MP3 audio

Alan Keyes
October 1996

Thank you very much.

You all make me feel so good with that welcome, I don't know whether I can say all of the things I've got to say. Well, it's true, you know--part of dealing with what we have to deal with in our world today is . . . 'cause, at the end we want to leave feeling good, but we have to start off with the things that aren't so good, because otherwise what will we know about the challenge that we're facing in this world today? And we are faced with a serious challenge, we know this.

I think about it all the time. It seems like every day something new arises to give you a strong sense of the challenge that we are facing in our society--of the critical nature of that challenge. I feel like we're between two great possibilities: we're either going to turn things around, and in this generation see the rising sun of a new moral dedication in America, or we're going to lose the struggle for that moral renewal, throw away the basic principles on which our life and civilization is based, and head toward a new century that will make the 20th century look like a dress rehearsal for evil.

And I believe both things are possible. And it is not clear to me, yet, looking at the tendency of events, how it will turn out. God knows, I'm sure. But I have the sense, that however it turns out, the people I'm looking at right now are going to be the ones who'll make the critical difference.

I find, as I watch our preparations, as a nation, for this great moment we engage in next month, we have a tendency in the media and everywhere else to act as if the problems of America are somehow going to be addressed and resolved by some folks we will go to the polls and chose, who will sit in legislatures and man bureaucracies and staff offices in some capital or in Washington, D.C.

But somewhere in our heart of hearts, I think we all of us understand that that is not the case. None of these political leaders, none of these folks we chose or do not chose for whatever offices they may occupy, are going to make the decisive difference as to whether or not America lives or dies, whether as a people we stand or fall, whether freedom survives as a blessing or is destroyed as a curse.

It's not going to be decided somewhere else. It's actually going to be decided by you and by me, by folks like us everywhere, because it's all the little things we make up our minds to do or not do that then add up to the huge crises or the wonderful deliverances in this society. Have you ever thought about it? Think about what a difference it would make. We debate whether or not we should have a welfare program, right? We have this huge agonizing struggle over how much money we should give and on what terms, and so forth and so on. And we think, at the end of it, that if we haven't given enough, or if we have given too much, or if we give it on the right terms or the wrong terms, that will make the critical difference.

But then pause, step back from the whole discussion and ask yourself: if every man in America simply made a decision of the heart that he was going to meet his responsibilities to his own offspring, whoever they might be, would we have a welfare problem? [audience: no] There would hardly be a single young child in this country who wouldn't be taken care of by somebody.

And that means that all these huge problems actually boil down to problems that may not seem so huge, because they're just the little motions of the heart--just the sense inside each and every person of whether they're going to understand and meet those simple and true obligations that used to be taken for granted, but I guess aren't taken for granted anymore.

Now, I've got to confess, to me, these kinds of things do relate to some of the big issues, because we can either help or hurt those decisions of the heart, depending on what stands we take as a people.

I was thinking about this just yesterday. On Sunday, I'll be appearing on a TV show, and I was told that one of the topics for discussion which was being suggested by somebody who is regarded as a great moralist in America and all of this, is to talk about how the "spitting episode" reflects the decline of American moral values and culture. [laughter] And they asked me what I thought of this and what I might say to this, and I had to pause a minute, and I said, "Well, you know, it does seem to me that in a country where we have a chief executive widely believed to be a womanizing adulterer, where we have a supreme court that has decided that women have the right to reach into the womb and murder their unborn children, where we as a people are watching a serial killer [Jack Kevorkian] right before our eyes slay person after person and call it 'compassion,' I would think if we wanted to see signs of moral decay, we wouldn't have to scratch around a spitting episode." [laughter, applause]

And those things do make a difference, you know. They aid an abet or discourage the kinds of things that individuals may do or not do, especially the young people. It used to be the case that we took it for granted in society, didn't we, that example made a big difference. Now we act as if it has nothing to do with the situation, but it still does. Our young men, for instance, struggling in their teen years, especially, to come to terms with the passionate choices and temptations that are inevitably placed before them--what difference do you think it makes that they can sit their thinking to themselves that this respected judge or that respected congressman or that fantastically wealthy businessman leads a life that has no respect for wife or family or decency? In those moments when they're tempted, do you think that helps them to resist? Or does it provide a little argument in their ear that says, "They're getting away with it. Can't be all that bad"? And we think it makes no difference, but it does.

