) lived there for a while, working on his translation of New Testament texts. In the later sixteenth century, however, Park Abbey was occupied by soldiers of the brutal Spanish Duke of Alba (1507-1582). Alba, known as the “Iron Duke” was fiercely anti-protestant and strongly supported by Pope Pius V (1566-1572). Alba was governor of the Spanish Netherlands, which included our part of today’s Belgium, from 1567 to 1573. During those six years, Alba executed more than a thousand people. Not far from our house, Alba’s soldiers had what was called their hanging tree. They used it to frighten citizens of Leuven by executing prominent people suspected of Calvinist sympathies. Nevertheless, Leuven not only survived Alba’s terrorism but flourished, because enough people maintained courage and hope. The area of the long-gone hanging tree – unknown to most contemporary people – is a peaceful area today. Life is stronger than death.

Close to 350 years after the terrorism of the “Iron Duke,” Leuven suffered again in World War I. Starting on August 25, 1914, and over the course of five days, enemy troops burned and looted much of the city and executed hundreds of civilians. Our world-renowned university library with its magnificent collection of ancient manuscripts was burned. This provoked great national and international outrage. Nevertheless, people did not give up, and Leuven was rebuilt. And, starting in 1921, thanks to countless American fundraisers and the personal efforts of Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), chairperson of the Commission for Relief of Belgium, a new library could be built. Then, just about 30 years later, the city was bombed in World War II. Great devastation. Again, people picked up, rebuilt, and moved forward. The tenacity of hope.

Hopeful people pick up and move forward. I am a critic, not a prophet of doom, but I must also acknowledge that I do find it very easy to just point my fingers at and write articles about problematic and negative people. I get annoyed and frustrated. But I know we need to work against polarization, and I do try to reach out to the problematic and negative. It is not easy. I have lost a lot of Facebook friends in the process. From the Apostle Paul, I know that “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful” (1 Cor. 13:4–5). And I know as well that, in my dealings with negative and often obnoxious people, I do need to be humbly alert to the exhortation of Jesus in Matthew 7 and Luke 6: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Thinking about strengthening our own tenacity of hope, we greatly need to learn from the example of hope-filled men and women. My old friend Archbishop Jadot, the subject of my previous book Jean Jadot, Paul’s Man in Washington, was for me a supportive teacher. I remember complaining to him about problems in the church and my frustrations with one prominent U.S. archbishop who had tried very hard, but without success, to get me fired from the Catholic University of Leuven. Jadot looked at me, put his hand on my shoulder, and said: “Yes, it is winter now. But spring will return.” We all need people like Jean Jadot in our lives, and we are all called to be prophets of hope and hopeful change. We need to critically examine our own perspectives, however, because they can make us either open or closed.

Right now, I am collecting materials for one of my adult discussion groups that will meet again in the autumn. We will read and discuss articles written by the the 91 years old English anthropologist Jane Goodall. She is a wonderfully prophetic and inspiring person.

In her 1999 book written with Phillip Berman, Reason for Hope, she details her spiritual epiphany and her belief that everyone can find a reason for hope. “Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference,” Goodall writes. “It is these undeniable qualities of human love and compassion and self-sacrifice that give me hope for the future. We are, indeed, often cruel and evil. Nobody can deny this. We gang up on each one another, we torture each other, with words as well as deeds, we fight, we kill. But we are also capable of the most noble, generous, and heroic behavior.”

The tenacity of hope. With constructive criticism and collaborative efforts, we can indeed be noble, generous, and heroic in pursuit of truth and moral integrity in church and in civil society.

• Jack

 

This week, thinking about contemporary “Christian” nationalism and “Christian” leaders, I offer a brief historical reflection about Christianity and civil authority.

In the old Roman Republic (c. 509 – 27 BCE), the Pontifex Maximus was the high priest in the state religion. The word pontifex is derived from the Latin words pons (bridge) and facere (to make), literally meaning “bridge-builder.” This title was associated with the chief priest, the Pontifex Maximus: the great bridge builder between the Roman gods and humans.

After the establishment of the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar (100 BCE – 44 BCE) became Emperor and Pontifex Maximus in 63 BCE, making him the “chief high priest” of the Roman state religion. But when Constantine the Great (c. 280 – 337 CE) became the first “Christian” Roman Emperor, in the fourth century CE, the official religion of the Roman Empire began to shift toward Christianity. Constantine called and supervised the First Council of Nicaea in 325, attended by at least 200 bishops. This council was the first of many efforts to reach a consensus in Christian leadership through an assembly standing for all Christendom.

