Dialogue, Not Demonization

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

 

MISSION MONDAY

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

Dialogue, Not Demonization

Successful dialogue with “the other side” requires questioning our own thinking.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Donate Blood—June 5 or 6

Make an appointment to give blood at the Ray Meyer Fitness and Recreation Center (Room 135):

  • Thursday, June 5 | 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
  • Friday, June 6 | 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
  • Schedule your visit at RedCrossBlood.org or call 1-800-RED CROSS. RapidPass is available to save you time.
  • As a thank-you, all donors in June will receive a $15 gift card and a chance to win a $7,000 prize!

All are welcome! Your participation helps strengthen our community of care.

 

Baccalaureate Lunch and Mass

Please RSVP HERE.

Dialogue, Not Demonization

Written By: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

As political and social turmoil continues to beset the U.S., I keep asking questions. How did we get here? Where will we end up? And perhaps the most pressing question of all is a variation of the Vincentian question, What must be done? What can I do? How can I respond? At a virtual town hall a few months ago, my congressperson said that the most important thing to do now is to stay engaged—and he specifically recommended trying to talk to people who hold different views.

When he said that, I immediately recalled the last time I tried to engage a friend whose opinion seriously diverged from mine. It was in December 2021, when the first Covid boosters became available. My friend said he didn’t intend to get one. This friend and I had already had many conversations in 2020 that had not gone well. We differed on many issues, and it seemed to me that he was more and more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories. His positions on climate change and the origin of Covid particularly seemed to be anti-science, but he had gotten the first Covid vaccine. When he made this declaration, I was immediately prepared to try to convince him otherwise for his own good, especially since he had several health conditions that made him high risk. We started to debate vaccine safety. I began by talking about how vaccines are developed and what diseases they had already helped eradicate. And then I said, “These vaccines are safe—”

“They’re not!” he said.

Oh, no, here we go, I thought. “Yes, they are—”

“No, they aren’t! [His brother] ended up with a heart problem from the one he got. [His other brother] got the first shot and passed out. His girlfriend thought he was dead.”

The conversation ended shortly after that, with me offering sympathy for what his family had gone through but still saying he should talk with his doctor about getting a booster, and with him still refusing. Given what had been said in our conversations before, it perhaps wasn’t surprising that I thought my friend was anti-science. But the attitude that I approached him with was that I knew better than he did and that I was going to try to save him from himself and his woefully misguided viewpoint, which also endangered others. I assumed things about myself, and I assumed things about him, and my assumptions were that I had good reasons for thinking the way I did—and that he didn’t. I offered him sympathy, but I did not offer him empathy.

I thought about this again when I read Ilana Redstone’s The Certainty Trap: Why We Need to Question Ourselves More—and How We Can Judge Others Less. She writes, “The assumption that the other person is simply ignorant is easy. And it’s a way to avoid a disagreement. What’s more, dismissing someone’s opinion as being the result of not having enough or the right information gives me permission to move on, not really engaging with what they’re saying…. If I think my position is the one anyone would come to with the right information, I am free from having to interrogate or challenge my own thinking.” [1] In other words, we would do well to follow Vincent de Paul’s injunction to “practice humility and patience.” [2] Vincent based his entire community on this principle. He and his followers were well familiar with the idea of needing to fully listen to the people they encountered, both the people they were serving and the people who were their colleagues in service. It was the key to their success—but that doesn’t mean it was easy.

As heirs to Vincent here at DePaul, this principle calls us to approach disagreement with honesty and in good faith, in the sense that we must fully acknowledge both the content and feeling behind an opposing viewpoint. It is both arrogance and an error to dismiss a view we do not hold by attributing it to reasons that serve our own preconceived sense of what is true. We need to engage in dialogue with the assumption that the other person has actual reasons behind what they are saying, reasons that go beyond ignorance or hate. That is what I should have done with my friend. I thought he was ignorant, but he was actually speaking from real life experience. I worried that he was endangering himself and others, yet his motives were quite the opposite.

