In the latest installment of the “Virtue of Patriotism” series ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary, Cardinal Raymond Burke said love of one’s homeland expresses gratitude for God’s providence, framing devotion to country as a response to the people and place through which God orders human life.
The second episode of "The Virtue of Patriotism," produced by the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and hosted on CatholicVote's Zeale for America 250 campaign page, builds on the series' opening themes by grounding patriotism in gratitude and tracing it directly to God's ordering of human life.
"God in his unfathomable wisdom and loving providence has not created us as isolated beings left to fashion ourselves according to our own designs," Cardinal Burke says in the episode. "From the first moment of our existence, he places each of us within a particular family and a particular nation."
The cardinal says one's homeland is not "a mere accident of geography" but belongs to the divine plan by which God forms his sons and daughters through culture and community.
He directly addresses ideologies he says seek to sever the bond between people and their homelands.
"Certain ideologies seek to weaken this sacred bond by promoting a vision of humanity detached from history and place, as if man could thrive without the roots God has given him," Cardinal Burke says.
The Church teaches us that we cannot love humanity in the abstract by failing to love the community in which God has placed us," he says. "Charity begins with the neighbor God gives us and radiates outward from there."
The episode closes with a prayer consecrating the U.S. to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, timed to the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. Burke invokes Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, asking that the country be purified from sin and guided in truth, justice, and peace so that it may safeguard all human life, respect the integrity of marriage and the family, and honor the practice of religion.
Each episode includes discussion questions designed to prompt reflection on civic duty, gratitude for one’s homeland, and ways to promote the common good.
The series, which releases new episodes every two weeks, is free to view for registered users. Registrants are notified as each episode becomes available.
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