Catholics and the Fourth of July

On the Fourth of July, it is a good idea for us Angeleno Catholics to reflect on the service and sacrifices of our fellow American Catholics in the U.S. military.

Catholics have always been overrepresented in our Nation's military, and consequently in the rolls of the dead and wounded in our country's wars. So we must not ever let anyone tell us we have no right to cite our Faith in the public forum; our forebears and our children have bought and paid for that right with their very blood in mortal combat to preserve our Liberty.

The Catholic poet-patriot Joyce Kilmer was one of them; he died in action in France in World War I. His poem "Prayer of a Soldier in France" (click on this post's title) is a noble expression of Catholic and soldierly idealism, and it makes a wonderful Fourth of July prayer.

Many a Catholic youth from L.A., many a Murphy and Ramirez and Grabowski, lies in the Bivouac of the Dead, awaiting the Archangel's trumpet at the final muster. Honor to them, each and all, on this Independence Day and always! May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.