Community-building in election times: How Catholics can find our way back to each other

I recently wrote an essay in America that celebrated the joy infusing the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris. The response ranged from demeaning personal attacks to an enthusiastic “Amen!” In my own family, it is increasingly difficult to engage with those on the other side of the political spectrum, and I am not sure how to reconcile the differences in our values—and, often, in our perceptions of reality itself.

I see parallels with one of my favorite Gospel stories. In Luke 6, Jesus violates religious norms to heal a person on the Sabbath. I can only imagine the joy this person felt in that moment, knowing that Jesus valued and prioritized his physical well-being. Yet some of those present—the religiously orthodox—“became enraged.” Jesus did not stop his ministry of healing, but neither did he become resentful of his critics. Instead, he regarded their hardness of heart with compassion.

Most of us think we are on the side of Jesus in this story—or at least we try to be. If others are angry about our moral positions, we tell ourselves, it is because we are doing what is right! But this feeling can easily turn into the same self-aggrandizing moralism in opposition to Christ described in the Gospel story. Working for the common good cannot be done effectively with a mindset that excludes, seeks to dominate or rises out of fear. We must foster the common good through a transformation of consciousness that moves us to think and act with love, acknowledging our shared pain and having compassion for one another. And this is as true for those on the “other side” as it is for me. If life is about abundance, not self-preservation, and power is about love, not domination, then there must be a way to foster wholeness in community even as we pursue divergent understandings of the common good.

A framework that I have found helpful in discerning the way to foster wholeness in community is “Block-Build-Be,” developed by the social activist Joanna Macy. It holds that we must work to block harms where we see them, do our part to build the world we want to inhabit, and—through it all—embody our fundamental dignity as human beings, grounded in gratitude and in the recognition that everything is interconnected.

Block. Catholics are called to stand with the marginalized and vulnerable against oppression, exploitation and harm. Blocking is a crucial piece of working for justice, as safety and embodied freedom are integral to flourishing. But the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity also require a willingness to be present with the suffering of others and an openness to learning that our initial solutions may be ineffective or oppressive. It is also critical that we check ourselves to ensure that we are not opposing a legitimate response to real suffering or marginalization—as it was in the case of the moralistic men in Luke 6. The See-Judge-Act method of discernment is a helpful tool for identifying and blocking harms in a way that aligns with our faith.

In “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis reminds us that “loving an oppressor does not mean allowing him to keep oppressing us.… True love for an oppressor means seeking ways to make him cease his oppression.” Indeed, Francis tells us that if we have been harmed, we are responsible for “demanding justice and ensuring that this person—or anyone else—will not harm me, or others, again.”

Still, Pope Francis goes on, “The important thing is not to fuel anger.” We should do what we can to eradicate whatever is harmful, knowing that simply rejecting injustice will not foster the wholeness for which we were created. Because the systems that shape our lives often perpetuate injustice themselves, the common good cannot be pursued through “blocking” alone.

Build. Pope Francis reminds us that “love shatters the chains that keep us isolated and separate; in their place, it builds bridges.” Even as we oppose injustice, we must actively contribute to the kind of society we want to make manifest—building bridges as we shatter chains.

If you’ve seen the movie “Barbie,” you’ll recall that one of its insights is that Barbieland and the patriarchal structure of “the real world” are equally fanciful. Despite “smashing the patriarchy,” Barbieland still abides by its logic, and neither the zero-sum, individualistic paradigm that spawned patriarchal society nor the static perfection of Barbieland map onto the interrelational vulnerability of reality. As Catholics, we must be resolute in our conviction that love is our underlying reality, and we must adjust our political paradigm accordingly to ensure that the world we are building does not simply repeat patterns of domination, nihilism or unchecked individualism.

This is why Catholics cannot put their faith in a political leader or movement, and why we cannot deny compassion to anyone—the world is not perfect, and neither is any leader or policy. Committing to advocating for a world in which we all share in abundant life and no one is excluded is a crucial aspect of Catholic political engagement (and interpersonal relationships in general). We must participate in community-building practices that encourage connection and belonging, or “calling in” rather than simply “calling out.”

The difficult work of building is where the rubber hits the road for all of us. Can we reach out to our neighbors—even those whose harmful actions we try to block—and respond to their pain with compassion? Can we act with the conviction that we share a common bond, even if their perception of reality is at odds with our own?

Be. We must embody the love we hope to foster. Pope Francis tells us that seeking justice “can only be done…by cultivating those virtues which foster reconciliation, solidarity and peace.” Chief among these virtues are humility and honesty. We are fully ourselves when we recognize our limits and admit our shortcomings, inviting the gifts of others in the community of being to nourish us, even as we share our gifts with the world.

In other words, we can only block harm and build community effectively by being the kind of people we want the world to be—by shifting our consciousness away from the dominant paradigm of exploitation, exclusion and scarcity, and by acknowledging the reality of our interconnected, evolving existence. In this way, we will foster—and feel—the joy and hope born of compassion and trust, even if the outcomes we hope for on a particular issue remain elusive.

Block-Build-Be is not easy to adopt. But if Catholics lean into the paradigm, we might find our way back to each other. If we can do our part to foster the common good by standing against injustice and working for the common good as we understand it, always keeping an eye on the broader horizon beyond any immediate conflict and including others in our vision of the good, maybe we will begin to participate in the abundant life of Christ that unites us all.

[Read next: “Kamala Harris is running a campaign of joy. As a Catholic woman, I’m feeling it.”]