Patriotic Holidays: Catholic Misgivings

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | May 26, 2014

Each year in the United States, on both Independence Day and Memorial Day, I have decidedly mixed feelings. This is especially true at Masses which emphasize American “freedom” and honor all those in the armed forces who have “died for our freedom”. There is a certain myth-making which is part of our history (and, I suppose, the history of all nations), and I find it problematic.

With each passing year, for example, it becomes increasingly dubious to praise the alleged freedoms of the American secular paradise, especially in Church, and especially in quasi-messianic language. Some of the hymns we sing are very nearly blasphemous (for example, the words “as He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free” in the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and “Long may our land be bright with Freedom’s holy light”, which is one of several highly objectionable lines in America (My Country ‘tis of Thee)).

The hymns and sentiments too often smack of the “city on the hill” image which has been so powerful in American history, the idea that by a special dispensation of Providence, the United States has been established as a light to the nations (another blasphemous metaphor). Not only do such sentiments potentially warp the hearts of Americans, but they have absolutely no place in a Catholic Church, which exists to extend the mission of Jesus Christ, not George Washington or Abraham Lincoln…or Barack Obama.

It does not help that Americans have seldom understood freedom in a fundamental spiritual way, or that even our much-vaunted political freedoms are waning rapidly, as they are progressively redefined to serve anti-Christian purposes.

Then there is the problem of our military. By any objective standard, it is difficult to look back on American history without realizing that not all our battles have been fought with nobility of purpose for just causes. No, it is clear that America has not infrequently been motivated by self-interest, at times exhibiting a wanton disregard for human life. Of course, soldiers can be noble and courageous even when their political masters have put them in harm’s way without a sufficient (or even a good) reason.

Still, we must admit that it is hardly the case that all our soldiers have been inspired by worthy motives. A great many in American history have (despite their freedom songs) been forced to fight, or have fought because they were raised to believe it was noble to respond to their country’s call, or have enlisted based on some transient excitement which soon passed, or have simply made their living as soldiers, whether they valued the job for other reasons or not. Deserters have been executed here, just as they have been everywhere else.

Moral Ambiguity

Again, this does not lessen true valor, where it exists, nor does it suggest we should not honor the dead, whether they were heroes or villains or, more often, something in between. But on certain days of the year, there is a lot of posturing about such things to maintain our national myths. And this posturing continues to lead idealistic young men and women to commit themselves to a form of service which, if they were to look more closely, would reveal—perhaps at best—significant moral ambiguity.

Acceptance of moral ambiguity in our commitments is not always avoidable, nor is it necessarily wrong. But the modern State is an enormous power, from which there is seldom an easy escape. If the State’s ambiguities are to be accepted in military service, they should be accepted with open eyes, and with a robust sense of moral limits—by which I mean a martyr’s sense of moral limits.

These reflections do not apply only to America, of course. I am an American, and today is our Memorial Day, and certainly America’s power poses special dangers to the judgment of her citizens. But these reflections still apply to every country on earth. And everywhere they apply, they make me uneasy.

Instead of being uneasy, I would prefer to see exactly the thing that is increasingly missing—citizens who are well-formed morally and spiritually. Part of that formation should engender a healthy patriotism, a genuine love for the place and the people and the fruitful cultural and civic arrangements which have given us much and to which, as with our families, we owe a proper attachment simply because they are peculiarly our own.

But we ought not to deify our nations and their purposes. Even if we permit a dose of hyperbole on special civic days, we should remain aware of the difference between fact and fiction. If we praise some political ideal, we ought at the same time to recognize how imperfect is the ideal, how little we have lived up to it, and how prone it is to self-serving abuse. I freely grant that patriotic holidays need not be abolished. But if the typical excesses of their celebration do not make us uneasy, then we must—in our own civic sensibilities—make more room for Christ.