“History is what holds us together as one nation. How we remember our past shapes how we understand where we are at in the present, and helps define our meaning and purpose as a people,” the archbishop wrote.
The division in the US is “playing out in fierce debates — in school boards, legislatures, and the media — over the meaning of American history and how to tell our national story.”
Archbishop Gomez said that “recovering the story of America’s ‘other’ founding — which occurred more than a century before the Mayflower, Madison, and Jefferson — can help us see beyond our present polarization.”
“The missionaries had profound respect for the indigenous peoples they served, learning their languages and traditions and defending them against the lusts and avarice of exploiters. Enduring hardships and dangers, they testified to their belief that Jesus Christ is the greatest gift they could ever offer to their neighbors.”
The archbishop said that “they also witness to what Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others have called the ‘American creed’ — the belief expressed in those founding documents that all men and women are endowed by God with a sacred dignity and undeniable rights to life, liberty, and equality.”
“Recovering the spirit of America’s ‘other founding’ gives us a more solid grounding for American individualism, which is always tempted to fall into a kind of selfish pursuit of one’s own interests without regard to others.”
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