The morning after a rally for Donald J. Trump in Chicago was canceled for fear of violence, the city’s Catholic archbishop warned that “enmity and animosity” are hallmarks of today’s politics and a “cancer” that is threatening the nation’s civic health. “Our nation seems to have lost a sense of the importance of cultivating friendships as fellow citizens who, being equal, share much in common,” Archbishop Blase Cupich said in a homily on March 12 at Old St. Patrick’s Church. “Instead, our politics and public discourse are often marked by enmity and animosity,” he said. The archbishop worried over a process that emphasizes “what divides us rather than what we share in common.” He said, “And because we do not value growing together, a cancer is developing that threatens to harm us all.”

This article appears in March 28 2016.