The “new normal” seems to be a new phrase being heard in a variety of different contexts lately. I am not sure I know what the new normal is, but the years since the end of the Second World War have been, it seems to me, the opposite of a roller coaster ride for American people. We seem to have gone down, down and only down. We used to be proud of the accomplishments of our people. Now we are embarrassed about them — violence and crime and incivility.

There is virtually nothing that embarrasses us anymore. The moral level of our country is down to where we exalt public figures who have perjured themselves, who are adulterers, who have lied publicly. The only legitimate enterprise in our country seems to be the politics that our rulers engage in.

We have seen our financial security sapped by the propensity of the government to spend larger and larger amounts to pacify the urban mob. There is little difference between the entitlements that our government offers to the 47 percent, and the bread and circuses offered by the corrupt Roman emperors to keep the mob in check after the silver age of Roman civilization. Our word now means very little throughout the world. People can perform acts of war at home with impunity, but we don’t react in any meaningful way.

When my father was dying in 1983 of heart trouble, I went up to Minacqua where he was living at that time to be with him. Perhaps it was the emotion of ill-health that made him say to me “Well, you know, I have seen the best of America. “ I thought at the time “What is the matter with you?” He never was that way. But you know, I think he was right. He seemed satisfied to die because he thought that the coming age was not going to be what the past was for him.

And I think that Americans little by little are being sold this idea that we have to see ourselves as a nation in decline. We are kind of going down and we have to accept that. Maybe that is what the new normal is. Are we being made to accept that?

Part of our problem is that we have forgotten our history. The history of the United States is quite remarkable. It is remarkable that a group of disparate people in the 1770s, scattered very, very sparsely over the east coast of the United States, forged a government that has lasted more than 200 years. That same government has accommodated immense expansion and has guaranteed, to all the people who work hard, prosperity.

When you look at the life that the pioneers led in order to subdue the West; when you look at how the United States managed to survive a terrible civil war without coming apart; and, when you look at the accomplishment of the U.S. rising to international leadership and really determining the outcome of a war against terrible tyranny and the Communist threat, it seems to me, our nation is quite remarkable.

We fail to celebrate these accomplishments, as we are caught up in the lives of celebrities and in doing just enough to get by. We forget about sacrifice in a society where some feel they have a right to a job whether they do anything or not or have a right to food and clothing and don’t lift a finger to obtain them.

We need to equip our children with enough material to have an acceptable moral compass. Who is responsible for that? Well, we all are.

However, against all this we have the teaching of our faith. I think one of the comforts of being a Catholic is we know that after governments collapse the Church will still be here in some fashion.

We can take comfort in knowing that our faith does not depend on the politics or politicians. It depends on Jesus. That is the history of the Catholic Church. And this is what we can rely on, no matter what “the new normal” is or becomes.