May I just say that Cardinal McElroy has it just right?

May I just say that Cardinal McElroy has it just right?

I’ve been honored by invitations to preach in congregations of the Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, African Episcopal, Unitarian, Lutheran, Jewish and assorted other faith traditions.

But if I were Catholic, this week I’d be grateful and proud of the hierarchy I sometimes question: grateful, because an Archbishop bore witness to the truth and proud because the truth is being muffled by much of America’s media.

According to a recent CNN report (July 9, 2025), Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington DC, spoke his mind (and his faith) plainly when he said of Trump’s immigration brutalities, “This is simply not only incompatible with Catholic teaching, it’s inhumane and is morally repugnant.”

Agreed. To understand that it is inhumane we need to recognize that those being targeted, hunted, slandered and slaughtered – those whose lives are being shattered by Trump’s war on immigrants – are human. They aren’t abstract objects whose agency has been removed. Neither are most guilty of any offense or crime that merits the assaults they are suffering. They are people like you and me, people who are being sacrificed on the altar of political and economic campaigns. It’s wrong. It’s inhumane.

And what’s being done is “morally repugnant.” To reckon with this we need to have some kind of moral grounding, some sense of right and wrong, some notion about what’s okay and what’s not. Trump and his acolytes appear to have none of this. It’s as if there is no moral compass left in either their speech or their behaviors. Law doesn’t matter. Human rights are trampled. The idea of higher principles that should guide civil behavior is merely that: an idea. No matter how morally repugnant their behavior is, it just doesn’t matter to them.

So what are we to do? What will we say if someday our children or grandchildren ask, “Where were you when the atrocities were being put on full display?”

The response I want to give is, as I wrote in my recently published book, Uneasy Silence, that I was busy bearing witness to the truth, even if doing so became dangerous.

“In ways large or small,” I said there, “depending on the opportunities given to us, we’re called not to cower in silence and fear but to stand up, speak out, and bear witness against evil. It may be across the family dinner table. Perhaps it’s in our office or at the store, in my knitting circle or in your congregation. Maybe the opportunities come because we’ve volunteered to serve a community organization. Maybe we’ve had the courage to become election workers. Whatever the platform, my soul demands that I face lies with truth and threats with courage.”

It's all about bearing witness. Recognizing the torrent of lies, discovering and telling the truth. Being fearless in our willingness not only to know evil when we see it but to speak out against it. It’s in bearing witness that we preserve the ideals and promises made to all Americans in our founding documents.

But what if speaking out doesn’t “work,” doesn’t stop Trump injustices?

As nearly as I can tell, our speaking out still has great meaning, even if it doesn’t completely block the evil. What matters is that we bear witness to the truth no matter what the outcome. It’s in the bearing witness that we give meaning to our lives and leave a legacy of courageous truth-telling.

I don’t know Cardinal McElroy personally. I imagine we disagree on lots of things. But to one who bravely bears witness to what’s clearly inhumane and morally repugnant I’d like to say, “Right on, Cardinal McElroy; right on!!!”