Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” In it he condemns the “widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology,” and he orders a review of any content from federal agencies that might cast America’s “founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”

Mr. Trump has singled out the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service, claiming in a recent social media post that “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.” In his executive order, he says that federal historical sites must “remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.” 

The executive order does not seem to take into account that celebrating progress is incomprehensible without reference to a previous, insufficient status quo, and that grappling honestly with suffering and struggle is critical to determining how to foster human flourishing. 

Following Mr. Trump’s executive order, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued SO 3431, which directs National Park Service managers to post signage inviting visitors to identify “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.”

According to internal documents obtained by The New York Times, park employees themselves have already flagged content. “We do not believe it to be in violation, but would like someone to review if messaging of climate change and sea level rise reduces the focus on the grandeur, beauty and abundance,” one employee wrote. Another asked if the word enslaved is “okay.” Still another, referring to a sign that noted the impossible choice given to Native tribes between extinction or assimilation: “Language of U.S. Government giving the ‘choice’ of extinction could be considered negative toward the United States.” According to the Times, the Interior Department plans to remove or cover up all “inappropriate content” at national parks and sites by Sept. 17.

Credit: istock/NNehring

The White House has also announced that it will undertake a review of Smithsonian museums and exhibits. In one alarming incident, references to Mr. Trump were removed from an exhibit on the impeachment of U.S. presidents at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, though the Smithsonian stated the removal was for aesthetic reasons and has since returned the material.

This executive order seems to further the Trump administration’s wider campaign against “woke ideology,” not only in history and science but also in contemporary art. For example, the National Portrait Gallery had scheduled a show of works by the artist Amy Sherald but balked at the inclusion of her painting “Trans Forming Liberty, 2024,” which features a trans woman with pink hair and a blue gown holding a torch. The museum had said it would replace the painting with a video of people reacting to the painting; Ms. Sherald decided to cancel the show instead.

Views about world affairs are also being restricted. This summer the Smithsonian Folklife Festival exhibited works created in real time by high school students but covered up a mural that depicted a protester with a sign reading “Free Palestine.” A spokesperson for the Smithsonian told NPR that the mural was covered up because it included “individual political statements.”

Fighting the erasure of history

Despite the Trump administration’s claim that there has been a “widespread effort to rewrite history” in a way that “deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame,” refusing to acknowledge the shameful parts of United States history papers over societal divides and prevents real progress in bridging those divides. For Catholics in particular, failing to hold space for the pain of the world prevents compassion and subverts meaningful relationship.

I have written previously about “wokeness,” which originated as a term Black Americans used to describe awareness of racism and social injustice, and its relation to the see-judge-act method of discernment that our faith calls us to engage in. We cannot apply the principles of our faith well, and hence we cannot act rightly, if we refuse to see what is really going on with our neighbors, especially from the perspective of those most marginalized and vulnerable. “There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried,” goes a saying attributed to St. Oscar Romero.

Erasing the history of suffering and the legacy of white supremacy, misogyny and environmental destruction prevents us from seeing through tears. The irony of removing “negative language” while the effects of injustice continue unabated is tragic, and it is only through acknowledging our collective and individual sin that we can begin to heal. 

The good news is that regular citizens are resisting. 

One group of librarians and historians, in partnership with Safeguarding Research & Culture and the Data Rescue Project, organized to Save Our Signs. They are asking for photos of signs and exhibits at national parks, inviting people “to build a community archive of the signs, exhibits, and texts that could soon disappear from our national parks.”

Others have refused to play along with the directive, inundating the Department of the Interior’s comments page with protests against the censorship, or simply with positive reviews of national parks. For example, the National Park Conservation Association encouraged supporters to use the comments page to “thank our park rangers for telling the full American story” and “applaud their commitment to protecting and preserving our public lands.”

These efforts, engaged in by ordinary citizens collaborating with one another to resist the authoritarian tactics of spreading propaganda and misinformation, are a critical reminder that the power of the people really can be effective against political regimes. While many of us may wonder what we can do, small actions that refuse to go along with authoritarian leaders are a powerful form of resistance. 

It is the cooperation of various sectors of society that empower authoritarian regimes in the first place. The Horizons Project, an organization focused on supporting democratic social change, calls these “pillars of support”—which include faith communities, civic/professional groups, businesses and media, among others. To put it another way, the Horizons Project notes that their noncooperation with a regime can “disrupt authoritarianism and foster pro-democracy actions.” 

Catholics belong to the “faith communities” pillar, in addition to whatever secular areas of influence we hold. And the Horizons Project notes that people of faith are well positioned to speak to the abuses of state power and build a capacity for nonviolent resistance, offering important institutional infrastructure for pro-democracy movements, as well as spiritual resilience for doing the work of justice.

One way to resist the erasure of history is to speak the truth. The oral histories of our ancestors—those in the Bible as well as others who have served the cause of justice—are a key element of our faith and should be proclaimed often, including the suffering, missteps and joys in those histories. Additionally, homilies, bulletins and other regular communications should make accurate references to current events in relation to the principles of our faith. No practicing Catholic should be able to say we did not know what was happening in our nation, or that we thought our faith required neutrality. Catholics in their broader societal roles, too, should find ways to counter misinformation. Telling “the true truth,” as Sister Thea Bowman would say, is our responsibility.

History is nuanced—there is no Manichean split between the wholly good and the wholly evil. But there is real suffering and real harm we must face, even as beauty has emerged. Catholics, believing that the suffering of Christ is ongoing and that the joy of the resurrection is offered to us now, are well suited to hold the tensions and offer a posture for others to hold them as well. In this, we live into the truest reality: Christ is with us in suffering, and we are called to a future of abundant life.

[Read next: “A Catholic challenge to American exceptionalism”]

Kathleen Bonnette works at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University, where she also teaches theology. She is the author of (R)evolutionary Hope: A Spirituality of Encounter and Engagement in an Evolving World (Wipf and Stock).