Dear Lou, Your determination to serve your neighbor by going into politics has always inspired me.\u00a0 I can even remember your award-winning discourse back in the eighth-grade speech contest, when you exhorted everyone to substitute \u201cstatesman\u201d for \u201cpolitician\u201d as a way to acknowledge the nobility of civil service.\u00a0 That you sense a call from God to bring the light of Catholic values into the growing darkness of international politics I also find reassuring.\u00a0 You have understood that \u201ccareer\u201d should be synonymous with \u201cservice\u201d and not with \u201csuccess.\u201d\u00a0 I trust that you will continue to take full advantage of the opportunities college affords you to prepare yourself for this worthy mission.\u00a0 You may even want to make today\u2019s saint (who also happens to be your namesake) a personal patron.\u00a0 Never before or since has the Church produced such a statesman, such a truly noble civil servant as St Louis IX, King of France. For as long as the French monarchy lasted, in times of injustice and treachery the people of France always took their leaders to task by demanding a return to the equity of St Louis\u2019s days.\u00a0 He reformed the courts \u2013 so much so that even kings and nobles from the rest of Europe consistently brought their disputes to be tried in France.\u00a0 He founded institutions of learning, religious houses, churches, hospitals, orphanages, and even served the poor himself whenever they came to his door.\u00a0 He loved and defended the Church and the clergy whenever he could, but refused to give them unfair privileges or concessions.\u00a0 He undertook two crusades in order to try and free his Christian brethren in Palestine from Saracen oppression.\u00a0 What\u2019s perhaps most impressive of all, he brought decency and moral health into his royal court; intrigues were effectively banished during his reign.\u00a0 Faithful to his wife and eleven children, faithful to the nation under his care, faithful to the God who graced him with power and virtue, St Louis is an icon of the ideal Christian ruler.\u00a0 How was he able to do it?\u00a0 He achieved holiness through the normal channels \u2013 prayer, the sacraments, the good example of his mother, and a firm, lasting decision to live for God\u2019s glory and not his own.\u00a0 By learning to govern himself, he learned to govern others.\u00a0 It\u2019s not complicated, but it\u2019s not easy. I would recommend that you read a good, detailed biography of this remarkable work of grace.\u00a0 It will help balance out the sterile theories you have to wade through in classes, and it will immunize you to the subtle (and not so subtle) temptations that political life necessarily poses.\u00a0 If God grants you success, and you stay close to St Louis, he\u2019ll help prove false that cynical maxim: \u201cpower corrupts.\u201d Sincerely, Uncle Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Lou, Your determination to serve your neighbor by going into politics has always inspired me.\u00a0 I can even remember your award-winning discourse back in the eighth-grade speech contest, when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n