+Fulton Sheen on the Declaration

 Bishop Sheen had a few thoughts on the Declaration of Independence, and they are well-worth reading.  Following are a few excerpts.  You should read the whole thing at this link.

 ...Whence comes the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Read the Declaration of Independence and there find the answer: “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.”

Notice these words: The Creator has endowed men with rights and liberties; men got them from God! In other words, we are dependent on God, and that initial dependence is the foundation of our independence.

Suppose we interpret independence, as some liberal jurists do, as independence of God; then rights and liberties come either from the State, as Bolshevism contends, or from the dictators, as Nazism and Fascism believe. But if the State or the dictator is the creator of rights, then the State or the dictator can dispossess men of their rights....

... Democracy is based not on the divine right of kings but on the divine right of persons. Each person has a value because God made him, not because the State recognizes him. The day we adopt in our democracy the already widespread ideas of some American jurists that right and justice depend on convention and the spirit of the times, we shall write the death warrant of our independence. . . .

...The Declaration of Independence, I repeat, is a Declaration of Dependence. We are independent of dictators because we are dependent on God. Because we are dependent on God, it follows that it is religion’s first duty to preserve that relationship between man and his Creator....

 If religion is democracy, then let us drop religion and become State servants; if democracy is religion, then let us scrap democracy and enter a monastery. Religion is not democracy. The two are as different as soul and body....

 ...Religion is primarily for the salvation of man’s soul, and democracy is primarily for the prosperity and common good of the nation. God is not Caesar, and Caesar is not God. Have our so-called called religious leaders forgotten: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21)?...

 ...There is no such thing as saving democracy alone. Democracy is a branch, not a root. The root of democracy is the recognition of the value of a person as a creature of God. To save democracy alone is like saving the false teeth of a drowning man. First save the man and you will save his teeth. First preserve belief in God as the source of rights and liberties and you will save democracy. But not vice versa.

Religion’s greatest contribution to democracy is by serving something else. Just as a man loves a woman best on condition that he loves virtue more, so religion serves democracy best when it loves God most of all: “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33). . . .

... Christianity has a new battle before it; it is no longer with scorn that calls itself skepticism; no longer with dilettantism that masquerades as learning; no longer with injustice that called itself progress – but with the new pride that would free governments from the moral restraints of God and authority. In the hour that is dawning, the Church must defend democracy not only from those who enslave it from without but even from those who would betray it from within. And the enemy from within is he who teaches that freedom of speech, habeas corpus, freedom of press, and academic freedom constitute the essence of democracy. They do not....

... Democracy has within itself no inherent guarantees of freedom; these guarantees are from without. That is why I say our Declaration of Dependence on God is the condition of a Declaration of Independence of Dictatorship.

The greatest defenders of America are not necessarily those who talk most about freedom and democracy; it is the sick who talk most about health. For that reason, there should be less loose talk about democracy and freedom; instead of judging religion by its attitude toward democracy, we should begin to judge democracy by its attitude toward religion.

For in a crisis such as this, America will save her Stars and Stripes by grounding them on other stars and stripes than those that are on the flag: namely, the stars and stripes of Christ, by whose stars we have been illumined and by whose stripes we have been healed....

In a lot of ways, Bishop Sheen was a prophet.  This essay was written in 1941, just as Roosevelt, Stalin, and Hitler were rising in power.  Do not think that Roosevelt's agnostic/atheist 'Government uber Alles' was markedly different from that of Hitler or Stalin; it was only better-decorated, and its full fruition came during the period surrounding and following Roe v. Wade.

If we are living during another Great Awakening (and that could be so), thank God, not Trump.

On your knees, please.