REV. ERIC W. SILVAPASTOR · St. Joseph

Pastor's Corner for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

On this Independence weekend where we come together to celebrate the 250th birthday of our nation, we give thanks to God for the principles upheld and promulgated by our nation's forefathers. The very first amendment of our Constitution establishes our freedom of religion. It prohibits the government from establishing a national religion, endorsing a specific faith, or favoring one religion over another. This ensures the government remains neutral regarding religion and acts as a separation between church and state. It also protects the liberty of individuals to practice their faith (or choose no faith at all) without government interference. In so many areas of the world, the faithful are prohibited from living out their faith publicly and to its fullest extent, whether that be through various forms of persecution or simply through cultural or societal pressures to forgo their faith. While our country is far from a Catholic oligarchy and even farther from perfect, this nation allows us to live out our faith in freedom. We are seeing an unprecedented return to the faith in our country and even if these individuals are coming to know the faith and the person of Jesus Christ for the first time, I would assert that it is still a "return to the faith" because whether we know it or not, this country was founded as a Christian nation. "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." These truths and rights could otherwise not be selfevident or unalienable without our God. The equality to which we owe each human person is given to us by God Himself and cannot be given nor taken away, but only violated or upheld. While not explicitly stated, it is undeniable that the principles upheld in our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence are founded on Christian ideals. There are many threats that we may see in our culture today but if we see secularization of our country as a genuine threat, I would argue that it is not so much a threat from the top down as it is a threat from the bottom up. Our country allows us to live the faith so if the faithful truly live out their faith, a democracy could do nothing less than listen and obey the will of the people whose desire it is to live out the will of God. If we see corrupt systems, it is because it waits for you, the faithful, to join and remedy them. If we see corrupt politicians, it is because those oƯices are waiting for you, the faithful, to rise to the occasion and take on those roles as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. There is a separation between Church and State but there can be no separation between the State and the People; if those People remain faithful to God and to the Church, how can we not have the kind of country that God looks down upon with His loving approval. On this Independence Day Weekend, I want to wish you all the happiest Fourth of July and I hope that my love for this country is shared amongst all of you as well. God bless the United States of America and God bless all of you!

In Christ & Mary,

Father Silva