What used to be a day to honor George Washington and Abraham Lincoln is now a day to honor all presidents – including some who have not been that honorable.
This year’s National Holiday offers us a chance to consider of some of the fundamental principles that the presidency represents and to celebrate the office of the president and (perhaps) its most impressive holders.
One important thing to remember today is the fact that, in America, our rulers are not better than anybody else! When it comes to “ruling the earth,” we are all equal. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, his landmark social teaching encyclical (see paragraph 40), wrote: “There is here no difference between rich and poor, master and servant, ruler and ruled, ‘for the same Lord of heaven is Lord over all.’” Pope Leo XIII also wrote: “Both philosophy and the Gospel concur that a ruler should work not for his own benefit, but for his people. Earthly power should be exercised as the power of God is exercised — with a fatherly solicitude which not only guides the whole, but reaches also individuals.” (paragraph 35)
Another important thing to remember today is that, when he visited Baltimore in 1995, Pope John Paul II said, “150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln asked whether a nation ‘conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal’ could ‘long endure.’ It is still an open question and is no less a question for the present generation of Americans. Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
Yet another important thing to do today is pray! “Lord God, direct the mind and heart of our president according to your will, so that peace, prosperity, civic virtue, the right to life, and the freedom of religion may increase throughout the land. Bless our nation and the whole world with your peace. Through Christ our Lord.”
