More than the Lesser of Two Evils

By Jayd Henricks

You are reading this on the day of the most important election of our lifetime—or so we are told every four years. In the midst of new levels of political chaos, I have been reflecting on Larry Chapp’s piece from earlier this year, “The Universal Call to Holiness as a ‘Politics’ for Our Time,” which is an incredibly helpful read for this moment. I strongly recommend it. His opening line is an important reminder: “What we need now is a recovery of a healthy sense of the futility of earthly politics as an eschatological project.”

This is hard for us to swallow as modern Americans. We take pride in our democratic republic and the blessing of free elections, as well we should. Maybe politics were futile when Christians were a persecuted minority, but surely not now, in this country, where self-identified Catholics are a quarter of the electorate!¹ Catholics have a prominent place in the political process and our attention is naturally drawn to the political realities around us but the raging culture wars and on-demand media have only fueled the temptation that politics is the panacea.

And in this particular election, with arguments being made by both parties that the other candidate is an existential threat to democracy, it is terribly easy to get caught up in the rhetoric that “this might be the last election” and work harder than ever for a political solution.

Admittedly, there is something about this American exercise of democracy that is exciting. An election is an exercise of hope. It is innate in the human spirit to aspire to something more, and this is a hallmark of our nation as well as our spirit as individuals. Elections provide a unique opportunity to think about the future and what can be, which is an essentially hopeful exercise.

And yet the reality for this election, and seemingly increasingly the case more generally, is that the hope we put in the democratic process is not so much an aspiration of what can be but a frantic effort to avoid the catastrophic. That’s the new “hope.” For many people today it is simply about avoiding what they perceive as the worst outcome.

Perhaps that is a perspective that makes sense for the short-term, but it is not one that reflects a Christian sensibility of history. While culture, fueled by technology, is increasingly dominated by the immediate, a Catholic view of events, political or otherwise, sees things differently. This current moment is not enslaved to the 24-hour news cycle but belongs to the story of salvation. We are not limited to the “lesser of two evils” but we belong to the larger fight of darkness versus light. That is not to say that what happens today doesn’t matter, but that it is not the final say. Our hope is not ultimately in an election but in the promise that Christ will make all things new (see Revelation 21:5).

Yes, it is our civic duty as Catholics to be active in the public square, but as Chapp notes, “This apotheosis of intramundane politics can rob the Christian of a sense of the truly ultimate, and so we need reminding that no politics can even be truly political in a proper sense unless it is first animated by the leaven of sanctifying grace.”

That leaven of sanctifying grace has a particular channel to the world and politics through the laity. More than voting, which is a civic privilege and responsibility that we should all take seriously, the laity can infuse the secular order with divine goodness through a life of Christian witness lived through ordinary life. The value of this cannot be overstated. Whatever happens on Election Day cannot take the place of the normal interaction between people that is the glue of our society. Political outcomes matter, for sure, but not as much as the simple and sometimes mundane day-to-day interaction each of us has with the people we encounter every day and the encounter with God we pursue through prayer, acts of charity and self-denial, and the “dappled things” through which God reveals himself.

As much as we have a responsibility to exercise our civic duty through the political process, we should not lose sight of the fact that there is an even greater responsibility to sanctify the world through our lives. As Saint Pope John Paul II said in Christifideles Laici, “The lay faithful, in fact, ‘are called by God so that they, led by the spirit of the Gospel, might contribute to the sanctification of the world, as from within like leaven, by fulfilling their own particular duties. Thus, especially in this way of life, resplendent in faith, hope and charity they manifest Christ to others’” (#15).

Our role as citizens certainly includes the civic responsibilities given to us through the polis, but as Christians there is something much more important that we contribute to society. We provide something politics cannot offer: the witness of sacrificial love, the reminder that this life is temporary, and a roadmap to beatitude. This is all more than the state offers, and it is our duty to invite our neighbors, regardless of their politics, to that which is so much more than what our modern obsession with political outcomes offers.

The Church, too, should not be lost in this moment. One of the reasons there perhaps is such division in our politics is that the Church herself is divided. When 25% of the U.S. Congress identifies as Catholic, not to mention the fact that we have a Catholic president, there must be some reason why the Church is not more of a positive presence and healing balm to our politics and culture. Those who make up the Church—bishops, priests, religious, and laity—all take some responsibility for this unique moment of division in the country. If the Church was less focused on the “lesser of two evils” and more focused on making saints, perhaps things would be different.

Why has the Vatican just spent three years, millions of dollars, and countless hours of the Church’s time on what seems to come down to a meeting about meetings when the world is on fire and the faith of Catholics is too often thin at best? This sort of self-referential occupation of time and resources makes the Church for those paying attention to the synodal exercise a mostly irrelevant voice.

Frustrating as that is, we can’t control what the Church does as an institution; we can only choose how we live as her members. Benedict XVI encouraged lay people to “intensify their formative commitment so that, following Christ on the path of sanctity and in close union with their pastors, they might take the leaven of the Gospel to all hearts and realms of society, of the world of work, of politics, of culture and to families.”²  This would be transformative on so many levels. This focus on holiness is not political but it will undoubtedly move politics towards a more just and less fractured society. It is the very reason the Church exists.

Sadly, however, we have become in some ways at the universal level a self-referential Church that is more interested in appealing to the moment than transcending it. Thankfully, this is not true in many dioceses, parishes, schools, and homes. There are still communities within the Church that witness to the faith and are “creative minorities” that, while seemingly small in number, can disproportionately impact the world.

I’m comforted by the knowledge that the great Joseph Ratzinger diagnosed this issue over 50 years ago. He envisioned a much smaller Church, but a much more faithful Church. This is happening now through a very painful process, but such pruning will ultimately bear fruit. Ratzinger famously wrote,

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain in the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already… but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that it once was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming, and be seen as man’s home where he will find life and hope beyond death.³

Indeed, that God is working everything for good (see Romans 8:28) is the hope we must cling to this Election Day. Israel’s most painful ordeals were all oriented toward the purification of God’s people, and ultimately, to the sanctification of the whole world. So, in light of today’s election, what we need now is to remember that Jesus is Lord even if “the other party” controls the presidency and Congress. Jesus is Lord even if the lesser of evils has the power. He is the Lord of history regardless of the circumstances of the present moment.

By all means, let us hope and work for better outcomes through politics; such hope on a natural level is good. But let us make sure that it is secondary to our pursuit of holiness, rooted in the supernatural hope that comes only from Christ. Politics should not be our ultimate source of hope, and the futility of politics as an eschatological project should lead us back to Christ, who is the only way to move beyond this cycle of pursuing the lesser of two evils.

Jayd Henricks is the president of Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal. He served at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for eleven years and holds a STL in systematic theology from the Dominican House of Studies. He has written extensively on the Church in America.

1. “CARA’s New Book Identifies Trends in U.S. Catholic Church,” CARA.

2. Benedict XVI, Message to Catholic Action.

3. Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and the Future (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1971), pp. 105–106.