By Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

The last page of my passport footnotes, in small print, a quote by the late African American author, Anna Julia Cooper: “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.” Benjamin Franklin said as much. Our Founding Fathers established a new country based on universal principles that would play out in American and World history. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This line from the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence is among the best known in the English language.

This principle played out in another “Declaration,” the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948). Its Preamble begins, “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…” When this Declaration speaks of a “human family” – a universal humanity – it’s implying a shared and common nature endowed by a common Creator.

People naturally love their country and their neighbors. But the Gospel broadens the concept of “neighbor” and proposes a new patriotism, inviting people to love all people who love their countries. The purifying acknowledgment of ancestral sins (everyone has them) helps a nation advance its ancestral virtues. Alexis de Tocqueville commended America’s neighborly “mores” – “habits of the heart” – which formed a friendly social character. Neighborliness, trust, and justice flow from virtuous “habits of the heart”. The “mores” of a good citizen grasp the universality of “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and “of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family…”

A free citizen is a heart cultured by “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31), grasping everyone’s common destiny to a Heavenly City, “from every nation, tribe, race, and tongue” (Revelation 7:9). It’s prophetic. The word “humankind” is a Christian symbol. It suggests a Heavenly City beyond death and judgment, in which “all people of goodwill” are citizens.