In a society where we have decided that, though we clamor about compassion, and how we are to care for those who are vulnerable and in need, where we claim that one of the virtues of strength is in fact to be able to use that strength to help those who are weakest and most vulnerable and most voiceless--what do you think it does to our concept of compassion, to our willingness to surrender to those motions of the heart, when we have it established as a doctrine that the weakest, most helpless, most vulnerable people in our existence can be snuffed out if they get in the way? We are hardening our hearts. And as we harden our hearts, the consequences destroy those institutions which depend upon the heart. And so many do. We forget that. We really do.

We are a people who like to talk about things as if everything was a matter of money and the bottom line. And if we have debated how much we're going to spend, we have decided what that we've debated what we've got to do. And if we've decided to spend this and if the bottom line is that, and if we've gotten a budget straight, then we have satisfied the requirements, and we don't have to worry about it anymore.

Is this so? If it's so, how come it is that we spent over five trillion dollars trying to eliminate poverty, only to see it made worse by the destruction of the family and the moral prerequisites of family life--destruction that we actually helped to achieve in the way we spent all that money supposedly helping people. Is this wise? Where did it come from? It came from mistaking money for the instrument of choice, when in point of fact, families aren't built and sustained by money.

I've been to all kinds of places in the world, looked in face of some of the worst poverty in human existence on this earth, in Bangladesh and other places, and you know what still amazes me as I remember it, is that when I looked into the face of that poverty, as I walked through these places, you can't even call them shantytowns, with raw open sewage running through the streets, children covered with flies, disease rampant, hungry little bodies that have no nourishment staring back at you--I looked at all this disease and misery and yet, with the people that I met and talked to there, they were mothers and fathers, parents and children, they lived in the mist of the misery and depravation of family. That told me that family must have something to do with more than money and material things--because if people can sustain it in those circumstances, when they have nothing in their pockets, no roof over their heads, no job to look to, no help, no support, no material sustenance, family has got to involve more than what job you have how much money you make. And I think we know it does. Family is not a matter of the pocketbook! [applause]

It's not a matter of the pocketbook. It has a lot more to do with what you have in your heart than what you get in your paycheck. And so when we do and accept all these things that harden our hearts, we are destroying the foundation for family life. And if we want to restore that foundation, then what have to do is we have to work on the heart. We have got to sort of become the, sort of, DeBakeys of America's moral life, and begin to do the surgery and apply the wisdom that is necessary to revive that love without which none of these relationships can be sustained.

And it may always seem odd to people that we're talking about problems like this, because we don't do this very often--we talk about the money and the budget and the programs and the bureaucrats. We so rarely talk about the love. And yet, if we persist in an understanding of love that is shallow and empty and wrong-headed, no amount of money we spend is going to solve the tremendous problems that beset this nation, and particularly its children, today.

And what is that idea of love? You know, you watch "Baywatch" and you'll get an idea of what it is, actually. [laughter]

No, no . . . What is love? You know, "body love," "passion love," the "love of how you feel today"? And in fact, though we don't always understand this, we are involved in great controversies all the time--some of which people don't want to talk about--that have to do with what shall be this idea of love.

See, on the one hand, we wish to enshrine an idea of love that, even taken to its heights, ends up being an idea of love based on mutual self-gratification. At one end of the scale, they even want to hallow such relationships with the name of marriage now, and pretend that they can be given the same respect as true marriage. But see, there's a difference in the true marriage relationship. The true basis of family life is not the kind of love that is always asking, "What's in it for me?" and feeling real good and real loving if the answer is, "A lot. Satisfaction. Fulfillment." You know, the real test of love within the family context is on those days when you get up and you don't like them very much, and you don't like the work you have to do for them, and you wish more than anything else that you could just lay it all aside, go somewhere else, do something else, get it off your shoulders, and instead of doing all of that, you put one foot in front of another, you go through the motions, one more time, one more day, because you know that's what they need. [applause]

That's the kind of love that isn't there just because you get something out of it.

