Dan Shea - EGL 2
The United States Constitution set out to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for our posterity and ourselves. Yet today, domestic tranquility has fallen victim to economic and social injustice. The general welfare of our citizens is held hostage by political corruption. Moreover, the common defense is selectively applied, especially to special-interest groups bent on exploiting the public welfare. Due to an insatiable appetite for personal gratification regardless of the cost, liberty is in peril for all men and their children. The American Dream has become an indefensible exercise in self-indulgence. Men have abandoned moral principle and ethical leadership in favor of profit. They have embraced the philosophy that all disputes can be resolved through the political and judicial process.
A society which professes liberty and justice for all, should abound with opportunities. It should be able to discern between personal responsibility and social dependency, to strike a balance between individual competition and joint cooperative action, to attain economic, social, and religious equity for every citizen. However the nation has failed to do so. Americans need to examine why the ship of state, having been launched into the twenty-first century, continues to tack away from its stated purpose.
In the last four decades, inroads were made by secular humanism, liberal policies, and judicial positivism throughout the nation—all because, many Americans closed their eyes to a national calamity in which God has no place in the affairs of government or society. These factors have undermined the common good more than Americans are willing to admit.
By the rejection or ignorance of traditional values (In God We Trust), the familiar and historic American way of life, has been dismantled. This way of life began with the recipes from many different cultures and religious traditions, and whose ingredients were then mixed in the melting pot of American tastes and priorities. The problem today is not too many cooks in the kitchen, but nobody paying attention to the broth. The heavy-handedness of some special-interest groups has seasoned the broth with condiments not palatable to most Americans. The secret of a savory communal stew is the ability to blend in without losing one's distinct flavor.
All Americans have a right to participate in the direction of the nation but must accept responsibility to promote and protect the common good of the nation. Only when time-honored values are reinstated and the nation’s dependence upon God is recognized can Americans expect to once again savor the essence of its national heritage.
In opposition to those expectations is the doctrine of secular humanism. This ersatz religion has powerful allies in the courts, education, government, and the media. Proponents of secular humanism contend their interpretation of the Constitution to be authentic, widespread, irrefutable, and deserving of unconditional legal sanction. Unfortunately, many liberal judges’ personal agendas lean towards the secular humanists interpretation and they read the Constitution in the same light. But, this is not new. The sixteenth century, French essayist, Montaigne, wrote: “We have left so much room for opinion and decision to our judges, that there never was such a powerful and licentious freedom.”
Secularism has pressured a sufficient number of government officials and achieved its aims not by logic but by a “politically correct” form of persuasion. Thus, the government has expunged all traces of religious influence in its own agencies and the public schools. The secularists want to silence the ordained clergy's right to voice its views on legal and political issues. But a civilized society cannot grant itself the right to do what is wrong.
Secular humanism and political correctness, the twin betrayers of freedom, disguise themselves as freedom's advocates. Ominously, political correctness attempts to instill harmony among people by insisting that all adhere to the philosophy that no one is wrong except those who disagree with this concept.
The treachery of secular humanism is it subjects the law of God to the law of man and affirms there are no God-given limits which government cannot exceed and no standard of right or wrong higher than the State's. Professor of history at St. Louis University, Dr. James Hitchcock, wrote: “The public authority and influence of Churches has in the last three decades been defeated. Today, politics claims for it those domains formerly thought to properly belong to religion. Theistic beliefs cannot influence public policy in anyway. This puts organized religion in a crippling state of legal impediments.”
Clearly, the citizenry must insist that the establishment clause of the First Amendment was intended to require Congress to maintain neutrality among religious sects, it was not meant to prevent government from acknowledging God and the supremacy of His law. Citizens who believe this to be true can no longer allow, according to Dr. Hitchcock: “The extreme separationist interpretation of the First Amendment… [is]…to enjoy an unchallengeable authority, as though it were indeed chiseled in stone.”
Historically, man has been anchored by moral absolutes. Today, he is immersed in moral relativism. The conflict is not with his intellect but finding himself adrift in a sea of contemporary enlightenment. Rather than using the full faculties of one's mind to affirm absolute truth, man represses clearheaded thinking with intellectual posturing. Notre Dame Law School professor, Charles E. Rice, reasons, “Relativism leads to legal positivism, under which law becomes wholly a question of power and operates without moral limits. The theory of positivism dominates modern American jurisprudence [and]...people tend to regard the courts themselves as arbiters of morality. What is legally permissible is seen as morally acceptable.” Therefore, Lex Rex—law is king.
