What contribution is the church uniquely qualified to offer the world today, in a moment of great conflict, polarization and division? Cardinal Robert McElroy addressed that and other questions in the homily he delivered at his March 11 installation as the eighth archbishop of Washington, D.C.: “The only effective witness that our church can give to the world is to view every conflict which surrounds us through the eyes of God.” Herein lies the hope the church can give to the world, Cardinal McElroy stated, to “truly help our society to see others more as God sees them: beloved children, brothers and sisters.” It is this kind of witness that can give our politics a soul. Pope Francis addresses this same theme in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti”: “Only a gaze transformed by charity can enable the dignity of others to be recognized and, as a consequence, the poor to be acknowledged and valued in their dignity, respected in their identity and culture, and thus truly integrated into society. That gaze is at the heart of the authentic spirit of politics. It sees paths open up that are different from those of a soulless pragmatism. It makes us realize that the scandal of poverty cannot be addressed by promoting strategies of containment that only tranquilize the poor and render them tame and inoffensive” (FT, 187). It is this vision that we have to offer to society and especially to those who hold elected office. They have the noble calling to be “doers, builders with ambitious goals, possessed of a broad, realistic and pragmatic gaze that looks beyond their own borders. Their biggest concern should not be about a drop in the polls, but about finding effective solutions to the phenomenon of social and economic exclusion” (FT, 187). Each of us should be willing to talk to our elected officials about the true goal of politics, something the Holy Father reminds us is “more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin. These sow nothing but division, conflict and a bleak cynicism incapable of mobilizing people to pursue a common goal” (FT, 197). We should remind them that the questions they should be asking are not: “‘How many people endorsed me?’, ‘How many voted for me?’, ‘How many had a positive image of me?’ The real, and potentially painful, questions will be, ‘How much love did I put into my work?’ ‘What did I do for the progress of our people?’ ‘What mark did I leave on the life of society?’ ‘What real bonds did I create?’ ‘What positive forces did I unleash?’ ‘How much social peace did I sow?’ ‘What good did I achieve in the position that was entrusted to me?’” (FT, 197). In concluding his homily, Cardinal McElroy brought us back to how God looked on all that was created: “The constant refrain in the Book of Genesis, as God moves through the arc of creation, is to affirm the goodness of all — and especially humanity. It constitutes a rejection of division and scorn of seen enemies and those with whom we disagree.” It is this vision God has for humanity, the cardinal noted, that allows us to discover hope for humanity, a hope that is “rooted in the common good and the sacred dignity of every human person, for only such a vision can heal our society, which now stands so adrift.”