As I wrote before the 2024 presidential election, studies show that it’s not so much the American people who are polarized as it is their leaders. We hold similar values, but we disagree on how to put them into practice. Or we may choose officials we agree with on some issues without espousing all of their actions and rhetoric. It’s hard to believe that, given what we see in headlines and on television. It is so tempting, especially in these times, to demonize the other side, whoever the “other side” may be. But doing so is destructive. We have to keep talking to each other. Redstone says the way to do this is to articulate a value behind your position. For example, you could say, “I believe all people deserve to live in a safe environment, so I believe migration is a human right.” If you articulate the value (“all people deserve to live in a safe environment”), you avoid using some of the shorthand that gets charged, and you can help people to avoid misunderstanding the value behind your position. The same value in this example could lead to someone holding the opposite position, but if you both articulate the value, you can see where you have some common ground and work from there.

Committing to dialogue doesn’t mean abandoning our own core values. As Redstone writes, it means “learning to recognize when we think some aspect of a heated issue is simple or obvious, and that anyone who sees it differently is ignorant or evil…. Leaving certainty behind doesn’t require anyone to admit to being wrong (maybe you’re not wrong after all). It just means being a little less sure you’re right.” [3]

Reflection Questions

  1. Can you think of a situation in your life when your assumptions about someone else’s beliefs turned out to be wrong? What led you to those assumptions?
  2. Think about a position that is opposite from one you hold. What might be one valid reason (not ignorance or evil) that could lead someone to that view? What would another person be accepting as a fact to come to that conclusion? Would you and that other person agree on the same meaning of vocabulary that is key to the issue?

Reflection by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

[1] Ilana Redstone, The Certainty Trap: Why We Need to Question Ourselves More—and How We Can Judge Others Less (Pitchstone Publishing, 2024), 79. I highly recommend this book, which has exercises in it to help you challenge your thinking.

[2] Letter 1537, “To A Coadjutor Brother, in the Genoa House,” August 16, 1652, CCD, 4:442. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/29/.

[3] Redstone, Certainty Trap, 225.

Our Unwavering Commitment

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

 

MISSION MONDAY

Our Unwavering Commitment

The more things change, the more they remain the same

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Your Cells Could Save a Life

Join us on May 28 for an on-campus NMDP registry recruitment event in support of blood cancer patients like DePaul faculty member Doug Long. Stop by the Student Center Atrium between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to learn how you might be someone’s cure!

 

Baccalaureate Lunch and Mass

Join us for a special lunch prior to DePaul’s Baccalaureate Mass (which we hope you will also join us in attending). 

Friday, June 13th, 2025
1:00-3:00pm
Lincoln Park Student Center 325

This gathering offers a meaningful opportunity for faculty and staff to come together in community before the university-wide celebration of Baccalaureate Mass.

Enjoy light refreshments, connect with colleagues, and reflect on the end of the academic year as we honor our graduates and the shared work that brought them to this moment.

Please RSVP HERE to let us know if you will be attending the lunch.

Faculty and staff are then invited to attend Baccalaureate Mass wearing academic regalia. Separate seating will be reserved at the front of the church and we ask that you be seated in the designated pews by 3:45 p.m. To RSVP to attend Mass, please go here.

If you have questions about the Baccalaureate Lunch, please contact Siobhan O’Donoghue, Faculty and Staff Engagement. 

Our Unwavering Commitment

Written By: Siobhan O’Donoghue, M. Div., Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement, Mission & Ministry

“When the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind.” Drawing on the wisdom of such a profound African proverb, Julianne Stratton, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois and DePaul alum, thus began a recent reflection at DePaul. Along with Valerie Johnson, associate provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and Dania Matos, vice president for diversity, inclusion, and belonging, Stratton was serving on a panel to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing higher education today. As part of the President’s Dialogue series, all three panelists emphasized the importance of community and leaning into our mission at an uncertain time. This is even more important when some of our core values may feel under attack. “So, for now, do what you’ve been doing, maintain your mission, understand why it’s important. We’ll get through this together.” [1]

During his lifetime, Vincent de Paul also often encountered attacks on some of the core values and beliefs upon which his life and ministry were grounded. This was especially true during the War of Great Confinement, [2] which was a time when more than five thousand poverty-stricken individuals were institutionalized for the crime of being poor.

