One Heart, One Mind

The following is excerpted from an essay by Fr. James Schall S.J. at Georgetown. The full article can be read at The Catholic Thing.

Someone recently remarked that, in fact, this land is going in the opposite direction from its motto, E Pluribus Unum. We are going rather from one nation to an enforced diversity of nations, languages, lifestyles, and religions. Our theories are not those of unity but those of diversity.


The “one heart and one mind” thesis now seems rather to mean that we accept everything without asking about what is compatible with what. In the name of unity, we overlook differences that constitute the integrity of what we are.


Theories of diversity precisely cannot answer the question of “Who made this land for you and me?” Moreover, to have “one heart” we need to have “one mind.” We need to agree on first principles of what we are, of what makes us human.


Though it may sound shocking, we cannot have one heart and one mind if we do not have one truth about the essential things. As I suggested, there is a theory of “democracy” that is based on the idea that there is no truth. The enemies in this form of rule (and it does rule) are those supposedly “fanatical” ones who maintain that there is a truth about the fundamental things.