Today, the familiar proposition "one nation under God" is headed for extinction, due America's endorsement of judicial positivism. This potentiality was foreseen more than seventy years ago in the papal encyclical, “Summi Pontificatus,” which stated, "The one universal standard of morality is set aside; by which we mean the natural law, now buried away under a mass of destructive criticism and of neglect." Positivism only supports knowledge verified by empirical evidence. Bereft of divine law judicial positivism allows for the exclusion of those natural rights that cannot be incorporated into human law. The inherent weakness of judicial positivism is it sits on a foundation of changing legislation and self-serving litigation.
Natural law is derived from nature and is binding upon society in addition to positive law. Once part of America's heritage natural law is no longer viewed as a sacred treasure. Our government’s rejection of natural law is a harbinger for totalitarian rule. That is why Americans can no longer afford to be reticent in resurrecting the natural law. The very survival of the American way of life depends upon its reinstatement as the basis of all law. Clearly, the failures of moral relativism and judicial positivism have the ship of state running aground.
The contradiction of relativism is it proclaims all lifestyles, political philosophies, and religious dogmas are all of equal weight. Yet America freely makes value judgments for other nations. The New Order speaks out of both sides of its mouth. The call sounded in “Summi Pontificatus” echoes those prophetic words: ‘The new order must not be founded on the shifting standards of right and wrong, treacherous as quicksands, which have been arbitrarily devised to suit public and private interest. It must stand firmly based on the immovable rock of natural law and divine revelation.”
Each special interest group demands equality it must be understood that the role of government is not to make all citizens equal, but to provide equal justice for all. The challenge is to afford equal opportunity, not guarantee equal results. That potential is severely limited when civil law is grounded in power, not natural law. The encyclical further states: “Without an active belief in natural law and the natural rights that flow there from men can offer no effective resistance to encroachments on their personal freedom by State, municipality, or any other authority. For, in the last resort, their only defense lies in an appeal to the dignity of their own human nature: and this involves an appeal to natural law.” The late past president of the University of Notre Dame, John J. Cavanaugh said we have forgotten, ‘The Natural Law is not an ideal; it is a reality. It is not a product of men's minds; it is a product of God's Will.” Natural law is imprinted on the souls of all men.
This is not exclusively a Christian belief. Cicero was of like mind as he wrote in De Republica, “There is a true law, a true reason, agreeable to nature, known to all men, constant and eternal, which calls men to duty, which commands and forbids...It is not lawful to amend this law, nor to take anything from it, nor can the Senate or the People alter this...It is not one in Rome and another in Athens, one thing now, and another afterwards, but binds all races of men, and all times; it is eternal and immutable...for it is God who is the discoverer and the maker of this.” Unhappily, modern America has thrown the baby out with the bath water and no longer chooses to bathe in the light of ageless wisdom.
In every generation, those who spawn modern thought are always ready to repudiate the truth. When a democracy casts away morality and truth, and their defenders are no longer permitted to participate in the democratic process, democracy ceases to exist. The potential demise of society rests on America's failure to recognize democracy by its nature is dependent upon the authenticity of good civil law, respect for natural law, and reverence for the supernatural.
Now denuded of these safeguards, American society has been engulfed in cultural degeneracy. The citizenry's submission to this chaos has stifled their ability to produce effective social change through moral and intellectual honesty. When good men speak of spiritual renewal in the public forum, the public changes the subject. Those who differentiate black from white are seen as intolerant. The moral hue of choice is non-judgmental gray. This form of myopia allows America to continue to perpetuate misguided social reforms. Without spiritual renewal, reform is an exercise in futility. Only those leaders who reinstate moral indignation into the culture have the power to preserve civilization.
Honorable men know within a free society there is no sanctuary from the demands of morality. Alexis de Tocqueville, reminded Americans in Democracy in America, “Freedom sees religion as the companion of its struggles and triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its rights.” Adding, “Religion is considered the guardian of mores, and mores are regarded as the guarantee of the laws and a pledge for the maintenance of freedom itself.” The demands of morality require each generation continue to make installment payments on the freedom purchased by the down payment of the founding fathers. De Tocqueville robustly cautioned,“If there are some nations that allow civilization to be torn from their grasp, there are others who themselves trample it underfoot.” America must stand united: “pro Deo et patria,” and for those who have no God let them stand for the common good of the republic.