Specifically, in the words of a decree established by the State:

We expressly prohibit and forbid all persons of either sex, of any locality and of any age, of whatever breeding and birth, and in whatever conditions they may be, able-bodied or invalid, sick or convalescent, curable or incurable, to beg in the city and suburbs of Paris, neither in the churches, nor at the doors of such, nor at the doors of houses nor in the streets, nor anywhere else in public, nor in secret, by day or night … under pain of being whipped for the first offense, and for the second condemned to the galleys if men and boys, banished if women or girls. [3]

Almsgiving was also prohibited at this time. Indeed, those who were poor without anywhere to hide or escape were considered enemies of the state. Accordingly, they were hunted down by the Parisian militia, commonly known as the “archers of the poor,” [4] and forced into mandatory institutions of the General Hospital of Paris.

Yet amid such turmoil, the call of Vincent and Louise remained clear and their response undaunted: to “defend, honor and lovingly serve the most abandoned of the poor.” Thus, they, along with the confraternities and institutions that they had founded, continued to administer charity to the most abandoned, despite the challenges they faced during this tumultuous time.

Centuries later, in Chicago in 1898, while the context was very different, a similar impetus would prompt the Vincentians to establish Saint Vincent’s College. Since education was seen as a way to help families out of poverty, the Vincentian purpose was clear. To educate “the sons of Chicago’s burgeoning Catholic immigrant population.” [5] This establishment would lead to the diverse and vibrant university we know as DePaul today.

And now, every month, the Division of Mission and Ministry helps orient an array of new staff to the university. An integral part of this orientation is to reflect together on some of the milestones along our Vincentian path of 430+ years. As a regular facilitator of these orientations, I am always amazed at how, while the terminology we use to describe DePaul’s core values has evolved, the values themselves have not changed. Our commitment remains steadfast. In our essence, DePaul remains a Catholic, Vincentian institution that strives to genuinely welcome and serve diverse faculty, staff, and students, inviting each person to become part of a values-based learning community that is inclusive and accepting. [6] This creates a true sense of belonging for all, grounded in a deep respect for human dignity. Such a commitment is part of a living legacy, of which we are all part. Indeed, as Vincent and Louise might have attested, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose,” or, in more familiar terms, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Reflection Questions

  1. What do you value most about working at DePaul?
  2. In what ways do you identify with these values of Sts. Vincent and Louise?

Reflection by: Siobhan O’Donoghue, M. Div., Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement, Mission & Ministry

[1] Russell Dorn, “DePaul Hosts Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton for Dialogue on Building Belonging,” March 3, 2025, DePaul University Newsline, at: https://‌‌resources.depaul.edu/newsline/sections/campus-and-community/Pages/building-belonging-25.aspx.

[2] See Edward R. Udovic, C.M., “‘Caritas Christi Urget Nos’: The Urgent Challenges of Charity in Seventeenth-Century France,” Vincentian Heritage 12:2 (1991): 86. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol12/iss2/1/.

[3] Ibid., 85–86.

[4] Ibid., 101.

[5] Dennis P. McCann, “The Foundling University: Reflections on the Early History of DePaul,” in DePaul University Centennial Essays and Images, ed. John L. Rury and Charles S. Suchar (Chicago: DePaul University, 1998), 52. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/20.

[6] Edward R. Udovic, C.M., “Vincentian Pilgrimage Hospitality: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,” Vincentian Heritage 33:1 (2016). Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol33/iss1/4.

Mutual Care in Troubling Times

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

 

MISSION MONDAY

Mutual Care in Troubling Times

What did Pope Francis have to say about Vincent de Paul?

READ MORE

 


UPCOMING EVENTS

 

Vinny Games

Join us for our 4th Annual Vinny Games for faculty and staff! Come to The Ray to build community and play games (no athletic ability required!) Make connections and have fun! Food and prizes are included. Feel free to just drop by or stay the entire time. Either way, we hope to see you!

RSVP HERE

A Model for Living in Turbulent Times

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

 

MISSION MONDAY

A Model for Living in Turbulent Times

How can Louise’s life and example help us persevere during these tumultuous times?

