Minnesota has become a case study in how a virtuous society can lose its bearings without quite noticing when the slide began. The state’s recent convulsions—a sprawling fraud scandal and mounting street-level confrontation around immigration enforcement—prompted Catholic Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester to issue a stark warning: the situation is “untenable,” and unless all sides pull back from the brink, the damage to civic life will not be easily undone.
Barron published a Fox News essay begins with a simple observation: the atmosphere in Minnesota is “thick with corruption, violence, threats of retribution, angry shouting and scapegoating.” We see this corruption at all levels of government throughout our country. That is not the rhetoric of a partisan combatant; it is the diagnosis of a pastor watching the civic fabric fray. His point is not that one side is uniquely to blame, but that a destructive feedback loop now binds public corruption, official overreach, and increasingly reckless political rhetoric. WE THE PEOPLE are being increasingly blocked out from the “process of government. Special interests exert an influence out of proportion to everyday voters. The lobby for legislation and in exchange our politicians receive either through the back or front door, an emolument—a campaign contribution or a round of golf or dinner at the club. Or what about tickets to a playoff game?
The first scandal Barron addresses is a breathtaking case of fraud in which hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds, earmarked for the poor, were allegedly siphoned through sham organizations. He refuses to treat this as a “white-collar” peccadillo. Catholic social teaching, he notes, has long insisted that public corruption is a grave moral evil because it does not merely misallocate funds; it robs the poor of health care, education, and basic human dignity. When government dollars meant for the vulnerable are diverted, the rule of law is not the only casualty; trust in institutions collapses, and citizens reasonably ask whether the system exists to serve them or the well-connected.
This would be crisis enough. But Minnesota now faces a second trauma: the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an ICE agent during a federal operation in Minneapolis, an episode that has ignited protests, accusations, and counteraccusations. The stories differ depending on the political narrative. Federal officials say Good refused commands and tried to ram an officer with her vehicle; state officials have publicly challenged that narrative, and video footage has only deepened the controversy. The result is a city caught between anger at what many see as a needless killing and fear of spiraling confrontation between federal agents, protesters, and local authorities.
Barron stakes out a neutral and nuanced position, but may appeal to Americans who still want a country governed by law and conscience. He defends the right of the United States to maintain borders and enforce immigration laws and explicitly rejects the effectively open-border posture of the Biden years. At the same time, he argues that ICE should narrow its focus to undocumented individuals who have committed serious crimes, warning that broad raids against otherwise law-abiding residents are “to blunt an instrument” and a recipe for social unrest. Long-settled, peaceful undocumented residents, he insists, should be the subject of legislative deliberation, not aggressive paramilitary-style sweeps.
If Barron’s critique stopped there, it would be little more than a cautious centrist plea. But he is equally unsparing toward political leaders who, in his view, have chosen to inflame rather than calm the situation. He condemns the comparison of ICE officers to Nazis and Gestapo agents as “morally heinous and directly productive of violence.” He cites, in particular, remarks from Minnesota officials urging citizens to “fight” ICE or to film their “atrocities,” and a mayor telling ICE to get out of his city. Such rhetoric may scratch a partisan itch, yet it also paints a target on the backs of individual officers—human beings with families who, whether we agree with current policy or not, are tasked with carrying out the law.
Barron’s call to protesters is similarly two-handed. He defends the right to peaceful protest as integral to democracy but insists that physically obstructing federal operations, surrounding vehicles, or directly interfering with arrests is not protected speech and can be a spark for tragedy. The circumstances of Good’s death are still under investigation, yet federal officials have already claimed that protesters were obstructing officers just before the shooting. When crowds and armed agents collide in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion, one misjudgment—on either side—can mean a life.
What is missing is a moral framework upon which to build immigration policy and national security. Bishop Barron proposes three basic steps. First, federal authorities should prioritize serious criminals in ICE operations and avoid sweeping, fear-inducing raids against otherwise peaceful residents. Second, political leaders must stop demonizing line-level officers with language that treats them as enemies of the people. Third, protesters should continue to speak, march, and organize—but without crossing the line into obstruction and intimidation.
None of this is dramatic or novel. That is precisely the point. A stable liberal democracy depends on boring virtues: restraint, proportionality, good faith, and a willingness to distinguish between criticizing policies and dehumanizing the people charged with enforcing them. The fraud scandal Barron describes is an assault on those virtues from above; it tells ordinary citizens that rules are for the little people, not for politically connected operators who plunder public funds without shame. The ICE crisis is an assault from below and from the side; it tempts citizens and officials alike to treat the presence of federal agents as an occupying army and to view restraint as a form of betrayal.
Minnesota is not unique. Corruption is rampant in all 50 states and at all levels of government. Versions of this drama have played out in other cities targeted by “surges” of ICE and Border Patrol personnel, in service of ambitious deportation goals and a politics of retribution. In each case, law-and-order rhetoric collides with fears of authoritarian drift, while activists flirt with tactics that blur the line between civil disobedience and coercion. The casualties are not only individuals like Renee Good, whose life and death now function as symbols in a national argument, but also the habits of mutual forbearance that make shared life possible.
Barron closes his essay with a plea that should not be controversial yet somehow is: “Everyone on all sides of this issue must stop shouting at one another and demonizing their opponents.” Vigorous debate, he reminds us, is a democratic necessity; vitriol and scapegoating are not. That admonition lands hardest on political leaders, who set the tone for what their followers consider legitimate. But it is meant for the rest of us as well. If we cannot distinguish between criticizing a policy and treating our fellow citizens as enemies to be crushed, the cycle of fraud, overreach, and street-level confrontation will only accelerate.
Minnesota’s crises are, in one sense, local. Just like in many Idaho cities. In a deeper sense, they are a mirror. They show a state, and a nation, wavering between a politics of retribution and a politics of repair. Bishop Barron has issued a pastor’s warning that the path we are on is unsustainable. The remaining question is whether anyone—in office or in the streets—is still willing to take a step back before the center finally gives way.
