Top photo caption: Members of the Knights of Columbus salute at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington July 4, 2026, during a Mass of Thanksgiving for America’s 250th Anniversary. OSV News photo/Tim Dias, courtesy National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
By Kurt Jensen, OSV News
WASHINGTON OSV News — Independence Day is a reminder that Americans’ “inalienable rights” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — are gifts from God, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said July 4 in the nation’s capital.
Cardinal Wuerl, the retired archbishop of Washington, delivered the homily at a Mass of Thanksgiving for America’s 250th anniversary held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. The quietly dignified service was a cool reprise from the 100-degree heat and high humidity outside.
“We can claim to be free because we have been created free and equal by God,” Cardinal Wuerl said.
And that, he said, can be traced, in American history, all the way back to the Mayflower Compact in New England in 1620. The compact, he reminded the congregation, only had two elements: “The law of God and the need of the common good.”
In addition, American identity “doesn’t rest on blood ties, ethnic origin or national heritage.”
“Our beginnings as a nation celebrate our freedom,” the cardinal observed, calling on the congregation to “do our part now to honor that promise for everyone.”
In 1776, “We as a people collectively started down the pathway that eventually resulted in our national independence. We claimed our freedom as a nation and our civil liberties as a people,” he said.
This event, he added, “calls for our reflection, our celebration and our prayers of thanksgiving as we renew today our appreciation of our historic heritage and focus on the present effort today to live up to all those ideals that have so identified us as a nation and as a people.”
Thomas Jefferson, when he authored the declaration, told others that it did not contain ideas original to himself, but rather expressed “the common beliefs of people of his day,” Cardinal Wuerl said.
Jefferson would call the Declaration “an expression of the American mind and spirit, deeply rooted in the thoughts and faith of the American people,” he said.
As a result, the cardinal added, the many references of “our faith in God” should not come as a surprise to anyone.
“Even in this quintessentially civil declaration, we should not be surprised to find so many references to our faith in God,” he said.
So on the Fourth of July, “We renew our identity as a people who claim a God-given right: To life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our beginnings as a nation have religious roots, deep in the convictions of the people in those original 13 states and those who we refer to as our founders,” he said.
Cardinal Wuerl, a native of Pittsburgh, was archbishop of Washington from 2006 to 2018.
One of the principal concelebrants was Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the new Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.
Delivering a message from Pope Leo IV, Archbishop Caccia said July 4, 1776, was “the defining moment in the history of the United States of America, and giving voice to the ideas of liberty, equality, pursuit of happiness, justice, and democratic types of government.”
Religious freedom, and the ability to practice one’s faith openly without fear, has long been central to the American promise, Archbishop Caccia said.
Kurt Jensen writes for OSV News from Washington.
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