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Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

We are living in a time of critique, so much so that it seems sometimes nothing is sacred. I would like all of us to consider this 250th anniversary of our nation’s declaration of independence as a holy moment, despite its shortcomings.

As I understand it, the Gift of the Holy Spirit we received at Confirmation called piety, is not pictured by a saint with their eyes gazing upward, rapt in prayer, hands folded, as is commonly understood by the word pious. Rather, it is the ability to recognize what is sacred in holy things, in people, in moments when God is near. Piety refers to this reverence we have for things created by God; Fear of the Lord, another of the Spirit’s Gifts, is the reverence we have before the ineffable holiness of God, God’s radical “otherness” surpassing our comprehension and even language.

I’ve been reading lately some editorials about our 250th birthday with some concern that the human faults of our Founders might be used as some to discount the integrity of our country’s founding values, particularly with regard to the ownership of enslaved persons. The “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal,” with rights that included life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” was signed by the Founders—two-thirds of whom, 56—were enslavers. And only property-owning men had the right to vote. It was a document that pushed the world forward, though the world was not there yet at the time, toward making what it espoused a reality.

Some found themselves, including Thomas Jefferson (himself an owner of enslaved persons), confronted by the evil of the reality without a solution how to fix it. His original draft of the Declaration included a passage condemning King George III for introducing the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the colonies, calling it a “cruel war against human nature itself” and blamed the King for enslaving people and forcing them into distant lands. When presented to the Second Continental Congress in early July 1776, this passage triggered intense debate and exposed the deep economic and moral divides between the colonies. Virginia was the largest enslaver of all the colonies.

To secure the unity necessary to pass the Declaration, Congress ultimately deleted the entire anti-slavery passage. According to historical records and Jefferson’s own notes, delegates from southern colonies (like South Carolina and Georgia) strongly opposed the clause, while some northern delegates—whose economies were heavily tied to trade
—also supported its removal. It was deemed better to compromise for the possibility of independence and lay the groundwork for further debates that would return during the Constitutional Convention.

If you look one hundred years earlier, English philosopher John Locke defined humanity’s core natural rights as “life, liberty and the pursuit of property.” Jefferson’s change to the pursuit of happiness allowed the Declaration to avoid the elitist implications of only protecting the rights of actual property owners, including enslaved persons as property. Also, some of the Founders attributed “happiness” to civic virtue rather than material wealth.

There is clearly noted a divine origin to these inalienable rights acknowledged as being given by the Creator. It is not clear what this actually meant to the Founders whose religions ranged from Deism, Rationalism and orthodox Christianity.

Deists like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine rejected ortho-dox doctrines like the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, instead viewing God as a ration-al “clockmaker” who set the universe in motion but does not intervene in daily life. Jefferson notoriously created his own version of the Bible—removing Jesus’ miracles and other supernatural elements.

But you can still see God working through them. The right to life is something that was presumed in their day by all people, perhaps more so than today. The right to liberty from a secular perspective included the right to personal freedom and self-determination. Jefferson’s later Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (January 1777) went on to become the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing complete freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state, establishing a sacred space where people of all religions may worship as their conscience dictates. Still today, that sacred space is called the United States of America, a place of welcome for all people. Happy Independence Day!

The Lord be with you,