The devotion of a citizen to his country is a natural virtue, felt instinctively by the heart. Possibly a critic might trace its origin to a mere lust for possession and make it arise out of some clannish feeling which made primitive peoples hold what they held against the world. Various material suggestions of this kind have been made to account for it; but their truth or falsehood is immaterial, and is, indeed, utterly beyond all proof or disproof, being a pure hypothesis incapable of verification. Moreover, it is, indeed, of very slight importance to discover the root from which a thing has sprung, since what was born of earth may well be fitted for a place in Heaven: it is not what things were but what they are that most concerns us. The fact, therefore, of the existence of this feeling of loyalty to our particular central group, whether local or national or international, cannot be contested. Even those people whose constant critical attitude seems to belie any such spirit, would justify their own strictures on the very ground that they love, and wish to correct because they love. It is, then, this mere fact of patriotism that is of momentary interest, rather than the cause which produced it; for it is an axiom or principle of Catholic theologians that nature never acts in vain nor is wholly wrong. Whenever we find a very strong belief in the race as a race, then there must be some real meaning to its belief. Custom may have distorted or caricatured the original; but there must have been some original.
But it is not merely a natural expression of primitive feeling, for nothing has been left that is that only; no department of human life has been abandoned, but all have been made sacred by Christ our Lord. So, too, He has dignified patriotism. For while He denounced the narrowness of national religion, He, who was Himself man, felt the bonds of national love and pride. Over the far sight of His own fair city He wept, when in His knowledge of the future He beheld it straitened and battered on every side. He wept over Jerusalem not merely because He foresaw the ruin of a great city, but because it was the chief city of His nation. He was human as well as Divine. So, again, throughout His life He was splendidly loyal to every organization which could have conceivably any claim upon Him. He spoke unhesitatingly of the hypocrisy of the lives and of the narrow outlook upon religion of the priesthood of His own nation, but of their power and jurisdiction He spoke only to acknowledge them. Their example He could not praise, but their precepts He did. Even of the huge Roman Empire His guarded utterances could not be construed into any anti-national declamation, so that while the Pharisees never dared to rouse the people by saying that He was subservient to Rome, their attempts to curry favour with Rome by insisting on His antagonism to Caesarism could be backed up only by an impudent falsehood.
Loyalty, therefore, to my country and to my people is a virtue that I learn from my Master. I have no right, if I take my teaching from Him, to denounce it as a weakness, for even when (if ever) Socialism establishes internationalism in government, police, and trade, it will find that the national feelings and desires will be always there. They may be diverted to useful ends, but they can never be destroyed. Yet loyalty, as our Lord also teaches, does not mean a blind subservience to every act of my own nation. The genuine patriot, just because his patriotism is genuine, may be obliged to denounce the evil and unjust courses of his own people; and the greater his love for his country, the more passionate, in all likelihood, will be his appeal to it to follow after justice and truth. For patriotism, like every other good quality, must be subject always to conscience, and cannot dictate to conscience; its promptings must be carefully censored by prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. But allowing all this, I must recognize that my country has certain definite claims upon me. It affords me protection; it provides for my convenience, and allows me peace. In turn I must render to it a willing service, a respect, a love even which will drive me to do my best by her for her spiritual and temporal prosperity. Nay, I shall see that the nation is really nothing more than an enlarged and greater myself; for a people is the sum of its individuals, the continued development of the personality of each one of us.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.