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UPCOMING EVENTS

 

Welcome to Louise Week 2025


Lunch with Louise

DePaul faculty and staff, please join us for our annual Lunch with Louise honoring the life and legacy of St. Vincent de Paul’s great friend and collaborator, St. Louise de Marillac. This year, we are delighted to have as our featured guests Deans Stephanie Dance-Barnes, Martine Kei Greene-Rogers and Jennifer Mueller, Deans of the College of Science and Health, The Theatre School and the College of Education. We look forward to these university leaders gathering for a spirited dialogue about the challenges and rewards of their jobs as well as sharing how DePaul’s Vincentian mission has helped inform and guide their work at DePaul (and beyond) and their visions for the future. Please join us!

RSVP HERE

 

Louise Feast Day Mass & Lunch

As part of Louise Week, the DePaul community is invited to celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Louise de Marillac with special campus Masses and a shared lunch. Join us in honoring her life of compassion, courage, and commitment to those most in need.

RSVP HERE

 

Vinny Games

Join us for our 4th Annual Vinny Games for faculty and staff! Come to The Ray to build community and play games (no athletic ability required!) Make connections and have fun! Food and prizes are included. Feel free to just drop by or stay the entire time. Either way, we hope to see you!

RSVP HERE

 

History of the Daughters of Charity

The DePaul community is invited to welcome a new publication by Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée, Beyond Frontiers: History of the Daughters of Charity. This book is rooted in our Vincentian mission and explores how generations of women shaped education, healthcare, and social justice through lives of faith and service.

 

Please Note…

Join us in a moment of quiet prayer for DePaul and our President
prior to his testimony before Congress.

Wednesday, May 7th
8:45 AM -9:00 AM

Lincoln Park: St. Louise de Marillac Chapel (Student Center, 1st Floor)
Loop: Miraculous Medal Chapel (DePaul Center, 1st Floor)

 


NOTICE OF BEREAVEMENT

Bereavement Notice: Dr. Hung-Chi Ku

Sadly, we have learned of the death of Dr. Hung-Chi Ku, Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences.  He passed away on April 26, at the age of 53.  Dr. Hu joined the faculty at DePaul in 2015 and was granted tenure in 2024.

read more…

DePaul University Bereavement Notices will now be found here.

A Model for Living in Turbulent Times

Written By: Rachelle Kramer, D.Min., Director, Catholic Campus Ministry

Each morning as I begin a new day, I find myself glancing at my phone and wondering what terrible headlines await on my news app. What denigrating actions have those in power taken today? What vulnerable populations are being targeted? My stomach churns, and I usually decide to postpone my quick perusal of headlines until after my morning routine, to begin the day on a more positive, if not hopeful, note. Moderating my intake of the news cycle has become an essential and necessary step to maintain my emotional and spiritual well-being these days, and I know I am not alone. These are, indeed, incredibly challenging and, dare I say, unprecedented times.

When I notice myself despairing and doomscrolling, I find it helpful to look to other inspiring figures who have also lived through challenging circumstances. One such individual—whom we celebrate at DePaul this week—is Saint Louise de Marillac, companion of Saint Vincent, co-founder of the Daughters of Charity, and trailblazer in her own time. Though living in a different era, Louise’s context in seventeenth-century France was also wrought with complexity and difficulty: wars, extreme poverty, political turmoil, and famine, to name a few. Not only that, Louise suffered tremendously in her life. An “illegitimate” child, Louise never knew her mother, and her father died when she was fifteen. Estranged from her family, she was denied admission to the convent (something she deeply desired), possessed frail health, had a son with special needs, and lost her husband in her early thirties.

