The following is a reflection introducing considerations on the life and thought of William F. Buckley and the role of religion in public life.
We have come together in Philadelphia, our nation’s birthplace, on this day, the 238th anniversary of the signing of our national constitution. It was here on September 17, 1787, that the genius of our founding fathers gave to us the Republic and its framework for our self-governance. Benjamin Franklin, upon exiting Independence Hall that day, was asked by Mrs. Elizabeth Willing Powel, the wife of the city’s mayor, what form of government the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had chosen, republic or monarchy? To which query Franklin quipped: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Though Franklin’s response makes us laugh, it was serious. He realized that the survival, not to mention the flourishing, of the new-born enterprise would require the hard work of the citizenry, whose vigilance and virtue alone could guarantee success. They alone, we may dare to say, could garner the blessings of Almighty God.
William F. Buckley, whose centennial of birth is observed this year, understood the necessity of public and private virtue, not simply for the good of these United States, but for the triumph of good in a fallen world. This world is the stage for that relentless conflict between Christianity and its adversaries, between Christ and Satan, as St. Ignatius of Loyola expressed it, and as Buckley certainly understood it through the lens of his cherished Catholic Faith. And so, we reflect this evening on Buckley’s principles regarding the common well-being of society and the defense of Christian civilization.
Perhaps most of us have heard the following lines from Sacred Scripture, often quoted by Christians with some sense that we as a people have strayed from the ways of God and must return to Him:
‘’If my people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2Chronicles 7:14).
There you have it. I dare apply the word of the Lord to our nation. God promises to heal our land, “America, land that I love,” as Kate Smith would sing it, and as Philadelphia Flyers fans would hear it from her lips year after year with pride and delight. ‘’God, bless America, land that I love!” An Irving Berlin classic for sure!
If that phrase “God, bless America!” is not mere cliche, but a sincere prayer, we have to understand that God will not heal our land unconditionally. God knows, and so do we, that our nation is deeply wounded, deeply divided. The tragic events of the past week alone reveal a putrefaction of the body politic, a moral sickness unto death. This nation is tearing itself apart. We don’t need gun control; we desperately need self-control. The Christian fabric of the Republic is torn asunder. The nation needs conversion, certainly private, but also public, if it is to find healing.
Like Franklin, John Adams grasped the fragility of the new nation in a letter addressed to the Massachusetts Militia in 1791. He warned that the abandonment of virtuous conduct by individuals in their private affairs or in their public pursuits and policies would be the ruin of the nation. He wrote:
“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world: while she continues sincere and incapable of insidious and impious policy: we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming picture of candor, frankness and sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and insolence: this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (John Adams to the Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1791)
Saint Paul famously lays out the Christian duty in regard to governing authorities in Romans, chapter 13. All legitimate authorities “have been instituted by God” (verse 1) to wield the sword of justice, to establish and execute the law. Aristotle conceives of law as an instrument to make men virtuous. Aquinas sees law as an ordinance of reason for the common good. The aim of the law is what is truly good for the community, and virtue is the guarantor of public order. But Adams recognized that no government could make a man virtuous. Government through its laws could facilitate virtue and create conditions amenable to it; but it cannot communicate virtue. Citizens without morality and religion are simply ungovernable. The manifestations of “unbridled human passions” might be punished externally, but only the moral law engraved in the human heart and inculcated by true religion can make of a man a virtuous citizen contributing to the common welfare of society.
What did the delegates hammer out during that summer of 1787? Here’s how they introduced the product of their labors:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The words we have just heard comprise the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, the founding charter of our nation composed, signed and proclaimed in Philadelphia 238 years ago. We recall our founders’ intention to establish a new nation, a more perfect union, a federation of states conducive to justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, the general welfare of the citizenry and all the blessings of liberty.
Such liberty, if truly a heavenly gift, must be rightly ordered, in other words, ordained to what is truly good and virtuous. We are so made by God that the freedom He grants our nature is a liberty given to us not for vice but for virtue. We are made free to pursue our own well-being so that as good citizens here below, we may attain to the heavenly city at the end of our earthly course. This is the Christian vision of liberty: not license to do as one pleases, but a freedom to pursue the true good that makes one virtuous, a good citizen, and, please God, a future citizen of Heaven.
