T
TK421
Guest
"The Fourth of July evokes so many images: Fireworks, fife and drum corps, the Liberty Bell and … old men in miters dressed in white.
Yes, the popes belong on that list.
On his 2015 visit to America, Pope Francis sounded like a Fourth of July speaker.
Pope Francis stood proudly outside Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and said: “The Declaration of Independence stated that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments exist to protect and defend those rights.”
He praised the “ringing words” that “have inspired peoples throughout the world to fight for freedom” and added that they “must constantly be reaffirmed, re-appropriated and defended.”
St. John Paul II often told Americans to rediscover and reapply our founding principles. Before leaving Baltimore in 1995 he warned that if democracy loses its moral foundation it would be “shaken to its foundations.”
But “The United States possesses a safeguard, a great bulwark, against this happening,” he said. “I speak of your founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.”…