Despite these challenges, Louise did not sit on the sidelines. Surrounded by overwhelming suffering and poverty, she got to work. Alongside her companion, Vincent, Louise used her tremendous leadership and organizational capabilities to found a religious community that, in a mere few decades, took charge of hospitals in Paris and the surrounding provinces; provided shelter for abandoned children, creating a whole new method of child care; oversaw ministries to the galley convicts; created a charitable warehouse that saved 193 villages during a period of famine; and started free elementary schools for girls in the Paris archdiocese, a stunning accomplishment during that time. [1]

How in the world did Louise accomplish all of this, given the many challenges and obstacles she must have faced, especially as a woman living in the 1600s? Without question, she was extremely gifted. But there is more to the story. Louise spoke often of her faith in God as her grounding for the work she did. Her spirituality was deeply shaped by the centrality of the Jesus crucified. [2] Having suffered tremendously in her own life, Louise had great compassion for those who experienced suffering, and she felt called to help alleviate it. In forming her community, she, “sought to fix the eyes of her Daughters on the suffering of Christ as the one whom they served in the poor.” [3] Thus, author Louise Sullivan describes Louise as, “a mystic with her feet solidly planted on the ground.” [4] How I love that image! She was a woman who lived in the world, rolled up her sleeves, and got to work, but that work was only possible because she was deeply rooted in something beyond herself—her faith. And it was that faith that provided the wellspring to continue doing the difficult work.

If there is anything we can learn from Louise during our present-day challenges, I believe it is this: we, too, can be “mystics with our feet solidly planted on the ground.” While we at DePaul do not all ascribe to Louise’s Christian faith, I do believe that we, too, need a well to draw from that is bigger than ourselves so that we can both persevere and take the actions needed during these troubling times. For some, that well is called God. For others, it is named in a sense of spirituality, or the interconnectedness of all humanity, or the inner conviction that living a life committed to justice, solidarity, and selflessness is worth living. Whatever that well is for you, hold fast to that. Be a mystic by taking time to pray, reflect, meditate, or sit in silence (lose the phone!)—whatever you need to tap into that Reality. We need this reservoir to get us through.

May the example of Louise inspire us to stay grounded in something beyond ourselves, to act, and to move forward in hope.

Questions for Reflection:

  1. Are there any changes I might make to my daily routine that will help me remain grounded during this unsettling time?
  2. What practice or practices would help me connect with that higher Reality?
  3. What am I being called to do in this moment?

Reflection by: Rachelle Kramer, D.Min., Director, Catholic Campus Ministry

[1] Louise Sullivan, “Louise de Marillac: A Spiritual Portrait” in Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac: Rules, Conferences, and Writing, ed. Frances Ryan and John E. Rybolt (New York: Paulist Press, 1995), 49–57.

[2] Sullivan, “Louise de Marillac,” 57–58.

[3] Ibid., 58.

[4] Ibid., 60.

Mutual Care in Troubling Times

Updates, resources, and events highlighting the integration of DePaul’s Vincentian mission into the daily life and work of the university community.

 

MISSION MONDAY

Mutual Care in Troubling Times

What did Pope Francis have to say about Vincent de Paul?

READ MORE

 


UPCOMING EVENTS

 

Vincentian Service Day

This year Vincentian Service Day is Saturday, May 3rd and registration is available on the VSD website. We have over 25 community partners ready to welcome you!

You can register as an individual or as a group for a service site. If you would like to participate in VSD as a group, please check out the Group Registration FAQs on the website for more information about the this registration process. You can also view this video, which provides a step-by-step guide to group registration. You must log in with your DePaul credentials to view the video.

We are excited about the many opportunities to engage in service and hope you will participate! If you have any questions, please email serviceday@depaul.edu and a member of the VSD Team will get back to you. We hope you will participate in this longstanding DePaul tradition!

 

Lunch with Louise

DePaul faculty and staff, please join us for our annual Lunch with Louise honoring the life and legacy of St. Vincent de Paul’s great friend and collaborator, St. Louise de Marillac. This year, we are delighted to have as our featured guests Deans Stephanie Dance-Barnes, Martine Kei Greene-Rogers and Jennifer Mueller, Deans of the College of Science and Health, The Theatre School and the College of Education. We look forward to these university leaders gathering for a spirited dialogue about the challenges and rewards of their jobs as well as sharing how DePaul’s Vincentian mission has helped inform and guide their work at DePaul (and beyond) and their visions for the future. Please join us!

