More than 700 people gathered at the La Crosse Center in Wisconsin June 13 for a patriotic prayer rally as the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary, hearing from Cardinal Raymond Burke, Michael Knowles, Kelsey Reinhardt, and others who called for a renewed sense of love of country that flows from love of God.
Organized by CatholicVote, the Zeale for America 250 Rally marked a day of joyful celebration of the country’s heritage, while aiming to inspire the faithful to commit to regular prayer for the nation going forward.
“We are celebrating America’s first 250 years with our eyes focused on her future,” CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt told Zeale News. “John Adams once said: ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’ His words are no less true today. We need Americans committed to pray daily for the sincere renewal of our country that only God can bring.”
“That is the purpose of the Zeale for America 250 Rally,” she said. “Livestreaming the event makes it possible for Americans nationwide to be part of this historic moment of prayer, patriotism and spiritual pilgrimage. We hope it will inspire all people of goodwill to pray for our country and her people.”
Ahead of the rally’s main event, attendees had opportunities for the Sacrament of Confession, veneration of a relic of the True Cross seeing a Shroud of Turin exhibit. They could also browse vendors’ tables, which ranged from pro-life coffee to books and Catholic-inspired apparel and other fashion. Outside the event center next to the Mississippi River, attendees also explored the Freedom Truck, an interactive “mobile museum” spotlighting historic moments throughout the country’s earliest years of independence.
The official program of the rally began at 3 p.m. at the event center’s ballroom, where Steve Cortes offered welcome remarks. The La Crosse County Sheriff’s Office then led the Color Guard, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by U.S. Air Force Reservist Lt. Col. Andrew DeBerry. Catholic country artist Bradley Banning sang the National Anthem.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, bishop emeritus of La Crosse, then led the opening prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for America’s 250th anniversary. Immediately following, Norbertine Father Ambrose Criste led the hundreds of attendees in praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The quiet, prayerful recollection directed the attention of the room beyond the immediate gathering, imploring God’s mercy upon the whole world as participants contemplated Christ’s passion.
Cardinal Burke: A country’s laws must uphold the natural law
Cardinal Burke, who yesterday consecrated the U.S. to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, gave an address exploring themes of the common good, objective moral law, political law, and how patriotism helps to protect the common good.
“Patriotism is not nationalism, that is, the worship of the nation as an end in itself,” the cardinal explained. “Patriotism is the respect and love of the nation which, after the family, the first cell of human society, is the irreplaceable servant of the common good.”
His address considered the philosophical and theological grounding of the natural law, explaining how the political order must uphold this law in order to facilitate citizens’ flourishing.
“Democracy and the laws which govern it must be founded upon right reason,” he said, “distinguishing ends from purposes, and respecting fully the natural law which God has written upon every human heart.”
The Church must witness to the importance of grounding the political order in precepts of the natural moral law, which remains unchanging throughout times and cultures, the cardinal emphasized.
“As we rejoice today in the Declaration of Independence and the truth and freedom for which it stands, let us pray that our nation may be always God-fearing,” he concluded, “that is, faithful to its relationship with God and, therefore, obedient to His law written upon the human heart. Let this be our daily prayer for our nation.”
Cardinal Burke also later returned to the stage to provide the closing blessing, which he imparted with a relic of the True Cross.
Kelsey Reinhardt calls on American Catholics to be saints
During her address, Reinhardt outlined how prominent Catholics have had profound impact on U.S. history, citing St. Father Isaac Jogues, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, St. Nazianz, St. Cloud, St. Germain, St. Marie, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Katherine Drexel, Venerable Father Augustus Tolton, Father Edward Flanagan, Sister Blandina Segale, and many others.
“Everywhere, at every turn, in every age and in every corner of this republic, the American saint plowed and planted, dedicated and determined to remind men and women that they are made in the image of God,” Reinhardt said, “and therefore capable of becoming like Him.”
Saints are needed today more than ever. In the present-day, Reinhardt observed, much of the U.S. “is in darkness,” pointing to pornography, abortion, no-fault divorce, ideology in schools, and widespread blasphemy and vulgarity in entertainment.