In its most profound sense beyond the mere political, the “more perfect union,” indeed the ultimate purpose for which we are born, is union with God in this life by grace, and eternal union with Him in glory. While this union is achieved in and through His one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church, no one can deny that the external conditions of our existence in this world are part and parcel of our following of Jesus Christ and the flourishing of our life of supernatural faith. We are at once citizens of Heaven (while faith and grace possess the soul), members of God’s Church, and pilgrim citizens of our beloved homeland. As individuals and as a people bound together by the Providence of God as Americans, we are ever in need of divine assistance to be pleasing to Him. As individuals and as a nation of people, we cannot achieve by human striving alone the high ideals of our calling.
This realization of our inadequacy without the gifts of God to be what God intends us to be and to enable us to wage the good fight with Christ against the various anti-Christian and anti-christ forces should be obvious. Our nation is necessarily involved in a spiritual war, whether we wish to be or not. It is a war aimed at the destruction of our country and the corruption of its citizens. We cannot deliver ourselves and our nation from destruction unless we take supernatural weapons in hand. The Catholic Faith, apostolic Christianity if you will, teaches us what we need to do.
Jesus Christ first laid it out at the beginning of His public ministry: repent and believe the Gospel if you wish to be saved. Repentance is the first step of the soul back to God. If we wish to be saved as a nation, a people, and be blessed by God, we must first acknowledge our sins before God and beg His forgiveness. We mean not just our private and personal sins, but the public sins and crimes which have stained and still do stain our nation in the eyes of God. We cannot expect God’s favor when we publicly and “legally” offend God by, for instance, legalized abortion, sexual perversion, the denial of human nature or government funding of myriad other evils. We must repent of these evils and do all in our power to banish them from national life. Only then will the pardon of God and His blessings be given to us.
Furthermore, in a spirit of repentance for our sins, we must declare our dependence upon Almighty God and restore to Him the honor of public acknowledgement. God is the author of human society and must be honored in all aspects of social life. Our laws must reflect His law, not only the law of nature, but His revealed law. Essentially, the Gospel must at least inspire our human laws as much as possible. When the work of repentance and the reversal and repair of the evils in our society are undertaken, we can be confident that God will graciously regard all who turn to Him in a spirit of humility and with a contrite heart to implore the pardon He alone can give us and our nation.
In Catholic tradition, we believe that God protects and guides us through the angels. Each of us has a guardian angel ever at the ready to aid us. But not many realize that nations and cities have guardian angels as well. The famous history of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima reveals to us that Portugal’s guardian angel is St. Michael the Archangel. I believe God has given the United States a guardian angel as well. Who is it. God knows. As we understand the war for Christian civilization and for the saving and renewal of our nation “under God,” allow me to turn to St. Michael, with no detriment to Portugal, and say the “Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel”:
“St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”
Finally, let me recall to you the words of the first Archbishop of Baltimore at the time of our nascent Republic, and consider the spirit and sentiments which animated him and must animate us today:
Prayer for the government and the nation, composed by Baltimore Archbishop John Carroll in 1791:
‘We pray, O almighty and eternal God, who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.
“We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, the pope, the vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of His Church; our own bishop, all other bishops, prelates and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise among us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.
“We pray, O God of might, wisdom and justice, through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the president of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality.
“Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.
“We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state, for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.
“We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.
“Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed, who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.
Amen.”
As we honor and remember Bill Buckley, his legacy, his principles and the Catholic Faith that shaped him and informed his views of political and social life, I would like to think that my remarks this evening might have invited Mr. Buckley to place me in his “line of fire” by way of engaging conversation had he heard me. Well, you at least have had to listen to me. I hope what you have heard provokes reflection, if not interesting and serious conversation.
– All Honor and Glory to Our Triune God –
Authored by a Humble Catholic Priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
On Behalf of The Wynnewood Institute Founder, Partnerships, Colleagues, Previous speakers, collaborators and Supporters.
Presented at the Union League of Philadelphia – Wednesday, September 17, 2025