RSVP HERE

 

Vinny Games

Join us for our 4th Annual Vinny Games for faculty and staff! Come to The Ray to build community and play games (no athletic ability required!) Make connections and have fun! Food and prizes are included. Feel free to just drop by or stay the entire time. Either way, we hope to see you!

RSVP HERE

Mutual Care in Troubling Times

Written By: Katie Brick, Executive Assistant, Division of Mission & Ministry

Pope Francis at Vargihna, Brazil.
Photo by Tânia Rêgo/ABr – Agência Brasil, CC BY 3.0 br.

During the Great Recession of 2007–2009, I recall how DePaul adjunct chaplain Maureen Dolan expressed great hope that people would turn toward one another in mutual care, because they had to, given the difficulties being faced. During a scary time, she saw opportunity for people with means to simplify their lives and consumerist habits, share living spaces, and pitch in to support one another in a way that often only happens when we’re forced to do it.

I’m not sure how much has changed, but here we are again facing economic and social volatility. Amid anxiety, I sometimes hear Maureen’s voice in my head, may she rest in peace, asking: What can grow right now? What community can be developed because it has to be developed? How can you take your uncertainty and the pain that is happening in society and humbly contribute to something positive—something that may lead you and others to a much more satisfying way of being?

Maureen’s hopes and questions seem to reflect those of Saint Vincent de Paul. Speaking of loss, he wrote, “If the world takes something from us on the one hand, God will give us something on the other.” [1]

What can we gain from uncertainty, apparent loss, and sometimes forced simplicity? What divine gift might come from this?

With the recent death of Pope Francis, I have reflected on his kinship with Vincent and our university’s Vincentian forebearers in the Vincentian charism. In a 2017 address on the Feast Day of Vincent de Paul, Pope Francis said of Vincent, “He prompts us to live in fraternal communion among ourselves and to go forth courageously in mission to the world. He calls us to free ourselves from complicated language, self-absorbed rhetoric, and attachment to material forms of security. These may seem satisfactory in the short term but they do not grant God’s peace; indeed, they are frequently obstacles to mission.”

I believe that Pope Francis, who admired Vincent de Paul, shared many qualities with him. These included deep faith, great care for the poor and vulnerable, a desire for reform within the Catholic Church, a loving heart, and a simple lifestyle admired by many. Most of all, he had a vision for what the world should be like, coupled with gifts to inspire and exhort people to action. Just hours before he died, Pope Francis asked world leaders to band together, as Maureen asked people to band together, and as Vincent and Louise established communities of service to bring people together. He said, “I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development. These are the ‘weapons’ of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!” [2]

It remains to be seen how our brand new Pope, Leo XIV, will guide the Church and communicate to the world about current times. In his first address after being announced, he called on the Church of Rome to “seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, dialogue, always open to welcome…all those who need our presence,” and said he wants the Church to be one that “…always seeks peace, always seeks charity, always strives to be close especially to those who suffer.” These seem to be words of compassion, with an eye to serving those in need, and I am glad of it.

Our mission calls us to mutual care and active concern. People you know, perhaps colleagues or your version of Maureen Dolan—and key Vincentian figures like Vincent, Louise de Marillac, and Frédéric Ozanam, or the recently departed Pope Francis or our new Pope, Leo XIV, ——provide models and heart in a time when we need a new way of being a human community. I am inspired by them when I slow down enough to allow myself to be. As I can all too quickly return to fear and isolation, I depend on them and others to pull me out of self-focus and into having a broader perspective. In turn, I am called to do that for others. It’s an interdependence for which I am extremely grateful, and I am reminded to walk a path that can get obscured in the chaos of modern life, but which is supremely important.

Reflection Questions

  1. Who is someone you admire, who can inspire you during difficult times to make a difference and consider changes that benefit others as well as yourself?
  2. Can you think back to a difficult time and name a gift that emerged from it? How might this experience act as a touchstone for you to bear difficulties in the present?

Reflection by: Katie Brick, Executive Assistant, Division of Mission & Ministry

[1] Letter 2752, “To Monsieur Desbordes, Counselor in the Parlement,” December 21, 1658, CCD, 7:424. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/32/.