It is tempting, and even understandable, Reinhardt acknowledged, to despair in the face of these challenges.
“But let us, for a moment, anchor our hope not in present circumstances but in proven reality,” she said. “Let us remember when The Bells of Saint Mary’s and The Song of Bernadette represented the highest artistry in our land. When Catholic schools turned out not just scholars but citizens, gentlemen, and gentlewomen.”
“Let us go further back — to when Los Angeles was truly a city meant to honor the angels, to when the streets of San Francisco were consecrated ground before they were gold rush territory,” she continued. “Let us go all the way back to that first Mass offered on a beach in Saint Augustine, Florida, on a September day in 1565, with broken shells scattered across the sand — when someone knelt before the Blessed Sacrament and called down upon this new land the graces purchased by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ.”
Reinhardt said that prayer was heard, visible in fruits across the continent, and said these reflections are not mere nostalgia but evidence “that evil is not inevitable.”
“Wherever evil had its way — in leper colonies and broken cities, in plague wards and the frontier, in Hollywood or the home — grace came, saints came, and beat it back, and made justice flourish,” Reinhardt said, to which the crowd responded with applause. “Every hospital, every school, every orphanage, every peace treaty brokered by a Jesuit in a war canoe — yes, that happened — every nighttime prayer of children tucked in by mother and father is proof: the future is not one of inevitable decline.”
To bring about this renewal, American Catholics must act, primarily through prayer, as well as through love of one’s neighbor and country, according to Reinhardt.
Being a saint is an adventure, she emphasized.
“The beauty of it — the extraordinary, overwhelming beauty — is this: You and I are not called to admire the American saints who came before us,” Reinhardt concluded. “We are called to be the ones who come next. Go forward bravely!”
Michael Knowles: ‘God made us for this time, and for this place’
In his keynote address, Knowles said America is more Catholic today than at its founding because the American Revolution was a “conservative revolution.” Colonists fought to preserve their rights and traditions rather than overthrow them, an instinct he said aligns with Catholicism's role of preserving inherited truth.
He reflected on the emerging trend observed by Pew Research and others; namely, that adult conversions to the Church are on the rise, bringing an increased Catholic presence across the nation.
Offering his perspective on this trend, Knowles noted that founders like Jefferson drew, often unknowingly, on ideas that trace back through Jesuit theologians to St. Thomas Aquinas. Knowles also cited 19th-century convert Orestes Brownson, who said that Catholics are “better fitted by their religion to comprehend the real character of the American Constitution than any other class of Americans."
Knowles cited several figures about Catholics in public life and noted that Catholics make up roughly 20% of the U.S. population but hold about 28% of seats in Congress, 38% of governorships, at least two-thirds of the Supreme Court, and that every plausible 2028 presidential contender in either party is at least nominally Catholic.
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However, Knowles noted that there is a temptation among conservatives, and conservative Catholics in particular, to lament “the decline of the West,” or long for a past era.
“It is tempting to lament our political problems, to wish that we were born in a different age,” he said. “This is something conservatives love to do. We all think we were born in the wrong era.”
But he reminded those present of God’s divine providence, especially in this current moment. He observed there is a “generational resurgence” of Catholic faith in the U.S., coinciding with the election of the first American pope, and called on attendees to build on that momentum as the country approaches its 250th anniversary.
“We were not supposed to be born in a different time, in a different place,” he said. “We were not, no matter how much we joke about it, think about it. We were not. God made us for this time and for this place.”
@michaeljknowles tells attendees at the Zeale for America 250 Rally: "It is tempting to lament our political problems, to wish that we were born in a different age. This is something conservatives love to do. We all think we were born in the wrong era."
— Zeale News (@ZealeNews) June 13, 2026
"We were not supposed to… pic.twitter.com/G9kdRcIfr4
Knowles ended his speech by telling the crowd, “There is no time or place in which I would rather live. There is no cause for which I would rather fight, and there are no people that I would rather fight alongside than you.”