Our humanity is tightly tied to memory, and so we celebrate anniversaries: weddings, births, deaths, ordinations, and inaugurations. This year of our Lord 2026 is no different, and it features two milestones of church and state. Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis surrendered his soul to Our Lord; two hundred fifty years ago, the United States came to be with its Declaration of Independence. Both anniversaries are crucial for helping us understand who we are and to what we are ordered. And both can be understood by looking at lesser anniversaries noted this year.
First, consider the United States. How will we mark and celebrate the anniversary of our founding? A successful anniversary celebration requires a minimum amount of consensus, and that is precisely what we currently lack. Differences over who we are and what we stand for have hardened into seemingly insurmountable divisions. There is talk of civil war. In these circumstances, how can we set aside those competing visions in order to celebrate together?
History and its recorded precedents can help. I have in mind two important dates: 1976 and 2001. The first marked our Bicentennial—200 years as a nation ostensibly “conceived in liberty” and giving due honor to
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