The White House issued a presidential message June 11 supporting the U.S. bishops’ consecration of the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“Today, Melania and I join in prayer with Catholic Bishops gathered in Orlando, Florida, as they consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the occasion of our 250th year of American Independence — a powerful moment in our national story and a poignant reminder that America has always been guided by the loving hand of God,” Trump’s message began.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) are performing the consecration during their Spring Plenary Assembly this week.
June 12 — the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart — marks the anniversary of a historic turning point toward the end of the communist regime, the statement noted. The President’s message also emphasized the importance of recommitment to defending the nation’s spiritual identity and protecting the country against ideologies that currently threaten it.
“Even in the centuries before the United States was conceived in nationhood, America was a land of prayer, a place of miracles, and home to some of the most faithful and devoted Christians to ever live,” Trump’s message said. “From the heroic bands of Christian missionaries, settlers, and explorers who tamed the unknown to spread the Gospel to the priests, chaplains, and churchgoers who forged our spirit in every generation since, the love of Jesus Christ has stood at the center of our identity and way of life.”
The message recalled that Bishop John Carroll — the first Catholic bishop in the U.S. and cousin of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence — consecrated the nation to the Blessed Mother. The President hailed the USCCB’s act of consecration as “yet another historic milestone” in a “grand legacy of faith in America.”
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Noting that Christians across the U.S. and the world will celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus June 12, Trump’s message stated that the feast day “also fittingly marks the anniversary of one of the most momentous days in Western civilization’s long twilight struggle against atheistic communism.”
On this day in 1987, President Ronald Reagan made his famous speech calling on Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” That same year, Pope St. John Paul II gave a stirring address to young people in Poland.
Both leaders’ speeches pointed to the importance of the human spirit and fighting against its suppression. Trump’s message recalled that in Reagan’s speech, he said the East and West’s “most fundamental distinction” is that “the totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship.”
St. John Paul II gave his address on the Westerplatte peninsula, where, during World War II, about 200 Polish soldiers survived seven days of attacks by thousands of German troops. The pope told the youth that they would encounter their own personal “Westerplatte,” Trump recalled, and the Holy Father urged his Polish audience not to desert when the challenge arose.
The pope concluded by quoting a Polish martyr who said, “More horrifying than a defeat of arms is the defeat of the human spirit.”
Trump’s message praised Reagan’s and St. John Paul II’s moral leadership, as well the efforts of many around the world and the moral witness of millions who suffered under communism. Thanks to all of them, the message read, “the godless forces of Soviet communism were vanquished — and the human spirit triumphed.”
Now, American culture again faces “a new set of menacing ideologies” that aim “to cast God out from our society,” the President's message stated. “But today, as Catholic Bishops consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this 250th year of our Independence, we recommit ourselves, like President Reagan and Pope Saint John Paul II, to defending our spiritual identity and great civilizational inheritance.”
“Above all,” Trump concluded, “we pray that America will continue for the next 250 years, and beyond, to be a land of faith, a country of miracles, and a light and glory to all nations.”