Like the Founders, do I believe that these truths come from the Creator - that they are immutable and permanent because they are based on God, not a group of men? With conviction and courage, our Founders risked everything and signed!

    The truths that motivated the Founding Fathers and provided justification for independence from England were clearly understood and mutually agreed upon by all the Signers of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. In their minds, these truths were a firm basis for a long and bitter war for freedom. Their "American Proposition" could be launched with optimism and hope because it was based on "self-evident truths" for all time - unchangeable truths that originated in the Creator, not in man.

    For these men, freedom for all absolutely depended on certain truths that were valid for all and applicable to all. These truths would guarantee freedom. Because there is no true freedom without truth, our Founders were not hesitant to declare: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

    They knew that the price tag for true freedom is responsibility. Our Pledge of Allegiance "with liberty and justice for all" becomes reality for all only through those who exercise their freedom responsibly. These self-evident truths were so supreme that the Founders were willing to declare war and risk their lives. If I had been one of them, would I have signed? For them it meant treason and death. Franklin wrote to Hancock: "We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall hang separately."

    independence is deeply rooted in the American psyche. We are the "land of the free." We are a freedom-loving people. Freedom is at the heart of our American identity, but it is not freedom from truth, from responsibility and from coexistence with others. Parading today under the banner of freedom is personal autonomy. It is a gross declaration of independence for people to do whatever they desire. There are no truths but my own. There are no rights but my own.

    John Paul 11 said to the new Ambassador to the Holy See in 1997, "It would be sad if the religious and moral convictions upon which the American experiment was founded could be considered a danger to free society" Our Pope tells us that the principles of our Founding Fathers are now considered by some Americans to be a threat to a free society.

    John Courtney Murray, Sj., writes in We Hold These Truths "Our Founding Fathers thought that the life of man in soucity   under government is founded on truths, a body of objective truth, universal in its import, accessible to human reason, definable and defensible. If this is denied, the America Proposition is, I think, eviscerated in one stroke."

    Washington, Franklin, Adams, Hancock, Jefferson, Hamilton and all the rest hear an echo of their vision for America in the Farewell of John Paul 11 in Detroit on September 19, 1987. "The best traditions of your land presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves. If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then,

`"There's no such thing as a free lunch" is an old American saying that has proved itself in the experience of all of us. We may not fork over the cash, but somebody does. And sometimes the free lunch is just the softener to get us to do something we wouldn't otherwise do. My dad in his own way was a workbench philosopher, and his version was a bit cynical: "There's always free cheese in a mouse trap," Joe Povish used to say.

    The French version was more elegant - noblesse oblige, meaning that privilege brings obligations. Dr. Leon Kennedy, long-time ethics professor at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, put it this way: "Benefits and burdens go together." Pope John Paul quotes the scholastic principle of justice dating from the middle ages: "For every right there is a corresponding duty" If I have a right, it means, others have the duty to respect that right.

    Americans for the most part know what their rights are. Our civil, political and religious rights are often spoken about, written about and remembered. In fact, we have become a "litigious society" because of the American inclination to sue for our rights, real or trivial or imagined On the Fourth of July we celebrate the Declaration that states we are endowed by our Creator with "certain unalienable rights," among which are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, spell out the specifics of the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness our government is bound to respect. We are the envy of much of the world for the rights that we enjoy.

    But how about the burdens that go along with our benefits as Americans? Without any desire to dampen enthusiasm over our rights, must we not ask ourselves from time to time how we're taking care of our duties? Native Americans, Afro-Americans, Latin-Americans, and the more recent Asian-American immigrants have human dignity and human rights just as European-Americans do. Does the European-American majority, up to now the dominant class, recognize this dignity and these rights in all our dealings with them?

    An article on pathologists and coroners stated that no one may be pronounced dead if the heartbeat is still there. An article on the unborn stated that by the second month of gestation the infant's heart is already beating. How come the infant's right to life can legally be ignored and he or she killed with a heart beating within?

    These are two examples - racism and abortion, America's two main injustices and sins. in both cases basic rights are being withheld by persons who have the duty to respect and uphold them.

    In human society, benefits and burdens go together; and for every right you and I have there is a duty for others to respect it. We talk a lot about our rights; we have to think about our duties too.