Glorious Fourth

A week from next Sunday we Americans will be celebrating the 234th signing of the embossed copy of the Declaration of Independence, a day we have always considered the birthday of our nation, although the joint resolution of independence for the United Colonies had been really passed days earlier by the Continental Congress, and a first copy of the plain and simply written Declaration actually was signed on July 2nd, 1776. This annual civil holiday of ours, the 4th of July, always furnishes a good occasion to remind ourselves to pray for our beloved country and for our state, and to invoke the blessing of God upon our national future, while we also should thank Him for His gifts and benefits given to our United States in the past, thanking our “Creator” Who “endowed” us with “certain inalienable rights”.

In recent times, due to a widespread distortion of a correct understanding of religious freedom, due to a sometimes misreading and misinterpretation of the first amendment to our national constitution, due to a false irenicism that is always frightened to offend people who do not share one’s religious faith, and due to the growth of religious indifferentism and relativism in the general population, we have been experiencing an onslaught, indeed a juggernaut of secularism in the public square, determined to exclude all religion and all reference to God in the government and in any and all public mention, and a striving to make “non-religion” or even “anti-religion” the officially established “religion” of our country. To accomplish this nefarious goal, of course, the militant secularists, who are often the disciples of the ACLU, not only regularly threaten with lawsuits and adverse publicity those with whom they disagree, but also undertake to rewrite and restyle the realities of our country’s history. Celebrating the Glorious Fourth each year can provide an opportunity to look back at where we have come from and to see how alien to our national origins are the designs of the militant and anti-religious secularists, and their close allies, the atheists and agnostics.

Some Books

In our historic “look-back” there fortunately are some newly published books that can be of assistance for our purposes. Three which deserve mention and which I have recently read are:

“The Founders on Religion” edited by James Hutson, published by Princeton University Press, “One Nation Under God” by Father Eugene Hemrick, published by Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, and “Washington’s God” by Michael and Jana Novak, published by Basic Books.

Father Hemrick, whose book is a survey of religious symbols, quotes, images found in our official buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., mentions that he could not come up with the exact number of crucifixes and references to God that he found, because, he writes, “every time I begin to count them, I find more. My guess is that they are equal to or greater than those found in many of our biggest churches in this country.” In the Capitol Building itself he found statues of Saint Damien of Molokai and Blessed Junipero Serra, also of Father Jacques Marquette, Father Eusebio Kino, and Mother Joseph Pariseau, as well as carved medallions of Pope Innocent III, Pope Gregory IX, and Saint Louis IX of France.

Father Hemrick found the image of Christopher Columbus on the front doors showing Franciscan Friars with him with rosaries and crucifixes. In the Rotunda there is a picture of De Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi River depicting priests erecting a cross on its banks, and there is also a picture of DeSoto’s body being carried into the river for burial with Holy Mass being celebrated on the barge and a priest holding a crucifix over the body of the explorer. Also all over the House and Senate Chambers and throughout the building he notes innumerable inscriptions of the national motto: In God We Trust.

Carroll

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. (There were very few Catholics in any of the English colonies in those days because of anti-Catholic laws and persecutions.) He wrote: “Remember your God. The fear of the Lord, says the wise man, is the beginning of wisdom. Without virtue there can be no happiness and without religion no virtue.” In another place he wrote, “Being persuaded that there can be but one true religion taught by Christ and the Roman Catholic Church is that religion, I conceive it to be my duty to have my grandchildren brought up in it. I feel no ill will or illiberal prejudices against sectarians who have abandoned that faith....I even have hope they might be rewarded with eternal happiness, although they entertain erroneous doctrines....”

Carroll once wrote to his son, “Do not forsake the faith in which you have been educated. I am no bigot and I have charity for all men, but if the Christian Religion be true, it can be but one. For if revealed by God, He could not reveal different and inconsistent doctrines and variant truths. All the reformed Churches have varied and departed from the doctrine with which they set out. The Catholic, Roman and Apostolic Church is the only one whose doctrine has been uniform from the beginning. I have said this much on the subject to induce you to study the grounds of our Catholic Faith.”

Washington

The Novak book with its extensive research shows that Washington was sincerely religious in his convictions. Although only a nominal Anglican, his writings and speeches demonstrate beyond any doubt that he was no secularist and far from being an anti-religious fanatic. For example, in his general orders for May 15, 1776, he said, “The General commands all officers and soldiers to pay strict obedience to the orders of the Continental Congress, and by their unfeigned and pious observance of their religious duties, incline the Lord and Giver of victory, to prosper our arms.”

In his first inaugural address, Washington said, “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand Which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by a token of a Providential Agency.” When he resigned his military commission to the Continental Congress at the end of the Revolutionary War, on December 23, 1783, he said, “Glorious indeed has been our contest. Glorious if we consider the prize for which we have contended and glorious in its issue. But, in the midst of our joys, I hope we shall not forget that to divine Providence is to be ascribed the glory and the praise.” He also wrote: “The All-wise Dispensor of human blessings has favored no nation on the earth with more abundant and substantial means of happiness than the United States of America. May we not be so ungrateful to our Creator, so wanting to ourselves, so regardless of posterity, as to dash the cup of beneficence which is thus bountifully offered to our acceptance.”