But you have to ask yourself, "What kind of hearts are capable of that kind of love?" And here's where I get, I suppose, to the real point of what I want to share with you today. Because we're not coming together here just as Americans, men, citizens, this and that. We come together here under a special common bond--that special common bond which is constituted, in the end, by our relationship to each other through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

And when you think about what I have just said, the wonderful thing that we have to remember--it's wonderful and challenging--is that we live in a society where the right understanding of love is desperately needed. It is the one thing we need most of all right now. The right understanding of love will heal our families, will quell the violence in the streets, will restore a sense of calm instead of fear to our schools, will rebuild the relationships between man and woman which are dissolving and with them destroying the foundations of our family life. All of it could be healed with the right kind of love.

And where shall we find absolutely the best example, absolutely the clearest inspiration, absolutely the most complete understanding of that best kind of love--the kind of love that gives way beyond the point where it hurts, until you have given so much that you and everyone you give to are restored by the gift to a new sense of life and a higher kind of good? Is it not in the example of our Lord? Is it not in the knowledge that crucified every day on the cross of obligation, we rise again as he was resurrected to a new life above? This is the truth. [applause]

And this is something that--I'm saying this here. It's important for us, right? It's important for everybody to understand, I believe, that the example of that love is probably the most practical. We're all so practical; we're looking for practical answers all the time. And yet, the greatest practical challenge in life is to translate principle into action. It's like Shakespeare said: "If to do were as easy as to know what it were good to do, then chapels would be churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces."

The great challenge of human life, in a moral sense, isn't figuring out what is right to do! We have the guides there, they have been there for thousands of years. And in our civilization, we can look back to the clear statement of those moral guidelines all the way since the Ten Commandments. Short, pithy. Respect them all in every human society, and it would practically be paradise.

But do we? No, we don't. Because the hardest part is getting from principle to action. The hardest part is to take the word and make it into a deed. And you see, as Christian people, I believe we have the answer. For, if the challenge is to make words into deeds, what better source of inspiration, knowledge, and understanding than the Word made flesh? The very idea which is the basis of our faith is the idea which sets before us that example--not an idea, mind you, but a true example--of how, in our lives, we can take what is right and what ought to be and turn it into what we do and what is today.

And all we have to understand is this simple fact. Two things that I think--I was actually explaining this to my son the other night, great simple principles. The first one being that you'll actually achieve more for yourself if you think more about others. You repeat it and say it over and over again, one of the simplest things in the world. But how often do we discover that it's true? By putting everything aside that you thought was important and going for those things that you know to be vital to the well-being of those you love and to whom you have obligations--you wake up one day and you see that you've actually managed to achieve pretty much everything you ever thought you'd want.

I'm finding that in my life, in strange kinds of ways. You go through periods that look like sacrifices, and you give up things--money and income and all this other sort of stuff--to dedicate yourself to something that you believe is right. Maybe it's just making sure that your children have the time they need from you. Maybe it's just making sure that your wife, beset by all the things that those children will do to her today, feels loved. Maybe it's just as a son, making sure that somewhere along the way in the midst of that fog of selfishness that can sometimes characterize our still-remembered childhood, you remember that your parents are human beings, and that one word of love from you can change their day from darkness into light. Maybe it's that simple. Maybe it's the challenge of citizenship, standing up for the unborn when it's unpopular, speaking against the easy morality of today when nobody is going to like you for it.

These are challenges we each of us face ever single day in our own lives. Not called upon to speak on platforms, but called upon to speak out in those times when the greatest eloquence can only be achieved by you. You realize that? There are people for whom you are the most eloquent voice in the world--a voice that will speak and move their hearts when nobody else will move them. And if you speak that word in time, you will save them from the pit, you will turn them toward the light, you will set with your word an example, a path before them, that will change their lives. Sometimes it's just that simple.

And who provides us with that example?

See, I think that this is the practical side. Christianity is the most practical religion in the world. It is not just a religion of ideas and abstract concepts, and so forth. It is a deep religion of action.

And its principles are all based upon understanding how you translate principles into action. For example, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That basically means that every time you do anything in this world, put yourself in the other guy's position and react, do what you would want done to you.

