As we enter year two of the second Trump Administration, Americans wrestle with first principles of who we are as a people. What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to believe in democracy? Who are we as citizens of the world? How do we live as people of faith? Are we losing our humanity?
This is not a passive exercise in reflection. Americans are working this out in the streets. And in the streets of Minneapolis, Americans are putting themselves on the line, literally the entirety of their being on the line.
This was the reality for Alex Pretti. When I found out he’d been killed two weeks ago today, I went on line and started live-streaming a local television station. I clicked on the top of my search. Only later did I consider the significance that I spent over three hours glued to KARE Channel 11 as the situation unfolded.
In the following days, I came to embrace Alex Pretti as an incredibly authentic human being. Not a saint. Just a deeply compassionate, committed, authentic human being. His love for his dog and people in this neighborhood. His commitment to being a nurse and caring for people, especially veterans.
As the Trump Administration openly lied about him and then tried to find any scant evidence they could to support their story, I searched online trying to stay ahead of their narrative. At one point, I wondered if he was Catholic.
As I was writing about him as a hero in my last column, I found out that he was. The difference between saving America and losing it are people like Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Americans going into the street are actively working to save our democracy while elected leaders are either actively working against it or are not working hard enough to defend it. As a nation right now, we owe so much to people like Alex and Renee who are showing up, shouting loud, and acting out.
Like Alex, being Catholic has very much been part of the core of who I am. I grew up in a small town that had seven churches. The Catholic church was one of the bigger ones but not the biggest. I was a public-school kid in a community where religion was important, but from an ecumenical perspective.
When I went off to college in 1989, I chose a private, Catholic school. I wanted to dive into my faith. Loras College brought faith and reason together for me. I loved going to mass every day. I did all the retreats. I consumed campus ministry like an all you can eat buffet. I joined the college’s seminary to consider a vocation to priesthood.
When I graduated, I continued at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago studying for the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines. About a year and a half from being ordained, I left and ended up teaching religion at a Catholic high school for two years in Las Vegas, Nevada. I then returned to Iowa working nationally to advance sustainable agriculture and food security from the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching at what is now Catholic Rural Life.
I had so many authentic people that I met along the way like sisters, classmates, professors, priests, brothers, fellow teachers, and our students. I’d been formed by centuries of faith and tradition.
My Catholic formation has been about being called to do more than I thought I could do. That I’m part of an arc of history grounded in justice.
But since I left the seminary nearly 30 years ago, I’ve watched the Catholic Church in the United States move away from being the church that formed me.
While it’s been a long time coming, it’s really been the last ten years that we’ve seen Catholic leadership become transactional and political in very partisan ways. A shocking amount of leadership among the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops have moved away from the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew and towards wealth and political power.
That movement has followed the rise of MAGA and Trump. During the Biden Administration, many members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops not only attacked Catholic Joe Biden, but embraced Donald Trump in his bid for re-election. A friend and fellow former Loras College seminarian shared with me in July 2024 that his priest was railing against pro-abortion elected officials. I’m not sure the priest mentioned Biden by name, but the point was clear to my former seminarian brother.
As I’ve made a career in advocacy, politics, non-profit activism, and faith leadership, I’ve wrestled with my identity as a Catholic.
And then came Alex Pretti. His willingness to show up. To be thrown to the pavement. To be willing to show up again. And then his killing as he tried to help a fellow protester. His martyrdom.
He didn’t go there to die, but he went there with his whole being grounded in who he is as a child of God. I think about myself. I don’t know that I’m making those kinds of commitments. I don’t know that I’m showing up with that much of myself. But I know I want to.
And I know that when I do show up with more, the ability to do that is grounded in my faith. My relationship with God is grounded in Catholicism. My deep belief in the mystery of God and Christ are grounded in Catholicism. I’m aware that how I experience the universe is grounded in how I am being formed as a Catholic Christian.
I’m also overcome by how profoundly disappointed I am in Catholic leaders who enabled Trump.
I watched over decades, so much of the Catholic leadership in the United States move away from the two-thousand-year foundation that joined faith, reason, tradition, justice, and mystery. This foundation is what formed me.
I’ve found myself grieving that much of US Catholic leadership has taken their vision of the Catholic Church and moved away from me and others. That movement away helped create the space for Trump.
In the midst of the rise of Trump’s America endorsed by so many Christians including US Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals, we’re now seeing a wholesale assault on humanity. We’re seeing some of these religious leaders trying to distance themselves from the man they helped elevate. And in the midst of that, in the streets of Minneapolis, Americans of true faith organized, protested, helped, and put their bodies on the line. Alex Pretti exemplified our humanity.
He showed up offering his entire body with the deep formation, that arc of history, the profound mystery, the paradox of the cross. In the face of my disappointment and rage at the small mindedness of so many members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops who worked to re-elect Donald Trump, Alex is a David to their Goliath. Although in this case, Goliath fires ten shots into David to leave him bleeding and dead in the street.
As my heart breaks for my nation and for the martyrdom of Alex, I feel called. I feel more confident in my Catholicism than I have in 20 years.
I’ve found myself letting go of my Catholic faith. I’ve been tempted to accept a weariness and move on. In my head I can rationalize letting go. I can describe how so much of Catholic leadership has failed to teach by example the lessons of the New Testament. I can explain to others that the Catholic Church, like at other times in its history, has aligned with the power of the worldly rather than walk with Christ. But in my heart, there has still been brokenness, grief, and an unwillingness to let go.
And into this moment in history, a Catholic man from Minnesota exemplified with his very life, what it means to be Catholic.
Because of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and so many other Americans putting the entirety of their being on the line for their fellow human beings, I’m finding myself reconnecting to a confidence to stand on who I am, formed as a Catholic that allows me and invites me to be confident in being a Christian, even a Catholic.
Alex’s act of selflessness draws me deeply back into who I am and who I want to be. He reminds me of who I know we’re all capable of being. I find myself called to do more. I’m called to be even more confident and celebrate even more who I am as a child of God, as an American, and as a citizen of the world.
I find myself just profoundly thankful that we live among people like Alex Pretti willing to put the entirety of their being on the line for our neighbors regardless of faith regardless of country of origin regardless of status regardless of color. In the face of so much brutality, a brutality that so many Christian leaders embraced and enabled, Alex reminds us that the Church is so much bigger than the violence of the Trump Administration and so much more capable than the small mindedness of the Religious Leaders who would trade justice for wealth and power.
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Thank you for your dedication. I left organized religion when I saw it become a weapon to wield to enhance power. The teacher Jesus derived his power by his example. This wields the most power.
God’s Providence works in mysterious and surprising ways. The challenges he poses in the path he chooses for you lead to prayer and growth. You already know this, Matt.
As Mother Theresa of Calcutta said, “He only gives as much as we can shoulder, but at times I wish He didn’t trust me so much.” Looking at the strength you have, it’s clear you’ve benefited immensely from the hardships endured. Keep inspiring others with the courage you exemplify, friend.