Constantine used Christianity and Christian bishops in his imperial exercise of power but was only baptized on his deathbed in May 337. Today he is still venerated as a saint in Eastern Christianity; but whether Constantine was a “genuine” Christian is a matter of ongoing debate among historians and scholars. While Constantine favored Christianity and played a pivotal role in its rise to prominence in the Roman Empire, his actions and beliefs were complex and not always aligned with traditional Christian belief.

The fourth century, in any case, brought a major change in thinking about Christianity and civil power. The century began with the Roman Pontifex Maximus Galerius, Emperor from 305 – 311, torturing and murdering Christians to please and placate the Roman gods. It ended with Gratian, Emperor from 367 to 383, giving the Bishop of Rome the title Pontifex Maximus in 360 and Theodosius, Emperor from 379 to 395 issuing the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 which established Christianity as the official Roman imperial state religion. Then Christians began torturing and murdering non-Christians to please and placate God by destroying people they considered God’s enemies.

In the fifth century, when the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, all civil power and authority moved into papal hands and the popes began to dress and behave like Roman Emperors. Institutional Christianity became a militant religion.

 A high point for Papal Pontifex Maximus power would come with the Crusades, the series of religious wars from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, started, supported, and at times directed by the Pontifex Maximus Pope in Rome.

The last pope to use the title Pontifex Maximus was Pope Benedict XVI, pope from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Benedict replicated, red shoes and all, the old Roman imperial style and authority in grand style. Benedict was a conservative authoritarian.

Pope Francis, who was pope from 2013 until his death in 2025, greatly downplayed the papal imperial pageantry so greatly loved by Benedict and his illustrious predecessors. And now we wait and see what Pope Leo XIV will do.

Authentic Christianity, however, is not about power and authority OVER people. God is love and Christianity is about reaching out to people, offering forgiveness, calling to growth and conversion. We show our love for God by loving the people around us. Jesus was hardly a power-crazed manipulator of men and women. He did not exercise power over people but empowered people to take responsibility for their lives and those around them.

Questions about Christianity and power and authority, are certainly very much with us today, especially in America, because contemporary “Christian” nationalists seek an America where only a small group of white, ultra-wealthy “Christians” get to enjoy the freedom, civil rights, and safety that everyone deserves.

More about this in a future post…

******

I conclude this week’s reflection with an announcement about my new book.

This is an announcement and not a sales pitch.

 

This book is titled Another Voice: Contemporary Theological & Ethical Reflections. That title comes from T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) whose words in his poem “Little Gidding” capture for me the focus of historical theology: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”

As my theological mentor Edward Schillebeeckx so often stressed theological development arises from a critical translation of Christian experience from one historical era to the next.

My blog Another Voice was the inspiration for my new book, which is available as an ebook or a paperback from Amazon.

• Jack

 

 

Thinking about the Fourth of July, in just a couple of days, I re-read the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Adopted on July 4, 1776, by the Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence, was written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, who later became the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Interestingly, Jefferson, born in 1743, died on July 4, 1826, as did the second U.S. president, John Adams, born in 1735. The prominent U.S. lawyer Daniel Webster (1782 – 1852) delivered a two-hour eulogy for Jefferson and Adams on August 2, 1826  in Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall, insisting that the fact both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the nation’s 50th birthday was “proof” from on high that the country, and its benefactors, are under the care of Divine Providence.

The Declaration of Independence stresses the principles on which the U.S. Government and American identity are based. The sixteenth U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865), called it “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny and oppression.” The July 4^th Declaration proclaims that all people are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also asserts that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed and that the people have the right to alter or abolish a government that becomes destructive of these ends. (Many Americans today should re-read the Declaration of Independence.)

The Declaration of Independence, is not an explicitly Christian document but it does reflect a belief in God and natural rights, influenced by Enlightenment thought. The document’s emphasis on natural rights, derived from the Creator, played a crucial role in shaping the American understanding of religious freedom, and the separation of church and state. Right from the beginning, the United States had a variety of religious traditions: Protestant Christian, Catholic Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and indigenous religious traditions, which emphasized a connection to the spirit world

A couple of days ago, after re-reading my notes about religious practice at the time of the Declaration of Independence, my thoughts turned to contemporary religion in the United States. The non-partisan Pew Research Center, in Washington DC, reports that the Christian share of the U.S. population, after years of decline, has been relatively stable since 2019. And the religiously unaffiliated population, after rising rapidly for decades, has leveled off – at least temporarily.

At present, 62% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Christians: 40% are Protestant, 19% are Catholic, and 3% are other Christians. But 29% are religiously unaffiliated: 5% are atheist, 6% are agnostic, and 19% identify religiously as “nothing in particular.” Additionally, 7% belong to religions other than Christianity: 2% are Jewish, and 1% each are Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu.

