Christian country towns backbone of US strength
May 29, 2006
Prime Minister John Howard was in Washington last week and Australian flags decorated Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. By Cardinal George Pell.
(Sunday Telegraph, May 21, 2006) Washington is like Canberra, a specially built capital city, not a huge metropolis, dominated by monuments, including a new one to the dead of World War II.
It is meant to impress and succeeds as an elegant centerpiece for the greatest super power in history, whose economic, military and cultural influence is world-wide, even if they cannot capture Bin Laden.
By coincidence, I was an hour away to the west in a Virginian town called Front Royal, for the graduation ceremony of a small Catholic tertiary institution, called Christendom College.
The countryside is lush and very green by Australian standards, with huge deciduous trees and small, bright-red birds called cardinals.
It is cold in winter and sweaty in summer. Deer run wild, and hunting is still allowed. There are many big families of children, and often, family homes seemed to remain unlocked.
Political Washington, ruled by the Cheneys and Rumsfelds, is a distant world, and while the billionaires, film stars and ghettos dominate headlines, the secret of America's strength lies in the suburbs and these towns.
I went for a haircut to Buddy the Catholic barber, a convert in an old shop with a picture of John Wayne on the wall. He explained that "we" (the Southerners) lost the Civil War and that Southerners were treated nearly as badly as Roman Catholics by the northern secular press.
Two of the factors which nourish America's greatness are in evidence in Front Royal; their religious fervour and their commitment to education.
Christendom College was started 29 years ago by five lay Catholic academics, who felt young Catholics were being short-changed, and founded this small liberal-arts college, now with 450 students. Everyone studies in seven areas, ranging from maths to philosophy, is introduced to the classics of Western culture and taught to think and write clearly. Many of the students go on to vocational studies.
All the Catholic students practise their faith and the graduation Mass was deeply prayerful, while many students are active in the pro- life movement.
All the American ethnic communities, except perhaps the Hispanics, are deeply committed to education, and they don't wait for governments to provide it. There are hundreds of privately run tertiary institutions sponsored by Christian churches and other groups.
They are financed by fees, often paid with great difficulty and by a much stronger tradition of giving from individuals and ex- students than we have as yet in Australia.
Christian faith produces hope, energy (and children in Front Royal) while education enables them to make a difference.
Christian country towns backbone of US strength