On the difference between Patrick Henry and Jesus Christ

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 23, 2026

As the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States draws near, Americans remember Patrick Henry’s stirring lament to the participants in the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775: “Gentlemen may cry peace, peace—but there is no peace!” This was the same address in which he even more famously avowed, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” Sadly, in the context of England’s attempt to retain control of her own colonies, these sentiments, even if not quite silly, were at least overblown.

It never ceases to amaze me how frequently great rhetoric has been hitched to dubious causes, among which we might class all purely human causes, for they cannot hope to bring anything like a true and lasting peace. Indeed, one might well observe that there is something in the so-called American Revolution (and in the vast majority of human causes) which calls to mind Brutus’ attempt to rouse Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

It ought not to surprise us that Brutus here speaks exclusively in secular and even selfish terms. And, really, how much has changed since ancient Rome—or Elizabethan England? Are not the desires of our contemporaries (and too often ourselves) normally linked to worldly advancement and prosperity, with far too little recognition of how God Himself brings about the Good—that is, not through the power to dominate (which He surely possesses) but through charity, sacrifice and even suffering?

It ought to be unthinkable that those who preferred not to participate in a revolution against England in the 1700s, or worked against it, were considered traitors, lost their possessions, and were sometimes executed. The birth of the United States as a separate nation may have been inevitable, but was it truly and consistently just?

Objectivity or the lack thereof

Of course, with the birth of nations, strict justice only rarely enters into the process. (Even Europe’s “possession” of the New World, though once adjudicated by a pope, was historically and morally ludicrous.) An even more vexing consideration is that the mere cessation of warfare is not at all the true definition of peace. Some things, of course, are worth fighting for, as a matter of self-defense or of the protection of the innocent. But to see the real worth of any conflict, we must be able to look beyond our own personal, regional and national interests. If we could ever judge complex situations objectively rather than in terms of our own interests and desires, we might well resort to armed conflict less often, preferring instead genuinely equitable settlements.

Unfortunately, we humans find it very difficult to adopt a perspective which puts the needs and desires and goals of others on a level with our own, and weighs them with justice. Since that difficulty afflicts all sides, most of us tend to endure hardship unwillingly, as a personal affront. Worse still, we tend to identify hardship as anything that conflicts with our own desires, and we prefer to ascribe the blame exclusively to the deficiencies of others, whether these others are persons or nations. Moreover, there is scarcely anything on earth which is habitually assessed less objectively than the differences between nations or, within each nation, between classes or groups.

It is this lack of objectivity, this inability to see beyond human passions, which lies at the root of the very consistent failure to achieve a purely human peace. Indeed, it is almost impossible even to conceive of peace, let alone achieve it, when we conceptualize it in terms of our natural human desires. Few of us have the ability to transcend our own desires to achieve a genuinely objective view of the state of things, let alone sufficient knowledge to understand the state of things, let alone either the wisdom to discern the best solutions or the selflessness to put the interests of others on a par with our own.

Moreover, to put the interests of others actually ahead of our own, even when some redress is called for, is typically unthinkable. And this is true even with respect to abstract constructions like our “national interest”. We humans instinctively take sides. As peacemakers, we are seldom naturally blessed. Indeed, any purely “natural blessing” may well be a contradiction in terms.

My peace I give to you

There is an excellent “word study” on “Peace” in The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible (p. 2107 of the full Bible). It points out that the word “peace” is used 92 times in the New Testament, and that it “has more to do with spiritual welfare than the mere cessation of warfare”. Indeed, “Peace is one of the great blessings that Jesus Christ has given to the world (Jn 14:27). It is rooted in our reconciliation with God (Lk 2:14; Rom 5:1).” The word study goes on to state:

Unless it is grounded in the peace of Christ, worldly peace can only be shallow and short-lived. For this reason, believers are called to spread Christ’s peace throughout the world by sharing the gospel and working for justice in earthly societies.

This word study wisely suggests that there are both supernatural and natural foundations for peace. As one who has observed the Church’s approach to peace around the world since the final and apparently irrevocable collapse of the Western Christian consensus in the last third of the twentieth century, I would argue that the Church’s emphasis on peace has too often favored “working for justice in earthly societies”, over which the Church has very little influence, to the detriment of proclaiming the gospel, which emanates from the Church’s supernatural authority and power, and which disposes to justice all who receive it.

It seems to me, at least, that there has been even in the Church a recent tendency to favor the politics of human reason over conversion to Jesus Christ. Indeed, I sense that the Church has fallen to some considerable extent into the modern habit of emphasizing the points of human reason which accord with the Gospel without emphasizing the Gospel itself. This tendency may find a more immediate welcome in the larger society, but it is a significant departure from what Our Lord proclaimed when he began his public ministry, immediately after the imprisonment of John the Baptist:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the Gospel. [Mk 1:15]

The only way forward

In all her floundering around since the final and definitive collapse of Christian attitudes and platitudes in the dominant culture of the West in the 1960s, the Church has tended more and more to speak to the world in the world’s own terms, to satisfy herself too often with whatever those who happen to hear her are already able to understand. It may be relevant here that the great modern declarations of human rights were secularized developments from a decidedly Christian context. But such declarations and the secular approach they represent may be impossible for most people to fully grasp without that context. This in itself would be a sufficient explanation for the modern profusion of bogus “rights” which, by deliberately opening the way for immorality, undermine the entire “rights” project.

In other words, a secular rational approach on the part of the Church is proving woefully insufficient. Sweet reason, after all, is habitually bound in human chains, and tailored to human desires. Catholics ought to understand what Patrick Henry tended to overlook, that even reason must be liberated in order to be itself, for even reason is held hostage to Satan by Original Sin. Moreover, Satan’s most important rule is that reason must be continuously turned into rationalization. In other words, reason must remain in its fallen state, where it is useful for the justification of evil; above all, it must not be aided by grace—a point reinforced by the studied secularity of almost every modern declaration of rights.

Now, have not the members of the Church at every level too often fallen into the trap of preaching the Gospel of reason, when what we most pressingly need is the Gospel of Christ? Reason is important, but reason cannot save us, for even reason does not function well without grace. Human reason itself must be redeemed. This is still the missing element for so many whose lives we fear to disturb. But if we have not saved ourselves from mere reason, how should they?

No, the message must be Christ and Him crucified. As St. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “[T]he peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:7). In the midst of platitudes and sweet reason, neither the Church nor her members can afford to forget the very first principle of our redeemed existence, which depends on the recognition that reason is never enough. We may leave the high-blown rhetoric to men and women like Patrick Henry, who was not a Catholic. But the truth is both greater and more precise. The truth is that human aspiration is always insufficient, because only Christ saves.