Between the altar and the arena: When politics becomes religion
Monday, January 26, 2026
*Deacon Edgardo Farias
On June 29, 1972, during the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Pope Paul VI delivered a warning that still resounds with prophetic force: “Through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.” He was not referring to a visible smoke, but to a spiritual atmosphere thick with confusion, distrust, and discouragement - a darkness that threatened the Church’s interior life after the Second Vatican Council.
This “smoke” symbolized the disorder of the soul of the Church, the loss of evangelical clarity, and the temptation to confront the world’s challenges using the world’s own weapons. Today, more than half a century later, that same smoke has reappeared with a new face: the political and cultural division that fractures the Church from within. It is no longer only a doctrinal crack but a wound in communion itself. In many nations, Catholics seem more defined by the labels “right” or “left” than by the name of Christ. Instead of shaping social and political thought, the Gospel has become a hostage to ideologies. As Paul VI said, the enemy no longer strikes from the outside but works from within the believer’s heart, when partisan passion replaces fidelity to the Gospel.
Politics, in its noblest sense, is a service to the common good. Yet when politics is elevated to an absolute, it becomes idolatry. It promises salvation without God, divides people into opposing camps, and demands total loyalty that devours the freedom of the soul. The smoke of Satan seeps through that very crack - when faith is placed at the service of human interests and the Gospel is reduced to a political platform or ideological banner.
The Fathers of the Church understood this danger well. St. Augustine, with timeless wisdom, wrote: “Two loves have made two cities: the love of God unto the contempt of self made the City of God; the love of self unto the contempt of God made the city of the world.” When the love of power or ideology replaces the love of God, the Christian stops building the City of God and ends up serving the spirit of the world. St. John Chrysostom warned that the devil does not destroy faith at once but corrodes it slowly, poisoning charity. “The devil,” he said, “has no power over those who are united; therefore, he strives to sow division among believers.” St. Cyprian added: “He who breaks the unity of the Church resists Christ, for the Church is a seamless garment.” Dividing the Church for ideological or partisan reasons is not a small matter - it wounds the Body of Christ itself.
In our time, this fracture takes many forms. Some Catholics reduce faith to individual morality, forgetting social justice and the cry of the poor. Others exalt social action but silence the sacred value of life and moral truth. And many judge the Pope or bishops through the lens of the media or social networks rather than hearing them as shepherds. Thus, faith becomes an ideological battlefield where discernment gives way to tribal loyalty. St. Paul foresaw it clearly: “If you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:15).
In this climate, Pope Francis proposed the antidote of synodality: learning to be a Church that walks together, listens before judging, and discerns in community before reacting. A synodal Church does not fear difference; it welcomes it as an opportunity to discover together the voice of the Spirit. Only through this shared journey can the Church dispel the smoke that darkens her face and recover her prophetic light.
The Patristic tradition illuminates this path. St. Augustine summarized the ecclesial spirit in his famous phrase: “In essentials, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.” St. John Chrysostom reminded us: “Nothing is stronger than love; it conquers even hell.” Victory without charity is defeat in disguise. The Christian does not conquer by domination, but by love. Origen added a principle that seems written for our times: “The devil rejoices when those who confess Christ hate one another.” Spiritual discernment begins with humility - the awareness that no one possesses the full truth and that only the Spirit guides us beyond anger and pride.
To learn to be a synodal Church is to embark on a journey of interior purification. It means praying for unity rather than victory, forming consciences in the light of the Gospel, evangelizing dialogue, and purifying Catholic media so that they may become spaces of communion rather than ideological trenches. Above all, it means allowing the Eucharist to once again be the living heart of communion, not a badge of political or cultural belonging.
Pope Leo XIV, in his recent apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te (“I Have Loved You”), offers a luminous word amid this smoke. In paragraph 76, he declares with evangelical clarity:
“Christian holiness often flourishes in the most forgotten and wounded places of humanity. The poorest of the poor - those who lack not only material goods but also a voice and the recognition of their dignity - have a special place in God’s heart. They are the beloved of the Gospel, the heirs to the Kingdom.” More than a theological treatise, Dilexi Te is a pastoral exhortation that denounces the expansion of wealth at the expense of the poor and invites us to rediscover the simplicity of Christian love. This warning connects directly to the call to purify the heart from the desire for power, possession, and prestige, for these false loves feed the fog of the spirit and weaken the witness of the Gospel.
Only a Church that lives in unity, humility, and mercy can dispel the smoke with the light of the Spirit. A Church that rejects the love of power, money, and prestige - because these idols suffocate faith and replace the Gospel with convenience. The smoke feeds on false loves: the desire to dominate, to possess, and to shine. But the Church that serves, listens, and bows before the poor lets the pure light of the Spirit pass through. For in the end, neither the right nor the left, neither power nor wealth will prevail: the Gospel will.
To live that unity does not mean denying the real tensions of the world but inhabiting them with hope. The Christian is called to walk between the altar and the arena, keeping his feet on the ground where the world’s struggle takes place and his heart aflame before the altar where Christ’s mercy burns. Only there, between the altar and the arena, does faith retain its prophetic strength and its power to transform history.
