This July, our nation marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a milestone that invites celebration, reflection, and renewal. From its beginning, our country was grounded in a bold moral claim: that all people are created equal and endowed with inherent dignity. Our history reveals both noble achievements (such as providing a social and economic context in which virtually anyone with an idea and hard work can become economically and socially successful) and painful failures (such as the scourge of slavery and Jim Crow racism). As Americans, and particularly as Catholics, we need to measure ourselves honestly against that founding conviction of inherent human dignity and to recommit to it.

Human dignity remains the cornerstone of both a just society and Catholic social teaching. Dignity is not something a person earns through hard work, citizenship, or social status. It belongs to every human person because we are made in the image of God: “God created mankind in his image,” (Gn. 1:27) and this means all of us, without exception. When public policy and practice lose sight of this truth, freedom can erode into something reserved for only a select few.  It loses its moral anchor.

The moral health of our nation, therefore, requires that policies and institutions protect life and advance human rights.  The Church advocates in the public square for the protection of life and human dignity from conception to natural death. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, says, “...[S]ociety is never done but must be built anew again and again starting from conscience, which is the only way of securing it.” Our consciences require sound moral formation, in which we learn to use our freedom not just for ourselves but for the good of all. (Church, Ecumenism, and Politics, p. 205).

Closely connected to human dignity are solidarity and the common good.  The common good, understood as the social conditions that allow individuals and communities to reach their fulfillment, asks us to look beyond our own interests and ask: How do our choices—economic, political, and cultural—serve everyone? In particular, how do they serve the poor, the marginalized, and future generations? Pope Francis claimed that the “right of some to free enterprise or free markets cannot supersede the rights of peoples and the dignity of the podor, or, for that matter, respect for the natural environment, for ‘if we make something our own, it is only to administer it for the good of all’” (Fratelli Tutti, n.122).

As a Church, we have an essential role in the public square, not as political partisans, but as moral witnesses. We do not endorse political candidates or parties. What we offer is a vision rooted in the Gospel: that every person has equal dignity, that freedom must serve justice, and that we are responsible for each other, especially for the least among us.

I was moved by the words our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, offered just this past April. He wrote that “democracy remains healthy…only when rooted in the moral law and a true vision of the human person. Lacking this foundation, it risks becoming either a majoritarian tyranny or a mask for the dominance of economic and technological elites." Moreover, Leo notes that the moral virtues of individuals are indispensable for the building of a just society. He says,

“[W]e know that justice and fortitude are indispensable for sound decision-making and for putting decisions into practice. Temperance also proves essential for the legitimate use of authority, for true temperance restrains inordinate self-exaltation and acts as a guardrail against the abuse of power" (Letter to the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, 14-16 April 2026; emphasis mine).

As we mark this anniversary, I encourage us as Catholics to ask a simple but serious question: What can I do as a person of faith to help heal the wounds of our society – the polarization, the political violence, the sense that we are more divided than united?

Let this milestone be a jubilee of conscience, a moment to renew our commitment to human dignity, to reach across the divides that separate us, and to pursue the common good with genuine hope. In doing so, we help our beloved country to grow toward its highest ideals. To this end, the Catholic bishops of the United States will consecrate the country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus at our biannual gathering on June 11, 2026, just weeks before Independence Day. Let us all pray and work together for “a more perfect union.”

+Oscar Cantu