The Paulist Fathers have a long tradition of responding to the signs of the times to engage forward-thinking reconciliation ministries, from their outreach to separated and divorced Catholics to Landings International ministry which reaches out to those who have left the Church. Today a growing need in reconciliation ministry is outreach to Catholics within the Church who are so polarized, divided and distrustful of one another that they view their fellow Catholics as enemies instead of brothers and sisters.

At the 2022 General Assembly, the Paulist Fathers identified toxic polarization as a first order crisis which severely limits the Church’s ability to “effectively promote, practice, and achieve” the Church’s mission of evangelization. As a result, the General Assembly called for the Paulist Fathers to:

“refocus our national reconciliation outreach efforts to strategically and intentionally address the toxic polarization plaguing our social interactions and reduce the divisiveness in America…”

As a fruit of the 2022 General Assembly, and inspired by Pope Francis’s call to synodality, the Paulist Fathers founded The Paulist Initiative on Polarization as a national partnership of Catholic leaders and institutions committed to strengthening communion across political, theological, and cultural divisions. In 2024, the Initiative hosted a major conference of Catholic leaders to address this reality.

Inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s public commitment to building unity and communion in the Church the effort was re-named The Communion Project in 2025.

“Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.” (Pope Leo XIV, Inaugural Mass, 2025)

Today the Communion Project seeks to:

1. Raise awareness of the divisions in our US Catholic Church and self-awareness of the ways we personally are not united or in right relationship with our brothers and sisters in the Church
2. Create spaces for personal encounters and friendship across lines of difference
3. Promote a spirituality of communion
4. Develop resources that promote Church teachings and skills for dialogue 
5. Partner with organizations working at bridging divides and finding common ground

As an expression of synodality in the U.S. Catholic Church, the Communion Project is supported by a growing network of Catholic partners and contributors including Catholic Charities USA, USCCB, The Catholic University of America, Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, the Napa Institute, the Pauline Center for Media Studies, Braver Angels, Interfaith America, Focolare, the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy, among others.