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April 13, 2026We are all biased in some ways. I am biased toward the state of Texas but against Communism. I will argue for the merits of bourbon, books, and Jesus. I dislike beets, cheap yard equipment, and fire ants. It is natural to have preferences, instincts, and convictions — these are part of being a particular person in a particular place.
But there is a difference between the bias we carry naturally and the bias we carry spiritually. Catholic disciples are not simply called to be self-aware about our biases; we are called to bring them before the Lord and let him sift through them. Where are we right? Where are we wrong? Where has a reasonable preference quietly hardened into something that distorts the way we see others - and the way we see the Church? These are uncomfortable questions, but they are the questions that conformity to Christ demands of us.
Jesus did not come to confirm us in our existing categories. He came to transform us. And that transformation necessarily includes the lenses through which we view the world. Understanding that God wants to be first in EVERY area, including our biases, here are some signs things have gotten unhealthy.
SIGNS YOUR BIAS IS NOT CONFORMED FULLY TO CHRIST:- You see every opinion as an opportunity to find an enemy or an ally. Rather than allowing a difficult or polarizing view to challenge you - or at least to help you understand where another person is coming from - you feel the need to react and take a stand. Over time, this posture turns people into merely positions (that agree with you or oppose you). The human being behind the opinion fades, and what remains is either a potential opponent or a potential ally. This is spiritually dangerous, because it quietly displaces the one true enemy. There is only one adversary worth treating as such, and it is not the Catholic on the other side of your social media feed.
- You have sorted every Catholic leader, group, and movement into a camp. Political (left or right), liturgical (traditional, progressive, charismatic), or otherwise - once a person is assigned their label, you know what to do with them. Those in your camp are worth listening to; those outside it are easily dismissed. What this really means is that you have allowed a narrow echo chamber to determine who deserves your attention and who does not. That is not discernment. It is a closed loop.
- You have constructed a DIY Magisterium. Perhaps gradually, perhaps without fully noticing, you have narrowed the voices of authority in your life to a select few - the clergy who share your sensibilities, the lay voices who challenge what you think needs challenging, or even the politician who says/does what you like. In the process, the people who actually hold spiritual authority over you have been quietly sidelined. Your pastor. Your bishop. The Pope. These men may be imperfect — all men are — but the authority God has given them is real, and it does not become optional when they say things we find inconvenient. Substituting a curated list of preferred voices for the actual hierarchy is a dangerous place to settle.
- You have drifted to the edges. The poles are always the coldest place, and not by accident. To live at the extreme ends of Catholic life - whether on the left or the right - is to trade the warmth of the Church's full tradition for the heat of reaction. Being in the heart of the Church does not mean abandoning conviction or refusing to take a stand when a stand is needed. It means that your convictions are rooted in something larger than your own temperament. It means that your Catholicism is defined not by you or by me, but by God.
The diagnosis above is relatively easy to receive in the abstract. The harder question is what to do about it - and here, the Gospel is not vague.
The beginning is humility, and not the performative kind. It is the humility of genuinely trying to understand another person before deciding what to do with them. Understanding does not require agreement or acceptance. But it does require treating the other person as someone made in the image of God, which means their perspective deserves at least the courtesy of being heard. Jesus consistently stopped for people others had already written off. That pattern is not incidental to his ministry - it is the shape of it.
From humility follows charity, and charity has a specific texture in this context: looking for the good in others. God made every person with genuine good in them, regardless of their opinions, their liturgical preferences, or their politics. Their very existence is good. When we allow bias to calcify, we lose the ability to see this - and what we lose with it is the capacity for real encounter. Charity is the discipline of looking anyway, even when it is inconvenient, even when we disagree.
Obedience may be the most countercultural suggestion of all. Not blind compliance, but the genuine submission of our judgment to those whom God has actually placed over us. This is difficult precisely because we live in a moment when authority is widely distrusted, often for legitimate reasons. But the answer to imperfect authority is not the construction of a private hierarchy tailored to our preferences. It is the harder and holier work of remaining in relationship with the Church as she actually is.
Finally, there is the ongoing discipline of self-examination - particularly regarding the inner peace Jesus promises but which we so easily surrender. When you notice that your peace is gone, that a topic or a person or a headline has left you agitated and reactive, that is a moment worth pausing in. Bring it to prayer. Ask the Lord what is driving the reaction. Guard what he has given you, because you are the custodian of it.
G.K. Chesterton wrote that "what embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism." He was right - and for Catholic disciples, the inverse of that bitterness is not simply better manners or more careful arguments. It is conversion. It is the slow, daily work of allowing Jesus to reshape not just what we believe, but the posture from which we hold our beliefs. That is what it means to be conformed to him.