And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.' ~ On national unity and national discord

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I do not pledge allegiance to a sports team. I do not pledge allegiance to a political ideology. I do not pledge allegiance to a political party. I do not pledge allegiance to the pop-culture media’s narrative of the moment.

I pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church.
I pledge allegiance to my family.
I pledge allegiance to my friends and neighbors.
I pledge allegiance to my country.

Does our country have flaws? Yes, deep and abiding ones. But we do not unify around our flaws.

Instead, we unify around those things about our country that are good and beautiful, virtuous and honorable:

• Our love of God and family; 
• Our mandate to lift up the suffering; 
• Our urge to see wrongs righted; 
• Our need to honor self-sacrifice; 
• Our history and our national heroes; 
• Our shared traditions and cultural celebrations.

One does not unify people by holding in contempt the very symbols of national unity like the US flag and the National Anthem. Such actions only generate anger, sow discord, create division.

The words of our National Anthem are particularly poignant to me as a Catholic. They convey a snapshot of a time when the nation was weak and being assaulted by a superior foe. And yet, through trust in Almighty God and the valor and sacrifices of a few strong men, the fledgling nation was ultimately preserved from conquest.

Most modern-day Catholics can easily sympathize with the feeling of being under siege, with the bombs and rockets of the Enemy’s culture being flung without pity against our crumbling battlements. With that thought in mind, read the entire poem—all four verses. Did you know there were four verses?

Are these sentiments not something all Americans can rally around?

The Star Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key, 1814 

O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? 

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

If someone wants to call attention to the country’s flaws, disparaging the symbols of national unity is the absolute worst way to do it—unless the true intent is a rejection of the country and a demand to be separate from it. That's the message many people take away from such vulgar displays before national audiences.

Post script: The flag shown in the image above was recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks.