The Dispatch: More from CWR...

Recognizing and addressing violence across the political spectrum

According to a count by the Washington-based Religious Freedom Institute, 174 Catholic sites have been targeted in slightly over two years—a number that has surely risen since that count was taken.

The windows and doors of the Lennon Pregnancy Center in Dearborn Heights, Mich., have been boarded up since a June 20, 2022, attack, during which vandals left a message reading, "If abortion isn't safe, neither are you." (CNS photo/Valaurian Waller, Detroit Catholic)

A few days ago Americans awoke to the news that a man shouting, “Where’s Nancy?” had staged a hammer attack on the 82-year-old husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Weeks earlier a man with a gun had approached the house of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. These and other incidents like them point to a terrible question: Has violence become the new normal way for a significant body of people in America to express political and social disagreement?

Without presuming to pronounce a flat yes or no to that, I think it’s fair to say resort to violence is now disturbingly evident at both ends of the ideological spectrum instead of, as some would have it, only on the far right.

Plainly the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol by some supporters of former President Trump was a horrifying display of violence on behalf of a political cause. But an analysis which stops with that eruption of rightist extremism falls far short of the problem’s full scope.

Recently I was struck by an example of such selectivity on the Op-Ed page of the Washington Post. While dismissing chances of a new American civil war that he previously thought possible, military historian Thomas E. Ricks declared ideological extremism a genuine problem—but one found only on the right, where it is personified in the Supreme Court “reactionaries” (i.e., justices he disagrees with).

Here is the tunnel vision of ideology. Ricks ignores violence against pro-life pregnancy centers and Catholic churches. Don’t these incidents belong in the rogues’ gallery of politically motivated violence? There is something pathological about the silence of those who treat them as matters of no concern.

Perhaps you haven’t heard much about these occurrences. After all, mainstream media have mostly ignored them—a bad sign in itself. But according to a count by the Washington-based Religious Freedom Institute, 174 Catholic sites have been targeted in slightly over two years—a number that has surely risen since that count was taken. The incidents included four acts of personal violence, 26 of arson,76 of desecration of statues, 66 of property destruction, 16 thefts, and 81 incidents of graffiti.

The RFI report points out that before the leak last May of a preliminary draft of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, incidents like these occurred at the rate of one every five days. After the leak, it was every three days. Thirty-two attacks were directed at Catholic churches, including 17 in which the perpetrators left evidence like graffiti declaring a pro-abortion motive.

Pro-life groups, including pregnancy centers, also have been targeted, according to RFI. From the Alito opinion leak to late August there were at least 63 attacks on pro-life facilities—28 of a religious nature—in 26 states and the District of Columbia.

Overall, the institute remarks, “government officials, law enforcement agencies, and the media have too often responded inadequately or not at all” to incidents like these. Yet the U.S. Department of Justice has lately stepped up federal prosecutions of pro-life demonstrators at abortion clinics, usually only a couple a year but jumping to more than a dozen in a recent month, suggesting orders from the top.

Right-wing extremism is a serious problem. But the extremism of the left is hardly less threatening to important values. Instead of each side blaming only the other, recognizing that the rash of political violence has roots in both camps is a necessary first step toward doing something about it.


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About Russell Shaw 291 Articles
Russell Shaw was secretary for public affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference from 1969 to 1987. He is the author of 20 books, including Nothing to Hide, American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America, Eight Popes and the Crisis of Modernity, and, most recently, The Life of Jesus Christ (Our Sunday Visitor, 2021).

18 Comments

  1. This pedestrian analysis, based partly on a palpable lie, actually surpasses that of California’s two archbishops and Mr. Shaw’s former employer. Shaw, the prelates, and the USCCB accept as a given the proposition that the bizarre incident in San Francisco was right wing terrorism, when nothing of the sort has been proven and most of what we have been allowed to know strongly suggests the exact opposite. The drug-addicted, nudist, illegal alien who assaulted Pelosi lived in the open-air leftist asylum known as Berkeley and seemed to fully in share in the collective mindset of the place, until perhaps very recently (if the strange and suspicious online rants discovered are genuine and really demonstrate anything politically coherent at all.) I would like Mr. Shaw to do a comparison of rightwing and leftwing violence in America. As perhaps Mr. Shaw’s reading is not too extensive these days, I can provide him with plenty of examples of undeniably politically motivated attacks against Republicans and conservatives recent years that far exceed in degree and quantity anything committed by rightists.

  2. Nonsense about right wing extremism. It seems like Russell has drunk the Kool-aid. Were the Colonists who took up arms against a despotic king “right wing extremists?” I’m tired of this mentality that has us subscribing to the notion of a “pox on both your houses.”

