Remarks to the Students
and Faculty of Archbishop Carroll and All Saints High Schools
Thank
you all, and thank you, Cardinal Hickey. Now, some of you may wonder why I've
come here today. Well, I like great teams, and I couldn't think of two greater
teams than the Lions and the Saints.
I
understand that you just had student body elections. You know, I have to tell
you, I was president of the student body in my high school, and I always had a
dream that one day the President of the
By
the way, a certain friend of mine has a message she wanted me to send you.
Please, for your families, for your friends, for your country, and for yourselves:
Just say no to drugs and alcohol.
Cardinal
Hickey, Bishop Corrada, Father O'Malley, Sister
Marcella Scully, Secretary Cavazos, and Dan Curtain -- just before I came out
here, my good friend Cardinal Hickey took me to view the altar before which
Archbishop Carroll celebrated
Now,
we're in the middle of an election campaign, and everything I say is likely to
be taken as political. But then, even if I don't talk about where I stand, it's
sort of like the story of a CIA agent who was sent to contact another agent in
So,
you know where I stand even if I don't say so. But I hope you won't mind if,
for the most part, I set aside the election. What I have to say to you today
has to do not with the day-to-day politics but with the enduring truths that
mold men and women and move nations; truths like faith, hope, and love. And, as
Paul tells us, ``The greatest of these is love.''
I've
found there are two kinds of people in this world: those absorbed in themselves
and those who give love -- love to their families, to their friends, to their
communities, to their country, and to God. Yes, we show love in many ways: by
saying we love, of course, and by putting our arms around someone, but even more,
by how we live, by our courtesy, by our integrity, by studying and preparing
for the future, and by service to humanity. Add it all up, and you'd say: by
our values.
Some
in our age are inclined to say, ``Well, that's okay, but not very important.
So, what else is new?'' But this is important, and in many ways, it's also new.
The American political philosopher James Q. Wilson has written that the most
important change that he has seen since the midsixties
in scholarly thinking about how to make our country better is the new
understanding, as he put it: ``Public interest depends on private virtue.''
And
to take just one area -- education -- Catholic schools across
Your
prayers, your dress code, your religious studies, your
service to your community -- all go hand in hand with your academic
achievement. The public interest in your education depends on the private
virtues you're learning, or as Aquinas might have said, it depends on you
acquiring the elements of personal salvation.
Now,
I don't want you to think I'm just talking here. I've heard a lot about your
accomplishments. And I couldn't help remembering something General George C.
Marshall said when he was asked why he was so certain that we would win the
Second World War. And General Marshall said, ``We have
a secret weapon: the best blankety-blank kids in the
world.'' And when I was told about all you do, I thought
It
amazes me that while you're exploring the mysteries of God's love and all that goes with it and showing how this exploration goes hand in
hand with getting a good education, others around our nation deny the public
importance of the private virtues that you are mastering. If you can believe
it, not long ago one State chapter of a national activist organization said
that for public schools to teach the idea that fidelity in marriage is a
traditional American value would be unconstitutional since, as they said, these
values are rooted in religion.
Well,
God's love shows most strongly, of course, in the greatest gift of all: the
gift of life. And here, as you know, there is great resistance to any talk
about values. Recently, those who call themselves prochoice
have taken to discussing children who might be born deformed. Perhaps it would
be better, they say, to spare the infant the struggle of life. I can't help
thinking of Christy Nolan, who earlier this year, received one of the world's
most coveted literary awards. Why Christy Nolan? Well, you see, there were
complications at his birth, and he almost died. And there were some who
suggested that he should be allowed to. But doctors saved him, only in the
process he was left totally paralyzed. He cannot walk, talk, or control his
limbs. He writes using what he calls a unicorn stick attached to his forehead,
pecking out his words on a typewriter, a page a day. In his message accepting
the award, Christy Nolan wrote, in that manner, ``Imagine what I would have
missed if the doctors had not revived me on that September day long ago.''
Well, imagine what so many, denied the right to life,
have missed. Imagine what we've all missed for their absence. Think of the cost
to all of us because of the denial in public life of this most basic of values.
I can't help wondering if those who call themselves prochoice
have ever stopped to think that the fetus, the unborn child, never has a
choice.
In
no area is the importance of private virtue to the public interest clearer than
in another area: the area of drug abuse. When we came into office 8 years ago,
we found a drug epidemic that few in the Government seemed to care much about.
We started arresting and sending to jail drug dealers and drug kingpins in
larger and larger numbers. In the last 8 years, Federal narcotics convictions
have more than doubled, and we have seized tons of cocaine and tens of
thousands of tons of marijuana. And there's other good news, too. After much
prodding, pushing, and bludgeoning from us, a reluctant Congress is expected to
pass a tough, new drug bill in the next few days. It would give our law
enforcement officers new and better tools for helping them protect us all. And,
to help protect the lives of the innocent, it would provide for the death
penalty for those who commit murder in the course of a drug-related crime. I
hope this means our liberal congressional friends are dropping their nostalgia
for the do-your-own-thing-in-your-own-time-baby sixties and are joining us
whole-heartedly in this fight against drugs.
But
important as all this government activity has been, for my money the turning
point in the fight against illegal drugs came when a certain little lady opened
her heart and spoke with a mother's love to
But
what Nancy has been saying to so many young people is what the priests, the
nuns, and the teachers say to you each day: that you must have values to guide
your lives. Too often values aren't taught, or can't be taught, in our public
schools. But they are taught here. And may I say, because you're here, each of
you is greatly privileged. But with each gift goes an obligation, and yours is
to act as examples to your friends who aren't as fortunate to go to these
schools and who may be tempted by those who would lead them astray.
I
know that your parents all make great sacrifices so that you can come here.
It's a measure of their love for you. For years I've been urging Congress to
recognize the public interest in your education and to allow your parents to
support your education either through tuition tax credits or vouchers. We need
a Congress that shares and supports the values of the American people. We hear the
cry, ``But what values do you mean?'' Well, that's easy, just for starters:
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
In
this past Lenten season, the Holy Father invited Cardinal Hickey to give the
yearly retreat for him and his household -- an honor never before accorded to
an American priest or bishop. In his meditations, the Cardinal said, ``To obey God, the author of our freedom, is to respect our
freedom.'' And he added, ``In the logic of the Gospel,
harmony with God's will is the true definition of history.''
So,
this is my message to you, as a secular leader, but also as a man standing in
humility before God: to seek what the Cardinal calls true freedom, to reach for
what Aquinas called the necessities of salvation. For if you do, if these
lessons become part of the instruction you carry with you when you end your
studies here, America will be stronger; the world will be better; and there
will be no limits to what, in this sweet land of liberty, you can do with your
lives.
Let
me just, if I can, say a few words on my own about this nation of ours. You
know, I received a letter. We're quite unique. I received a letter from a man
one day. He pointed out something I had never thought of. He said, ``You can go to live in
You
know, I don't say this very often, and sometimes people may call it mysticism.
But I have always believed that there was some divine power and plan that
placed this great continent between the two great oceans to be found only by
people who had that extra love of freedom and that courage within their hearts
to uproot themselves from their native land; leave, many times, family and
friends; but to come here and to create this nation that we have created for
ourselves here. I have to believe that that is true, just as I believe that
Lincoln spoke the truth I've learned in these 8 years as never before when he
said, ``I could not perform the functions of this office for 15 minutes if I
did not know that I could call upon one who is stronger and wiser than all
others.'' Thank you all. God bless you all.
Note: The President
spoke at