It's remarkable how it transforms your evening. I was trying to get my son the other day to move a little faster when he gets dressed in the morning. [laughter] This sounds funny to you! This is a big deal! Driving my wife crazy. He fits into forty-five minutes what he only has twenty-five minutes to do. And as a result, every morning he gets up, he's risking missing the bus, and my wife has to drive him for an hour and a half back and forth to school. This is a big deal. This is a great crisis. And this wonderful principle that Christ has given us--I looked at my son the other night and I said, "Have you ever given a moment's thought in the morning when you're moving around to how your actions make your mother feel?" The answer was, naw, he probably wasn't thinking about that most mornings. I don't think he's thinking about anything most mornings. [laughter]

So I asked him, "Okay, now, if you just did this simple thing--think about what your mother's feeling like when you're dottling around in the morning--what would you do?" He thought for thirty seconds and started to describe all the wonderful things he would do--how quickly he would shower and dress and go down for breakfast, and so forth. And suddenly it hit him, just as quickly as that. Why? Because he simply did what Christ said to do: put yourself in the other guy's place, and do what you would want done.

But you know when that principle becomes most powerful of all? That principle, I think, becomes most powerful when we apply it to our relationship with Jesus Christ. And when we put ourselves in the place of Jesus Christ, and ask what we would want done: "What would you want done? How as Christ would you want to be treated in this world?"

And then we understand what he meant when he said, "When I was hungry you fed me, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was without shelter you sheltered me."

This is our calling. But it's more than just a calling as individuals today. Because this is not only the road through which we can achieve our personal, our individual salvation. That, in a way, if we have the faith, has already been won for us by Christ on the cross.

We can, if we truly understand those principles today, through our individual lives, we can do what so many are saying today is increasingly impossible. We can do what we spend all the money on the crime budgets and education budgets to do. We can do what we have built the mighty military machines to do. What all these things aim to do, and yet do ineffectually, we can do, just by living out His gospel of love. For, we can not only save our souls, we can save our country, as well.

Think about it. It falls to us as individuals now. See, because, I think in that sense in America--Abraham Lincoln was right. He said this was a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Sounds real good; sounds like we're getting something out of it, doesn't it? But that's not what it's about.

The truth of the matter is, that means that it depends entirely on what we give. And who are the best equipped people today to set that example of giving, to set that example of self-government in the heart without which liberty, freedom, all these things we talk so much about cannot work? That's why I think that in America today, as in every time and every place, there is no vocation more important than the vocation of our faith, than the calling from our Lord to do as His did, to be as He was, to live as He lived, for the sake of His Father's will.

For that calling today is not only the call upon our faith as Christians, as Catholic men, it's also the call upon our lives as citizens, as men who wish to be the protectors of our families, the tenders of our nation.

I don't know what you think manliness is. There's a big debate about that these days. We in gatherings like this come under a lot of pressure because supposedly we are calling men together to do something that's against women or against this or against that. That's a lot of bunk, of course. For, in fact, we come together to rediscover that which is at the heart of true manhood. And that which is at the heart of true manhood is simply the sense of faith and conviction needed, not just to be a man, but to truly be the human being that God would have us be.

And that example before us of a manhood that accepted every sacrifice, that bore every kind of suffering--though innocent in a way that we can never claim to be--that is the manhood through which we can rediscover a strength that goes beyond our human strength and opens our heart to the transforming grace of God.

I believe that He has still a providential purpose for this people and this land. But if you ask yourself who shall be His hand, and who shall be His voice, and who shall be His heart in that transformation, I believe the answer must be you and I.

For if our faith is real, and we put our faith in Him, then He calls upon us to be in this time His eyes, His ears, His healing touch--to take the wounds inflicted by our rejection of His Father's will and heal them through our personal acceptance, every day, that that will must be our own.

If you and I are willing to do this, then I think we shall take from this place not only a renewed dedication that can make us better husbands and better fathers, but we shall take from it that kind of purpose which shall make each and every one of us the leaders that we desperately need in this time--leaders who shall not be chosen at a ballot-box, but self-chosen by their dedicated service to Christ and to Almighty God.

As those self-chosen leaders, I invite you to go forth as He did, and be His word preached to all the peoples gathered in this land from every corner of the earth. For, in that sense, our Founders did us a favor. In order to fulfill Christ's injunction that we be the evangelists of transformation, we don't have to go to the far corners of the earth--for the world has come to us, and through the example of our love, we can surely make that transformation through which alone it shall be one: one in love, one in Christ, one in the better destiny that is God's purpose for His creation.

God bless you.