Senator Rick Santorum
Commencemet Address at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, on May 17, 2003.
Complete text:
http://www.christendom.edu/news/ricksantorum.shtml
I celebrate this commencement because I have the confidence that the intellectual and moral virtues which you've developed here at Christendom have truly prepared you to take up this great cause. I've now just used a word fraught with controversy in America today: virtue.
The fact that this word can scarcely be spoken in public without inviting sarcastic incrimination from many circles is an excellent measure of the challenge you and we all face in our country today.
I was reminded of this in a very personal way several weeks ago. Both activists within and outside of the press distorted an interview that I gave on a recent Supreme Court case. Yet in my remarks on this particular case, I tried to articulate the nature of marriage, the good of marriage. In a few short sentences, I tried to summarize the considerations of philosophies working in tradition stretching back to at least Aristotle, the tradition of natural law. The natural law tradition is not a religious tradition, in the sense that it is based on Divine Revelation. Rather, it's a tradition of philosophical reflection, on the nature of human beings, the kind of creatures we are. The natural law represents guideposts which direct us to the pursuits of happiness, for happiness is the end which natural law has in mind for all of us.
Yet now, the very act of referring to this tradition, of upholding it, or dare say, making any defense of the moral consensus of every civilization in human history, is often characterized as "hate speech."
What is truly regrettable is that the situation is the worst in the very place where this discussion was centered for hundreds of years: the university. Where are the cries from those one-time centers of the pursuit of truth? The tolerance, the diversity when it comes to ideas? Or when it comes to taking the side of the traditional family? This is an especially serious battle for Catholics. Our social teaching holds that the family is the fundamental unit of our society, not the individual, not the group, not the collective. No, the foundational unit which Catholic social teaching is based is the family.
For many generations, Catholics were viewed with suspicion in America. For Catholics in America, my family included, the breakthrough came with the election of the presidency of John F. Kennedy. But at what price did we earn this break? President Kennedy promised that his faith would have no affect, would have NO affect, on his decisions as President. In effect, what he was saying was that his decisions would be unguided by his conscience. Only now, two generations later, all Americans of faith see how grave, grave a price was paid. For now our popular culture discourages religion and moral convictions from even being discussed in the public square.
Our founders feared the establishment of a religion. What we are left with today is an establishment of moral nihilism. Not surprisingly, our government, being of the people, is following suit. While much of our culture is removing moral guideposts, so too is the government. With this I have no dispute. We are a representative democracy and eventually the collective conscience of the popular culture is going to be reflective in our laws. My concern is the usurpation of the United States Supreme Court, by the United States Supreme Court, of the people's rights, through their elected representatives, to decide these crucial moral issues and the resulting dulling of our collective consciousness and that this vital debate of who we are and what we're about is being moved from the living rooms of America to the court room.
A lack of focus and clarity about the larger aims of life and about the larger aims of our country's institutions is never dulling. This is especially true in the world since September 11, 2001. We need to summon the moral strength to create a civilization of peace, and justice, and, of course, love. Now this is where you come in. I believe of all the great gifts God has given to the young, the greatest of these are energy, idealism, and rebelliousness (that's your parents laughing). As we have seen, these gifts, like all gifts, can be used for good or for evil. And as we've seen over the past thirty years, they can be used, shall we say, sparingly by our young people. I want to challenge each and every one of you to be a radical, to be a rebel, to rebel against the popular culture. Your task will not be an easy one. You must overcome the temptation of silence.
