EDITORIAL: Since its earliest days, the Church has taught that Christians sometimes must fast to overcome particularly grave evils.
Since its earliest days, the Church has taught that Christians sometimes must fast to overcome particularly grave evils.
The recent escalation of political violence — on display yet again last week via the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump and other members of his cabinet at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington — is a spiritual and social disorder of the highest magnitude.
In these current circumstances, a collective fast from social media would be a particularly suitable antidote. That’s because social-media misuse appears to have contributed directly to last week’s thwarted attack as well as to other recent politicized violence, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The email “manifesto” of the would-be assassin reeks of the overheated rhetoric that social-media toxicity fosters. He also appears to have engaged extensively online with the progressive-minded Bluesky social-media platform.
A Bluesky account using the same “coldforce” nickname as the shooter’s email manifesto frequently denounced President Trump as a “traitor” and in recent months expressed growing frustration with nonviolent protests against his administration’s policies. The account was taken offline by the platform two days after the assassination attempt for violating company policies prohibiting “posts that amplify misinformation, or glorify violence or harm.”
Of course, social media can be used in non-harmful ways. But fasting, as in the case of food and drink, isn’t primarily about avoiding intrinsic evils. Instead, it’s ordered towards restoring our priorities and overcoming unhealthy attachments to worldly things. And our nation exhibits all the signs of an abusive dependency upon social media.
Defenders of social media cite its unprecedented capacity to facilitate connections between people. But too often this turns out to be a harm, not a benefit. Untethered from actual physical contact and manipulated by computer-generated algorithms and profit-minded “influencers,” social-media engagement frequently degenerates into a ceaseless bombardment of inflammatory and distracting words and images.
While the developing hearts and minds of youth are suffering the most from this phenomenon, provoking a growing global pushback against unregulated social-media access for minors, adults can readily fall prey too.
For those who misuse social media in this way, the result is an isolating and dehumanizing experience that gives rise to an array of antisocial consequences — notably including the recent spike in political violence.
A religious fast primarily aims at strengthening the soul, but evidence indicates that a “digital detox” can provide other tangible benefits. In one recent study, participants installed a commercially available app on their smartphones to block internet access. After only two weeks, they recorded dramatic improvement in their attention spans, equivalent to reversing an entire decade of age-related declines, as well as pronounced alleviation of symptoms of depression that worked better than taking antidepressants.
At the very least, Catholics who do use social media should strive to avoid participating in cycles of outrage and division that dominate the platforms.
As Bishop Robert Barron commented on April 26, “May I raise my voice against the viciousness and tribalism that are so prevalent on the internet and that contribute mightily to the violence we see in our political culture.”
It should also be noted that a nationwide time of fasting and prayer, dedicated to addressing a severe national malaise, isn’t a novelty in American history. In the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed April 30, 1863, as “a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer” with the intention “that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.”
Thankfully, we aren’t experiencing anything nearly so horrific as a civil war, though the increase in divisive rhetoric and political violence should be seen as concerning indicators of our nation’s current trajectory. With or without a presidential proclamation, Catholics can mark the anniversary of President Lincoln’s proclamation this Thursday by abstaining from their own social-media accounts.
As in 1863, our divided nation is badly in need of some help from above when it comes to addressing the plague of political violence. And Catholics can take the lead, by stepping back from platforms that thrive on hate and division — or at least committing ourselves to offer a decisive counterwitness.