As many readers of my blog know, my professional area of research for many years has been “Religion and Values in American Society.” I remain an American observer and researcher. Right now, my observation and that of many colleagues is that there are strong indications that we may see, very soon, significant declines in the religiousness of the American public. Young U.S. adults, even those who once had a highly religious upbringing, are far less religious than older adults. In general, Americans consider religion important but are divided about its role in society. Less than half of all adults now say religion is important in their lives, down from majorities who felt that way in earlier studies. Just 44% in a new poll say they pray daily, also down from majorities in prior polls. While most contemporary Americans continue to say they believe in a God or a universal spirit, the share who say they are certain one exists has dropped from 71% in 2007 to 54% now.

While the overall change in religious views has happened in similar ways across key demographic groups, there are differences in how it is being played out in people’s socio-cultural orientation. Among people who call themselves “liberal,” just 37% now identify as Christian, down from 62% in 2007. But 54% of today’s liberals are more likely to say they have no religion than to consider themselves Christian. Among “conservatives,” by contrast, the share who are Christian has declined just 7 points to 82%.

Americans’ degree of religious engagement is also closely tied to their political identity. The most religiously engaged people are more likely to consider themselves Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while those with little religious engagement are more likely to be Democrats or Democratic-leaning. As has long been the case, White voters are much more likely than those in other racial and ethnic groups to associate with the Republican Party. Black voters continue to associate with the Democratic Party, although the extent of the Democratic advantage among this group has fallen off over the last few years. About six-in-ten Latino voters (61%) are Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party. The relationship between partisanship and voters’ religious affiliation continues to be strong – especially when it comes to whether they belong to any organized religion at all. Protestants mostly align with the Republican Party.

The GOP, however, now has a modest advantage among Catholics. About half of Catholic voters identify as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party, compared with 44% who identify as Democrats or lean Democratic. In the 2024 presidential election, Catholic voters split 56% to 41% in favor of the Republican candidate. Today, among U.S. Catholics to the left of the ideological center, there is optimism that Pope Leo XIV will carry on Pope Francis’ outreach to poor and marginalized people, including migrants, and provide a counterweight to policies of the current presidential administration, which they find distressing. U.S. Catholics on the right, however, hope Pope Leo, like his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI, will strongly uphold traditional Catholic doctrine, by which they mean opposition to abortion, opposition to same-sex marriage, and opposition to women’s ordination.

It is especially noteworthy that today’s incumbent U.S. president is building a strange new far-right religious movement. The old religious right is gone. Members of the U.S. religious right in the 1980s and 1990s were political because of their theology. Members of the current new religious right are working in the opposite direction. They are constructing a new “theology” that fits their far-right politics. Take, for example, the defense by contemporary far-right evangelical leaders of the incumbent president’s sexual transgressions. They say his transgressions are excusable because he is a messianic figure, sent not to save souls but to save America. Their viewpoint makes no coherent religious sense but clearly fits their political sense. Some U.S. Catholic leaders appear to support this perspective as well. In December 2024, for example, New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the soon to be back in the White House president-elect “takes his Christian faith seriously.” Cardinal Dolan has been one of the U.S. President’s supporters for a long time and maintains a friendly relationship with him in his private life.

On May 1, 2025, the incumbent U.S. president announced that he was setting up a presidential commission on religious liberty: “The Religious Liberty Commission.” I find it noteworty that five of the members are conservative Catholic bishops: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, of New York; Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota; Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco; Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois; and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort-Wayne-South Bend, Indiana. According to Melissa Deckman, a political scientist and CEO of Washington DC’s Public Religion Research Institute, the Religious Liberty Commission caters to Christian nationalist groups who “see their loss of dominance as persecution.”

What the new U.S. religious right is building has more in common with the ancient pagan religion of the Roman Imperial Cult than the evangelical revivals of an earlier America. The Roman Imperial Cult stressed that emperors and some members of their families held divinely sanctioned authority. Their focus was on imperial power. Today’s MAGA supporters have declared a religious war, not just against secularism or progressive forms of religion, but against traditional religion that refuses to serve their radical nationalistic power goal to “Make America Great.” They are not advocating a new theocracy, but a new religion of nationalism and national identity disguised in the trappings of a religious movement, that stresses strong loyalty, shared beliefs, and a sense of superior white supremacy based on a judgmental “us vs. them” perspective. In his speech to Americans on June 21, 2025, about the U.S. bombing of sites in Iran, for example, the current U.S. President said: “And I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God…”

 

The key socio-political issues we need to look for and think about in the coming weeks are Truth and Moral Integrity.

• Jack

 

PS: After my Another Voice vacation, I am happy to be back online and hope to share meaningful observations. And next week an update on my book!