Yesterday was Independence Day here in the United States of America, that midsummer occasion devoted to commemorating, among other things, the Constitutional liberties that we enjoy as citizens of “the greatest nation on earth.”
[Commence drumming and fifing. Ignite fireworks. Fire the ceremonial canon.]
Among the liberties enjoyed by those who exercise civil authority in this country:
– Freedom from the duty to publicly recognize and honor the Kingship of Christ
– Freedom to place the false religions on the same footing as the one true religion
– Freedom to legislate untethered from the dictates of the Natural Law
The list could go on, but enough said.
Despite the sincere but misguided fervor of so many flag waving “patriots” who speak as if the U.S. Constitution was carved in stone by the finger of the Almighty Himself, all indications are that America the Beautiful is not what that familiar song claims it to be, namely, a nation upon which God’s grace has been shed in some unique way, even from the earliest moments of its inception.
No, that would be Israel.
[For those of you whose Fourth of July party ran a little too deep into the night, that is what is known as sarcasm.]
But… the United States was built on Judeo-Christian values!
That cringeworthy claim actually sums things up rather nicely, no?
Before I continue, let me be clear. I love this country. My grandparents came to these shores (legally, I might add) at great personal expense. They did so, not just for themselves, but even more so for their progeny, so that we might realize firsthand the “American Dream” that they had heard so much about back in Italy.
In his autobiographical masterpiece, Unto the Sons, Italian-American author, Gay (real name, Gaetano) Talese, wrote that many devout Catholic, non-English speaking, Italian immigrants, upon first arriving in New York, were impressed and delighted to see “Ave” on so many street signs. They just assumed that it was in honor of the Blessed Virgin.
If only they could see New York today!
My love for the United States is motivated in part by gratitude for my grandparents’ courage and sacrifice. It is a devotion founded not so much on what this nation has so often been – a place where ordinary hard working citizens (the great majority, in my estimation) are deceived, manipulated, and otherwise exploited by a ruling class Hell bent on amassing greater wealth, no matter how many people have to die in the process – than for what it remains, a place where those very same citizens still enjoy more opportunities to create a good life for themselves and their loved ones than most of their counterparts living in other nations.
True patriotism, apparently unbeknownst to many Americans, some of them self-described Catholics, isn’t made manifest by cultlike devotion to one’s chosen political party and the persons leading it.
Nor is it about pledging blind “allegiance to the flag,” a form of indoctrination to which the vast majority of American school children have long been exposed, preemptively priming them, it seems, for a day when they may called upon to lay down their lives for the oligarchs who enrich themselves through perpetual wars.
Rather, patriotism as a virtue is about genuinely desiring and working toward, however we might, what is best for our beloved homeland and its people – all that is good and beautiful and true – an aspiration that can only be realized in the measure to which our nation’s affairs are conducted, both at home and abroad, in such a way as to merit the appellation, “One nation under God,”
As things stand today, despite all of the gifts that we enjoy as Americans – great blessings for which we should give sincere thanks to the Lord every day of the year – the unfortunate truth is that we, as a nation, have a very long way to go, and one of the major obstacles standing in the way is none other than the United States Constitution.
Before we take a closer look at the U.S. Constitution, let’s consider the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
When read by one with sensus Catholicus, a number of red flags come into view, specifically:
To assume among the powers of the earth … a decent respect to the opinions of mankind … deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
And all of this in an effort to secure such unalienable Rights as:
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The problem with these assertions is plain. “Governments” that wield power on earth do not derive their authority from “the consent of the governed,” but rather from God:
No society can hold together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. There is no power but from God. (cf Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei – 3)
When God is no longer recognized as the sole and single Source of all civil authority in exchange for the fallacy that just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, it is then when such evils as abortion-on-demand, gay marriage, and transgender rights are able to become the “law of the land.”
But the Declaration clearly states that the people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and it even claims recourse to ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God!’
An excellent point, one that invites some obvious questions:
Which “Creator God” are we talking about here? Is it the “God” of the Muslims who make jihad in his name? Is it the “God” of the feminists who thank him for the right to exterminate their offspring? Is it the “God” of the Zionists who insist that he gave them the right to mow down every man, woman, and child that stands in their way?
In practice, the Constitution effectively guarantees that the government will behave as if there is no Creator. Rather, those with the most money, power, and influence get to play God, deciding for themselves what is good and moral and true, as well as what laws the people must obey and what rights they may have, often in opposition to the opinions and the consent of the governed.
This brings us to the U.S. Constitution, beginning with the Preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
At first blush, the lofty goal of building a nation ordered upon justice and peace may appear quite laudable to the Catholic, that is, until such time as one comes to grips with what follows in the Bill of Rights:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Please allow me to translate:
In these United States, the legitimate civil authority is strictly forbidden by law to officially recognize Christ the King and His Sovereign authority over “all things in Heaven and on earth” (cf Matthew 28:18), which includes the singular authority to define what is just and what is not.
The government of this nation is likewise forbidden to acknowledge and act upon the immutable truth that the Holy Catholic Church was established by Christ the King to speak in His name in such way that “He who hears the Church hears Christ, and he who rejects the Church rejects Christ and likewise rejects the ‘Creator God’ who sent Him” (cf Luke 10:16).
The Constitution requires, by contrast, that the legitimate civil authority treat the false gods and their false religions in the same way that it treats the Holy Catholic Church and Jesus Christ, as if all are mere equals, with no one religion, its tenets, or its “god,” to be held above any other.
And yet, the Constitution is – at least according to its authors and its staunchest defenders – the key to forming a Union founded on Justice, Tranquility, and Liberty?
This simply is not possible. There is only one way:
When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas 19)
At this, I trust the point has been made.
St. Thomas Aquinas, when addressing the virtue of piety, taught:
Man becomes a debtor to other men in various ways, according to their various excellence and the various benefits received from them. On both counts God holds first place, for He is supremely excellent, and is for us the first principle of being and government. On the second place, the principles of our being and government are our parents and our country, that have given us birth and nourishment. Consequently man is debtor chiefly to his parents and his country, after God. Wherefore just as it belongs to religion to give worship to God, so does it belong to piety, in the second place, to give worship to one’s parents and one’s country. (Summa Theologica, 2a, 2ae, Q. 101)
This is true patriotism: Devotion to one’s country, giving thanks for the gifts that God has so generously bestowed on us as its citizens, despite so many failings.
It is right that we should love and honor our homeland, not blindly, but rather with eyes wide open, acknowledging its offenses against Our Lord, making reparations for them, and praying that He may grant our country the grace to grow in virtue, ever closer to resembling One Nation under God.
