June 29, 2025 Essay: Sweet Land of Liberty
On the evening of November 9, 1938 in Germany, a group of thugs wearing brown and black shirts and stoking the flames of fear and suspicion, shattered the windows of businesses owned by Jews, delighted in creating a bonfire of their books and sacred scripture, and rounded up Jewish women, children, and men and “deported” them.
On Thursday, June 12th, 2025, at a news conference in Los Angeles where a representative of the current administration was spewing forth words of fear and intimidation, a United Sates Senator, who dared to voice a different opinion, was forcefully brought to his knees and arrested by men wearing brown and black shirts. The administration official continued her remarks without skipping a beat. It was as though no one was there but those who hung on her every word.
In the afternoon of the same day as the LA news conference, I attended the graduation ceremony of our grammar school children. By tradition, the ceremony begins with the singing of My Country, tis of Thee. For the first time in my life, I was unable to sing that song. Mindful of what has recently been happening in our country, I could not in good conscience voice the words Sweet land of liberty, nor the words From ev’ry mountainside, let freedom ring. Sadly, those words have become hollow and meaningless. We are no longer the Land of the noble free. We are being rounded up either to submit to abject and inflammatory rhetoric or be brought to our knees by modern-day zealots wearing shirts of every color of the rainbow. Sweet land of liberty?
In the early morning of Saturday, June 14th, 2025, in Minnesota, two elected officials and the spouse of one of them were shot because of their political affiliation. One of those officials and her husband died. Later that afternoon, on a day that otherwise would have been a celebration of our nation’s military, propaganda and ego were paraded through the streets of the nation’s capital, passing by a sparsely populated reviewing stand and even sparser crowds. Sweet land of liberty?
To those who would criticize this essay, claiming it is about politics, it is not. It is about morality, decency, and values that have been the foundation stones of this great country for generations. To remain silent in the face of what is happening in our country is to condone the abduction of children from schools and hospitals, the obliteration of the meaning of the rule of law, the denial of basic human needs to the most vulnerable in our society, and the elimination of God from our vocabulary. Sweet land of liberty?
In one week’s time, we will celebrate the birth of our nation. Most of us are familiar with the beginning sentences of the Declaration of Independence. Let us remind ourselves of the last sentence of the text, And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. It is now our responsibility to carry on what has been entrusted to us by our forefathers – a free and independent nation, a sweet land of liberty, the land of the noble free.
Perhaps the final verse of My Country, tis of Thee will guide us in our efforts to faithfully live the democratic principles heralded in each town square every 4th of July. Those words are, Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King, a sentiment that is engraved in the currency of the United States, IN GOD WE TRUST. As women and men of faith, we cannot stand idly by when official actions attempt to erase these words from our consciences. Our “sacred honor” is now being tested.
May God grant us, as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, the grace and strength of conviction to proclaim in our time God’s kingdom of peace, justice, compassion, and mercy!
— Dennis J. Yesalonia, S.J., Pastor