Burke and US Bishops Consecrate the Nation to the Sacred Heart

On the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, the USCCB and Cardinal Burke consecrate the nation in its 250th year

Cardinal Raymond Burke and the US Catholic Bishops Conference led two consecrations of the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with President Donald Trump also marking the consecration as a “powerful moment” in America’s history.

“How providential,” said Cdl. Burke on Friday, “that on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we consecrate our homeland to the Sacred Heart and make the act of reparation for the indifference and offense with which we have so often responded, in our nation, to the love of the Sacred Heart!”

The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on June 12 saw a number of events held in honor of the liturgical feast, but also linked to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. By prudentially choosing to align one with the other, a notable juxtaposition was thus made with the ideologies so often pushed by modern America and much of the West – ideologies which seek to hijack the month of the Sacred Heart for themselves.

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In contrast to that, Burke noted that “it is faith in God and in His love for us that has inspired devout Catholics to love their homeland and to serve the common good of the nation at great sacrifice, even at the sacrifice of their lives, over the past 250 years.”

The cardinal’s homily came as part of his Mass for the feast itself, celebrated at his Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Wisconsin. Burke – whose devotion to the Sacred Heart is one of the most public aspects of his spirituality – utilized the Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart composed by Pope Leo XIII. The Pontiff especially proposed his 1899 Act of Consecration as a means to combat the increasing trend by which, “in the constitution and administration of States the authority of sacred and divine law is utterly disregarded, with a view to the exclusion of religion from having any constant part in public life.”

One day prior on June 11, the amassed bishops of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) performed an act of consecration of the nation to the Sacred Heart. Coming at the conclusion of a novena to the Sacred Heart, the USCCB’s consecration was the fulfillment of a decision taken in November last year to mark the 250th anniversary.

Explaining the USCCB’s decision, Portland’s Archbishop Alexander Sample stated that “we have the opportunity to encourage all Catholics to honor Our Lord and to infuse the spirit of the Gospel into communities and departments of life.”

“Our devotion to the Sacred Heart demands that we consider how we might foster truth, justice, and charity in American life,” Sample continued. “We are called to bring our faith into the actions we take and the lives we lead.”

This theme was taken up by Archbishop William Lori during the USCCB’s consecration Mass. “To consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart means remaining in Christ’s love and carrying that love into the world,” he homilized.

Such a consecration is “an act of faith,” said Lori, noting that the nation looks back on its history “with humility, recognizing in faith that every nation stands in need of God’s mercy, wisdom, and guidance.”

It is also, he noted, “a declaration that the future does not belong merely to political movements, economic forces, or human plans – the future belongs to God.”

The USCCB’s endeavor received support also from President Trump, who issued a message welcoming the consecration as being “a powerful moment in our national story and a poignant reminder that America has always been guided by the loving hand of God.”

Trump linked the feast of the Sacred Heart to President Reagan’s 1987 Berlin speech – in which he called on the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” – and an address given simultaneously by Pope John Paul II in Poland.

“As Catholic Bishops consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this 250th year of our Independence, we,” wrote Trump, “recommit ourselves, like President Reagan and Pope Saint John Paul II, to defending our spiritual identity and great civilizational inheritance.”

As part of the wider number of events linking the Sacred Heart to the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary, Burke also headlined the zeal for America 250 Rally organized by Catholic Vote, delivering a speech focused on the common good, justice and well-ordered love of country.

“In the Declaration of Independence, the objective fulfillment which the common good safeguards and promises is described as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he said, before linking this to the Second Vatican Council’s own writings: “The reality underlying the description of the common good in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, and the description in the Declaration of Independence, that reality is the same.”

As Americans reflect upon the nation’s past and future, Burke sought to ensure that any understanding and treatment of legal theory was intrinsically linked to the orders of God’s creation.

“There can be no question that democracy and the laws which govern it must be founded upon right reason, distinguishing ends from purposes and respecting fully the natural law which God has written upon every human heart,” he said.

For the cardinal, the Church has a particular duty at this time to be even more proactive in ensuring that the laws of nations align with the laws of God: “in the present situation, the Church’s service of the world demands of her above all a witness to the foundation of the political order upon the unchanging precepts of the natural moral law which God has taught and teaches to all men and women of every time and place.”

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