[2] Francis, “Urbi et Orbi,” April 20, 2025. Available online at: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/urbi/documents/20250420-urbi-et-orbi-pasqua.html.

Beyond Polarization: Seeing the God in All of Us

I am writing this reflection in September 2024, well before Election Day, but still in the thick of American political passion. Regardless of the election’s outcome, it’s unlikely that the result will end the sense of overall polarization in our country caused by a myriad of issues, polarization that has been evident even in our own DePaul community over the past year. No matter which candidate people support, it sometimes seems difficult to believe that those who support the opposing candidate might share a similar sense of justice or morality. And yet this very feeling makes it all the more important for us to believe that they do. But why is this?

One reason is because it seems to be true. In an article for Time, journalist Karl Vick reports the results of several studies of American attitudes and how those translate into politics. He writes that in January 2021, a study surveying 2,000 people across the political spectrum asked them to consider fifty-five separate goals that the nation should have, and to rank them according to what was important to them personally and according to how important they believed other people thought they were. The results were surprising. For instance, the goal to “successfully address climate change,” was the third highest priority for the survey participants themselves, but these respondents ranked it thirty-third in their perception of its importance for other people. As Vick writes, “no one thought their fellow Americans saw climate as the high-priority item nearly everyone actually considered it to be.” This study, the American Aspirations Index, “found ‘stunning agreement’ on national goals across every segment of the U.S. population, including, to a significant extent, among those who voted for Donald Trump and those who voted for Joe Biden.” The polarization we have been hearing about on the news is something one scholar calls “learned divisiveness,” which is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy: people believe there’s more division than actually exists, and that, in turn, fuels further division. We would do well to keep this in mind before we vilify those who we believe think differently from us. [1]

Goodness transcends opposing viewpoints; justice is more than politics. We don’t have to look far into our Vincentian heritage to find reinforcement for this lesson. For example, Frédéric Ozanam, the key founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, knew it well. The nineteenth-century France he lived in was also bitterly divided into partisan groups. But he never lost sight of what this conflict was really about. He wrote:

“For, if the question which disturbs the world around us today is neither a question of political modalities, but a social question; if it is the struggle between those who have nothing and those who have too much … our duty to ourselves as Christians is to throw ourselves between these two irreconcilable enemies … to make equality as operative as is possible among men; to make voluntary community replace imposition and brute force; to make charity accomplish what justice alone cannot do.” [2]

If we are to work together to better our society, we must be prepared to approach each other with tolerance, at least. Vincent de Paul would go one step further: he would have us approach one another with love, looking for the goodness—and, indeed, the God—that exists in all of us. As he once said, “I have to love my neighbor as the image of God and the object of His Love.” [3] He pointed out that it’s easy to show respect to people we love and who think like us. But he asked,

“Have we felt less esteem and affection for certain persons? Do we not, from time to time, allow thoughts of this more or less? If that’s the case, we don’t have that charity which dismisses the first feelings of contempt and the seed of aversion; for, if we had that divine virtue, which is a participation of the Sun of Justice, it would dispel the mists of our corruption and make us see what’s good and beautiful in our neighbor in order to honor and cherish him for them.” [4]

So, as our future unfolds, let us follow one more of Vincent’s injunctions and “continue to offer one another to God and to love each other in Our Lord, as He has loved us.” [5]

Reflection Questions:

Has the polarization that seemingly permeates our society affected your view of others? How so? What are some ways you could look for the good in those with opposing viewpoints?


Reflection by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

[1] All quotations in this paragraph are taken from Karl Vick, “The Growing Evidence That Americans Are Less Divided Than You May Think,” Time, July 2, 2024, https://time.com/6990721/us-politics-polarization-myth.

[2] Quoted in Craig B. Mousin, “Frédéric Ozanam―Beneficent Deserter: Mediating the Chasm of Income Inequality through Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” Vincentian Heritage 30:1 (2010): 62. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol30/iss1/4/.

[3] Conference 207, “Charity (Common Rules, Chap. 2, Art. 12),” May 30, 1659, CCD, 12:217. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/36/.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Letter 1663, “To Nicolas Guillot, in Warsaw,” October 10, 1653, CCD, 5:28. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/30/.