  3. That was it? Shaw’s shallow takeaway falls far short and keenly disappoints. The disproportionate violence, brazenly, openly incited by top tier Democrats, against conservatives and most recently Christians boggles the mind, sorrows the heart, and pierces the soul. January 6th was a bleak day with some Trump supporters behaving badly, but it followed years of politicalized torment and destruction, including for hard earned small businesses. (The 2020 election was the worst in my fifty years of voting due to duplicity.)And, while there is never an excuse for violence, as another commentator pointed out, the most recent act involving Paul Pelosi is hardly crystal clear. (However, we should be aware that Pelosi almost met his Creator and in what state of soul?).
    Regardless, attempting to be equally appalled does not diminish the greater extremism by the so called liberals who know the media has and will cover for them. Under different circumstances, it could be conservatives would be more culpable, but that is simply not true today.
    Finally, who can imagine worse violence—in rhetoric or deed—than against the innocent in the womb.

    • You’re absolutely correct Patricia. I once gave a homily on abortion entitled “Every Day is Newtown (CT) in America.” I was referencing the reaction to the massacre of innocent school children in Newtown CT, noting that such a tragedy as that was being played out every day in the USA and practically nobody batted an eyelash. We live in a duplicitously hypocritical culture.

  4. I am grateful that others have already written much more clear and dispassionate responses to this obviously well meant, but wrongly bent from even the title, with the supposition that “political violence” is on the uprise in the USA. No, it isn’t, it is only that ALL violence is no the uprise, and, very carefully, violence against the “right” is not reported widely, while violence against the “left” hits the news repeatedly. Especially using an obviously mentally ill, illegally here, person who has not had contact with most, if any, of his Canadian family in 25 years, ignoring the conclusion that if “right wing extremists” had their way, he would have been found and sent back to Canada long ago, and/or institutionalized for mental illness. But this author does not realize that many outcomes would be different except for the “left wing” stopping us from implementing common sense policies. In fact, though it is obvious this author means to be kind, he does not realize that the kindest political policies with outcomes that actually HELP people are the “right wing” he clearly despises. Though he may not know this, he is steeped in the assumptions of the “left wing”, and sees through their lens.

    • Correction to myself, I left out a sentence, pre-coffee and reactionary. I appreciate this author’s nod to seeing “both sides” of extremism, both left and right. And I still stick to what I wrote.

    • Well let’s start with the fact that DePape is not affiliated with any particular ideology. There is evidence of him espousing a broad spectrum of extreme its ideologies with no stable fixation on any of them. To characterize him as a foot soldier of Republicans is psychopathically dishonest. Never mind your dismissal of the fact that all of the incidents Mr Shaw lists of pregnancy centers and churches being vandalized and destroyed are unequivocally terrorist acts by Democrat associated groups and individuals, indeed a constituency that Democrat candidates have been aggressively cultivating, a young man was deliberately killed with an automobile for the crime of being a Republican. The killer justified running him over by saying if he was a Republican, he must have been an extremist. Wonder where he heard that a few days earlier. The riots in 2020 were characterized by extreme violence which was certainly politically motivated. The BLM/ANTIFA agenda explicitly comprises an overthrow of western civilization and it is not incidental that police, courthouses and government infrastructure were targeted. Please spare us your preadolescent partisan sophistries, including the notion that judicial rulings that reinforce prescribed law, and encourage prescribed institutions with the right to change laws consider doing so, is “reactionary.”

  5. J6 again??? Really?? I dont think so. This barely there frat party gone awry has been driven into overkill by the DEMs with the complicity of the leftist media. When an unarmed crew dressed as Vikings is the worst threat to democracy you can muster, you are done politically. An unpleasant day? Yes. An UNARMED woman was killed, and another beaten who later died of her injuries, that carried out by the POLICE, not the rioters. I can think of the attack on NY’s gubernatorial candidate LEE Zeldin, a sitting Congressman, whose attacker was released in less than a day. The shooting of the Republican Congressional baseball team. The weaponization of the FBI and the DOJ to attck Donald Trump, and parents at PTA meetings. On top of this, broad and baseless statements attacking Trump supporters and Republicans overall as Nazis, coming from top leftist officials like Biden, Pelosi, and various blabbermouths in the leftist TV and media world. There is NOTHING comparable in violence from the so-called far right. Suggesting the current state of affairs is because we are ALL a little guilty, when in fact virtually EVERY public partisan and hate-filled statement comes from the left, is unconscionable. This is not nearly a 50/50 situation. Fully one half of the country is being attacked, slandered and demeaned at every turn. Many believe it is a prelude to outlaw any political party or expression of free thought which does not agree with the “party line” of those currently in power. One only need look at a few minutes of TV from the main media to see exactly what is happening. Open borders, sanctuary states, children being sexually indoctrinated, civil laws suspended. This chaos is coming from ONE side ONLY. Lets not pretend otherwise.

  6. Ok, so we have here many responding in a manner that deflects from Republican/right wing motivated political militancy. Sorry people but you confirmation bias is showing. Militancy, the use of confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause flies in the face of and endevours to undermine the democratic process. This was the hallmark of Jan 6 to the extent that alternate electoral college electors were part of the plan. The problem is as hinted at in the article, acts of militancy motivated from the political left and the political right are increasingly becoming a problem and are a symptom and a tearing of the social fabric of American society. The left was pre eminent in the 60’s and 70’s for militancy however the right is now in ascendance. That’s my take for what it’s worth. And another thing, people who follow Jesus should be aware of the reality that those who don’t follow Jesus will when its to their advantage use christianity to legitimise their own agenda and quest for power. It’s been happening since the time of Jesus ( gnostic gospels etc ) and always results in character assassination of the Person of Jesus. He who is our lord and brother is portrayed as someone who he is most definitely not!

    • Perhaps you didn’t follow the riots and protests that preceded the last US election? Those went on for months and the far left was much more in attendance than the right.
      I’d agree that there are bad actors on all sides but we are talking about a nation that began with a violent revolution and less than a century later experienced a ghastly loss of lives in civil war. And how many US politicians have lost their lives to assassins?
      Unfortunately, division, violence and violent demonstrations are an element of American history.

  7. The notion that the Pelosi incident was a politically motivated hate crime becomes more ridiculous by the moment. NBC news let some of the inconvenient truth out of the bag yesterday in a story it withdrew in a matter of hours without explanation. The bodycam video of the responding officers would undoubtedly tell us the rest, which is why it won’t be released. Yet, the ithe story continues to be used as fodder to condemn right wing political violence. Archbishop Cordileone, who has tweeted his concern for the well-being of the Pelosi’s twice now, should encourage them to come clean about what really happened and to repent for this and many other reasons.

    • Tony W, truth Reason and for those who choose, Faith. That’s what we have at our disposal. There are political reasons why some would attribute the attack to singular political motivation. On the flip side of the coin there are political reasons why some would negate any political motivation or contributing factors. So far there is an element of both however based on misinformation and the misrepresentation of the facts it is fair to say that there is a greater occurrence of those who negate any political motivation or contributing factors. The journalist behind the story you reference has been found to have made a representation of Mr Pelosis actions when police arrived and the door was opened. NBC News reporter Miguel Almaguer
      [https://www.businessinsider.com/story-that-spurred-conspiracies-about-pelosi-attack-retracted-from-nbc-2022-11]

      Perhaps it may be that you have a political outlook whereby it suits your perspective to favour the belief that there was no political motive or contributing factor. There are facts to this sad and violent event that let us all know that the attacker was disturbed socially and perhaps psychologically. This has to be considered as a major contributing factor. However the verbal and politically motivated social discourse on social media and in major events such as Jan 6 also need to be seen as a contributing factor to the climate that is sweeping the nation of the USA.

      https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hate-speech-online-extremism-fed-pelosi-attack-terror-experts-believe-2022-10-29/

      Nanci Pelosi has been demonized online and in public by both far right and far left-leaning political websites and figures. Graphics depicting her being beheaded, and a call to send immigrants to her home, with her address, circulated online this summer, according to Site Intelligence Group, which researches online extremism.

  8. My son and his family are in San Francisco this weekend for work related meetings. He sent me a photo from their hotel window which is directly across from a giant scowling mural of Greta Thunberg. It looks like something out of Orwell. A dystopian movie set.
    San Francisco is full of lost souls wandering its streets. It’s completely of control and it was probably just a matter of time before one of those lost souls turned up at the Pelosi residence.

    • Greta Thunberg..out of Orwell, dystopian movie set? Well mrscracker, here is a similar experience. I have Nest smoke detectors. Wifi changed and I couldn’t get my detectors to access Wifi for weeks until I agreed to let Google monitor when I’m away from home. I agreed…problem solved…I cound connect the detectors to wifi. Four days later my iPhone warned me that google is watching my movements. That’s Orwellian dystopia and the potential for future abuse is wide open.

  9. Why did the article omit the 2020 “Summer of Love” riots? The number of deaths and destruction of property was much greater than what took place on Jan 6. VP Kamala Harris was active in raising bail for the 2020 “Summer of Love” rioters. The people in Washington D.C. didn’t like it when they were given a one day exposure to a milder version of the “love” that had to be endured by the people during the 2020 “Summer of Love” riots. They are throwing the book at the Jan 6 rioters. Why the double standard?

  10. Shaw neglects to mention other leftist/Dem violence:

    1. A pro-life vote campaigner in Wisconsin was shot in the back by a pro-abortion man.
    2. A campaigner for Rubio in FL was brutally attack because he was Republican.
    3. The Republican governor candidate was attacked with a knife.
    3. Rep Scalis shot at softball game, because he was Republican.
    4. Sen. Paul attacked because he was Republican, and media blames Paul.
    5. Teenagers run over and killed because attacker thought he was Rupublican..

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