The Forgotten Virtue of Patriotism

As the United States commemorates the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of its founding, I have been reflecting on the virtue of patriotism. I want to share a few comments about why patriotism is one of these essential virtues, and what kind of love of country is worthy of a Catholic man.

Let me begin with a claim that might surprise you: patriotism is not, first and foremost, a political virtue. It is a religious one. It flows from the Fourth Commandment, honor your father and mother, and it can rightly be understood as a form of familial love extended outward. Saint Thomas Aquinas classified patriotism under the virtue of piety, which he treats as a part of justice. He asks a simple question: to whom do we owe something, simply because of who they are to us, apart from any contract or transaction?

His answer is that after God, we are debtors chiefly to two groups: our parents and our country. In his words, “the principles of our being and government are our parents and our country, which have given us birth and nourishment. Consequently, man is debtor chiefly to his parents and his country, after God.”¹ Just as it belongs to religion to worship God, Aquinas says, so it belongs to piety, in the second place, to give honor to our parents and our country.

Notice what this means. Just as each of us owes our family something we do not owe strangers—not because our family is objectively more valuable than other people, but because of the unique relationship we have with them—so too patriotism is a recognition of a similar debt of gratitude owed to our country. It is not a claim that our nation is superior to every other nation on earth. It is a claim that this nation, with all its imperfections, is the one through which God chose to give us life, language, liberty, and the countless ordinary gifts that make everything else in our lives possible. This applies to each of us, whether we are Americans, Mexicans, Canadians, Lithuanians, and so on.

Patriotism is a virtue for all people of every nation.

This is not a private theological opinion of mine, or even only of Saint Thomas. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the same thing in almost the identical language: “The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity” (CCC #2239). Notice that word: gratitude. Not blind allegiance, not tribal pride, but gratitude, the same virtue that should animate a son toward the mother who raised him. The Church has never asked us to love our country instead of loving God, or to love it more than we love the truth. She has simply recognized what most people already know, that we owe something real to the place that gave us life, and that ignoring this debt is a form of ingratitude.

Most of us did not choose our country, just as none of us chose our parents. Our country shaped so much of who we are, sometimes for ill, but far more often for good. According to our faith, none of this is accidental. Divine Providence placed each of us in our particular circumstances, our particular family, and our particular place of origin and national identity. Our Heavenly Father positioned each of us in this moment, in these circumstances, and in this place for a reason. Our love of country, and our desire for it to be more just and more perfect, is not merely sentiment. It is a participation in God’s providential plan for our lives and for the lives of those who will come after us.

Now, I want to be very clear about something, because love of country can go wrong, and go wrong badly. Patriotism, rightly understood, is not the same thing as nationalism. Patriotism is not a matter of uncritically affirming everything our country has done, excusing its injustices, or treating its power and prestige as ends in themselves. Nationalism, in contrast, tends to elevate the nation to the status of an idol, something owed a total and unconditional loyalty that properly belongs only to God. It resents correction. It rejects the suggestion that the nation could ever be wrong.

Patriotism, by contrast, is more like the love a good son has for his mother. He honors her, he defends her, he is grateful to her, and precisely because he loves her, he also tells her the truth when she has strayed, and he works to help her become the woman God intended her to be. A patriot can grieve his country’s sins without ceasing to love his country. In fact, that grief is often the clearest sign that love is real.

This is why authentic patriotism and Christian conscience were never meant to be enemies. Loving and serving our country is a fitting response to what we have received from it, much as a grown child feels obligated to care for aging parents, not because the parents earned it through perfect behavior, but because of the bond itself. That same charity requires us to love our neighbors, to be good citizens, to obey just authority, and to work for the common good of all our fellow citizens—not merely for those who share our background, or our politics, or our faith. Love of country should impel us towards peace, towards justice for the poor and the vulnerable, and towards the kind of civic friendship that has always been harder to sustain than either indifference or tribalism, which today often takes the form of an extreme partisanship.

What does this look like in practice? It looks like voting with a properly formed conscience rather than staying home because politics feels distasteful. It looks like engaging in civil society according to our state in life. It looks like paying what we owe in taxes honestly, showing up for our neighbors during tragedies, and teaching our sons and daughters to stand for the flag, not because a law requires it, but because gratitude requires it. For many men, it has meant something far weightier: risking your lives in the uniform of your country, and for the families of these servicemen, it has meant the harder vigil of waiting at home. None of this is an optional extracurricular activity added onto the Faith; it flows from the Faith itself.

A properly ordered patriotism begins with God, not with the nation. If we place love of country above love of God, we have not achieved a purer patriotism. We have committed idolatry with a flag instead of a golden calf. But if we put God first, our love of country becomes stronger and more durable, because it is no longer resting on the nation’s ability to make us comfortable or proud. It rests instead on gratitude to the God who placed us here.

The Psalmist understood this centuries before there was a United States of America to love: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12). Any nation, including our own, is blessed precisely to the degree that it orders itself under God, and it drifts into danger whenever it forgets Him.

This anniversary year gives all of us a providential opportunity. Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of colonists risked everything on the conviction that human beings possess a dignity no government grants and no government may licitly strip away—a conviction, we should note, with deeply Christian roots. That is a patrimony worth handing on. Unfortunately, love of country is not something many schools reliably teach anymore, and, in some classrooms, it is treated with outright suspicion. But it remains an obligation for all of us, and this anniversary is the perfect occasion to take up that obligation deliberately, especially with our own children and grandchildren.

Teach them what it cost to build this country, and what it costs to keep it. Tell them, just as importantly, where it fell and falls short, and how each generation is called to help close that gap. A love of country that is honest about that history, and grateful anyway, is exactly the kind of patriotism Catholic men need to model.

The strength of a nation is ultimately grounded in the strength of its families and its faith communities. We must demonstrate that fidelity to the Church and fidelity to America are not in competition. We must insist that faith and citizenship belong together. And we must call for patriotism without apology.

So let me leave you with this. Honor your country as you honor your parents: with gratitude, with loyalty, and with honesty that never mistakes flattery for love. Put God first and let your patriotism flow from that priority rather than compete with it. Teach your children that love of country is a debt of gratitude, not a slogan, and gratitude is an attribute of a Christian man.

The bishops of the United States recently consecrated America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This was not an imposition of the Faith on a secular order, but an act of patriotism that desires our beloved country to live more deeply from the heart of Him who makes all people free. And in this anniversary year, let us ask Our Lady to intercede for this nation, that it may become ever more worthy of the sacrifices that built it and ever more faithful to the God who has blessed it.

(Note: This essay/address was posted originally on the “What We Need Now” site and is posted here with kind permission.)

Endnote:

¹ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q101, A1, Resp.