Cardinal McElroy fans the flamesBy now all responsible public leaders have recognized the need to dial down the rhetoric and de-escalate the confrontations in Minnesota. Yet Cardinal Robert McElroy has joined with several other religious leaders in Washington to rouse passions still further, beyond their already dangerous heights.“The murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti,” the religious leaders’ joint statement begins. Right away that opening statement signals their choice to use inflammatory language. They could have spoken in neutral terms about the “deaths” of those two people. Or “killings” would have been perfectly accurate, and conveyed a better sense of...