Berkley Center

Set against the backdrop of social and political polarization that plagues our current moment, Georgetown University convened a February 28 interactive dialogue event on “The Church’s Mission in a Polarized World: Relational Resources for the 2024 Campaign Season,” inspired by a 2023 book of the same name written by Fr. Aaron Wessman, GMH.

In his welcoming remarks William Treanor, executive vice president and dean of Georgetown Law, situated participants in the context of the U.S. campaign season, a climate of increasingly toxic political polarization, and the violent culture war rhetoric that impedes the Catholic Church’s capacity to witness to its core mission.

“My hope for each of you is that today’s conversations leave you feeling refreshed and renewed in your hopeful efforts to help heal the religious and political divisions that plague our nation and many parts of the world,” said Treanor.

This event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; Georgetown Law; and Georgetown Law Campus Ministry.

Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles

The event opened with participants warming up to their roundtables by unpacking epistemic bubbles—social structures in which other relevant voices have been left out unintentionally—and echo chambers—social structures from which other relevant voices have been actively excluded and discredited. Together participants also explored the extent to which they have encountered these phenomena in their work, ministries, and daily lives.

In today’s digital landscape, social media and other types of algorithms have overwhelmed and bombarded users with information, often exacerbating polarization and conflict. Opening up to other worldviews is not just an intellectual pursuit but has emotional, psychological, and historical dimensions to it.

Lack of trust is also a major issue, but participants started to break down these barriers within their roundtables. Reflecting on the event, participant Matt Hamilton (G’24), a Ph.D. candidate in Georgetown’s Department of Government and former Berkley Center graduate research assistant, shares how he felt energized by the dialogue’s atmosphere.

“The collective commitment to trust and forgiveness regardless of political affiliation fosters more thoughtful and honest conversation, in contrast to more typical settings where equivocation and evasiveness predominate to make sure no one rocks the boat.”

De-Escalating Violent Rhetoric

Following this preliminary discussion, Fr. Wessman delivered a tonesetter about the power of words. Words possess power and influence our lives, he said, by shaping our reality. Just as they can bring life, their power can also bring death, destruction, delusion, and despair.

“It is because words can open both the gates of heaven or the gates of hell that they should be viewed as sacred, as set apart, as treated with fear and trembling, and used with great, great care.”

Staring down an impending election cycle, our discourse is packed with metaphors, and Fr. Wessman said that while we cannot control the words that others use, we must reclaim agency over our own language. Participants then turned to their roundtables to discuss challenges to de-escalating violent rhetoric and what narratives they encounter when engaging the so-called “other.”

“It has forced me to think more critically about various offhand, underthought comments I occasionally make,” Hamilton says, “realizing that, depending on the unspoken beliefs of others, I could be creating more polarization myself.”

Acknowledging the weaponization of tone and conflict within secular arenas, participants also looked towards fostering viewpoint diversity through creating a vocabulary of plurality. Wessman encouraged participants to consider how this may help to develop hope-based communications and solutions-oriented journalism to create a new trinity of believing, behaving, and belonging.

“Crossing Over” for Understanding and Trust

After establishing this introspective foundation, Fr. Wessman delivered another tonesetter address on images, methods, and best practices for building trust, including examining of consciences, crossing over, and adopting the virtue of prudence.

“I think that incarnational movement is an invitation to us to identify who the outgroup is in our life…and to do the thing which Jesus did and cross over into their midst in order to have an encounter and in that moment not know exactly what will happen.”

Within roundtables, participants raised the notion of curiosity as an on-ramp to empathy in fostering encounters and relationships. Practicing curiosity includes speaking from values rather than positions and creating spaces where everyone is honored, whether through ritual and prayer or informal play and meals.

Event organizer Amy Uelmen, a Berkley Center senior research fellow and director for mission and ministry at Georgetown Law, was particularly moved by the relaxed, hopeful, and even joyful atmosphere for conversation.

“It is not that the difficult questions disappear. But somehow they are easier to carry and process when we take the time to get to know and appreciate our conversation partners.”

As we enter a difficult election year riddled with flashpoints of pain and violence across the world, Uelmen says that we should deliberately seek out conversation partners who challenge us to break out of our echo chambers, encourage us to build trust, and help us experience others’ points of view.

“But to do this, we need to spend in-person quality time getting to know each other, perhaps over a meal. It is in these contexts that we can be regenerated with the hope that we need to work toward healing our divisions.”