Misguided 'Compassion' Contributes to Political Polarization

Laura Hollis
Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:28:53 -0700
Opinion

For the past 20 years, the University of Notre Dame has sponsored a yearlong dialogue on a given theme, with featured speakers, panels and other public events at which the year's theme is discussed and debated.

This year's theme is "Cultivating Hope." Two weeks ago, Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., participated in a Q&A session on campus with Notre Dame's president, the Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, during which McElroy offered his thoughts on ways to address political polarization in America.

The event was too brief, unfortunately, for a topic of that magnitude. McElroy is a learned man who has written often on matters of theology and public policy, but he and Dowd had only about an hour. Even so, it revealed at least four glaring gaps I often see in discussions about the heated political climate in the U.S. today.
Updated: Thu Oct 30, 2025

For the past 20 years, the University of Notre Dame has sponsored a yearlong dialogue on a given theme, with featured speakers, panels and other public events at which the year's theme is discussed and debated.

This year's theme is "Cultivating Hope." Two weeks ago, Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., participated in a Q&A session on campus with Notre Dame's president, the Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, during which McElroy offered his thoughts on ways to address political polarization in America.

The event was too brief, unfortunately, for a topic of that magnitude. McElroy is a learned man who has written often on matters of theology and public policy, but he and Dowd had only about an hour. Even so, it revealed at least four glaring gaps I often see in discussions about the heated political climate in the U.S. today.

First, there is insufficient recognition that one of the biggest drivers of political polarization is the expansion of government. When the government controls so many aspects of people's lives, it matters much more who controls the government. If you want a less polarized society, reduce the size of government and give people more agency within their own lives.

Second, in conversations about heated political topics, well-meaning individuals often fail to distinguish between virtues, which are individual behaviors, and policies, which are institutional actions.

McElroy's remarks were somewhat typical in that regard. His focus was on the need for "compassion" to help build bridges and better understanding.

Compassion is a virtue, an admirable individual attribute, a way for people to deal with each other one-on-one or in small groups. But it loses its meaning when it is elevated to being a justification for public policy, which is, of necessity, collective. Policy, by definition, deals with the rule; compassion is a vehicle for dealing with the exceptions.

Governance by compassion, therefore, results not in a more benevolent society but rather in a chaotic, anarchic and disordered one. Policies promoted because they are said to be "compassionate" to the unfortunate few end up creating a system of misery for the majority, institutionalizing unfairness, oppression, absurdity, violence and even societal collapse.

This isn't speculation; we see it every day.

Innocent people are victimized by crime because of "compassionate" policies that put repeat criminals — thieves, rapists and even murderers — back on the streets. The sane are terrorized by the insane because of "compassionate" policies that eliminated involuntary commitment to mental hospitals for those who are threats to others. Home and business owners watch the value of their property plummet because of "compassionate" politicians who insist that there is more "dignity" for homeless people if they can live, eat, sleep, urinate and defecate on public sidewalks. Bright students lose opportunities for more intellectually challenging curricula because of "compassionate" educational policies that say every child has to take the same classes. Little girls are exposed to grown men who want to be naked in front of them in women's bathrooms and locker rooms, because of "compassionate" policies that prioritize adult sexual gratification over the protection of children. American citizens lose jobs, housing and loved ones to "compassionate" open-borders immigration policies that have allowed millions of unvetted individuals to cross the border, receive billions of dollars in benefits paid for by American taxpayers, bring in drugs, traffic women and children for sex, commit crimes, and drive semis on our highways, despite not speaking English or being able to read our road signs.

Which brings me to my third point: Americans who have been victimized by the egregious policies listed above (and so many others) have every right to be furious with the people responsible for those policies. The proper response to these abuses of power isn't "compassion," it's outrage — and the use of every lawful means to throw those people out of power and, to the extent possible, remedy the wrongs they have done and repair the damage they've inflicted.

Fourth, while it's popular to call for more "compassion," I hear far fewer demands — even among Catholic clergy — for truth. But there is no "compassion" without truth. And Americans have become suspicious and mistrustful because we have been deceived and manipulated — demonstrably and repeatedly — by the people and institutions a free society depends upon for accurate information: our educators, our government, our media; even our medical professionals, all of whom had their own agendas.

To be clear, I'm not saying that all those enacting and promoting public policies based upon arguments about compassion are bad people. To the contrary, I suspect most are trying to be good people, and they're doing what they have been taught and told was better, more moral, more upright. Viewing things through that lens, however, naturally inclines them to look at anyone who opposes them (and the policies they support) as immoral, lacking compassion and motivated by some malevolent impulse.

That's why, when challenged on facts, consequences or inconsistences, they resort to ad hominem attacks:

— If you state the biological fact that women cannot become men or vice versa, or that men have biological advantages over women, which makes it manifestly unfair for them to be in women's sports; or that the epidemic of "trans" identification is disproportionately among young girls with diagnosed emotional disorders, there's no counterargument — you're just a "transphobe."

— If you point out the hypocrisy of allowing marches and violent riots in 2020 while businesses, churches and schools were shut down, you're a racist.

— If you ask hard questions about the mRNA shots and their side effects, you're an "anti-vaxxer" who wants people to die.

— If you argue that legal immigrants should assimilate to American culture, you're a nativist who hates "brown" people.

The unspoken basis for these anti-rational responses is a fundamental belief that "compassion" takes precedence over everything else; it is more important than science, more important than public safety, more important than the rule of law, more important than truth.

In his comments at Notre Dame, McElroy did not say any of those things, of course. But I submit that by continuing to exalt the individual virtue of compassion when what we're dealing with a collapse of the public's confidence in our institutions, he is missing very important points and — albeit unwittingly — contributing to the very political polarization he wants to ameliorate.