pledge of allegiance – Madison Catholic Herald Archive (2001-2025)

To the editor:

Thank you for your editorial, “We’re better than this!” in the November 1 Catholic Herald. The vision that all men are created equal anchors our respect for each other and inspires our behavior toward each other.

This belief moved our country’s founders to break away from the British Empire, to declare independence, and begin the process of developing a workable self-governing system. Neighboring Canada, for instance, did not have such an inspiration and remained a part of the British empire for decades.

Concerned about powers of the U.S. Supreme Court

To the editor:

Thomas Jefferson had some very grave concerns about the powers of the United States Supreme Court. In a letter he wrote in 1820 he voiced his concerns: “You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges . . . and their power [are] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.”

In 1962 the Supreme Court removed state-sponsored prayer from public schools (Engel v. Vitale). In 1965 it tossed a law preventing married couples from buying contraceptives by creating a “right to privacy” (Griswold v. Connecticut).

Making America truly beautiful

One of America’s greatest blessings is the Declaration of Independence. Its preamble reads, “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.”

For years, America failed to live up to some of the noble principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence. One of these failures was tolerating legalized slavery. In 1865 the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery as a legal institution. But after slavery was abolished, many former slaves were denied some of their God-given rights in other ways.

For years women were also denied the right to vote. In August of 1920, 144 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.