What we know that ain’t so:
What we think is the right road
First group: America has never been great! Second group: “Don’t let anyone tell you America isn’t great!” Third group: America must be made great again!
But it’s the wrong road
Three distinct groups. Three disparate “roads.” Three decidedly divergent political views. Two of them must be wrong. So, three questions: Has the American political system always been corrupt? By contrast, is it great now? Was it great, only to fall into a chasm of political failure, but still capable of correction under the right guidance?
And a fourth question about the preceding three other questions: Are such political questions, in any case, appropriate for Catholic discussion and debate? This question is the easiest to answer: “To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2032).
The Church must not stand mute in the face of great evil. The Church must always find, follow and trumpet forth the truth about moral goodness. The Church is called upon by Our Lord to amplify God’s law, which is the ancient Hebrew notion of “herut” (having God’s law engraved on our hearts). Therefore, the Church must speak wisely about contentious issues which trouble our times and lives, reminding us always to serve God before political leaders (refer to Ex 1:17, 2 Chr 12:8, 1 Macc 2:22, Acts 5:29 and CCC 2313).
For Catholics, resolving questions about whether America was, is or will again be great depends upon the answer to this: Is what we do as a nation consistent with divine law? If we trash the divine law, which is eternal, then we have abandoned God, as did so many of the kings of Israel and Judah in the time of the Divided Kingdom (about 930 to 600 B.C.), and as, tragically, we have done in our own day by legislatively permitting the slaughter of the unborn. As Proverbs tells us: “Righteousness makes a nation great; sin is a disgrace to any nation” (14:34 GNB), and “A nation without God’s guidance is a nation without order” (28:18).
Consider: “Moses went up and told the people all the Lord’s commands and all the ordinances, and all the people answered together, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has said’” (Ex 24:3). From Scripture, we know that the king is told that “All will go well with you if you honor the Lord your God, serve Him, listen to Him, and obey His commands” (1 Sam 12:14), but national disaster will be the price of political rebellion against God. A great leader, acting in conformity with divine duty, demands the people’s commitment to truth. Compare that with what we hear in the public arena today.
What appears to be an intractable question about the greatness of a nation is, in fact, not so very difficult. If the leaders of our country act consistently in the light of supernatural truth, we may well be “one nation under God.” If, however, God is driven from schools, colleges and the corridors of power – if the nation’s leaders seek to exalt themselves by dethroning God – then the nation is, sooner or later, doomed (see Hosea 13:16, Isaiah 1:27-28, Jer 2:9-13).
As there are no sinless people (except Our Lord and Our Lady), neither are there any sinless nations. It was the journalist Carl Schurz who put it best: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” That is the gist of an ordered patriotism; that is the goal of an inspired politician; that is the task of the Catholic electorate: to determine if our country is in moral disarray and, if so, to set it right according to the counsel of divine law.
“Take away the supernatural,” G.K. Chesterton once incisively wrote, “and what remains is the unnatural.” If our country is in the throes of what is contrary to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” (Declaration of Independence), our task is to provide political remedies. A nation may be judged on the basis of many criteria, one of which is what evil it tolerates in the name of “progress” (see 2 John 9 NAB), and another of which is the extent to which it is willing to accept moral medicine.
As Pope Leo XIII wrote in 1890: Catholics must “make a strong endeavor that the power of the Gospel may pervade the law and institutions of the nations.” Society “ought to promote the exercise of virtue, not obstruct it. It should be animated by a just hierarchy of values” (CCC 1895). If we want America to be great – or to become great again – then we must work always to ensure that its political authority will be “exercised within the limits of the moral order” (CCC 1923) and that such authority will advance the genuine common good (CCC 1924-1928).
“If they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them in heaven, forgive their sins, and make their land prosperous again” (2 Chr 7:14 GNB). There is the path to greatness. Let us take it.
Deacon James H. Toner serves in the Diocese of Charlotte.