Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Pope Francis monthly prayer intention for January 2025

The Pope's Monthly Intentions for 2025

Each year, the Holy Father asks for our prayers for a specific intention each month. You are invited to answer the Holy Father's request and to join with many people worldwide in praying for this intention each month. From time to time, the Holy Father may add a second prayer intention related to current events or urgent needs, like disaster relief. The second prayer request will help mobilize prayer and action related to the urgent situation.

The Holy Father has entrusted these intentions in a particular way to the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, an organization that works to encourage Christians to respond to the Pope's appeal and to deepen their daily prayer. You can find more information about the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network on their website. (The Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network will also publish any urgent prayer intentions of the Holy Father as soon as they are received from the Holy See.)

January

For the right to an education
Let us pray for migrants, refugees, and those affected by war, that their right to an education, which is necessary to build a better world, might always be respected.

A New Year begins and the Church turns to Mary, the Mother of God as the Octave of Christmas concludes

Mary the Blessed Virgin

Feastday: January 1
Patron: of all humanity
Birth: September 8, Nativity of Mary
Death: August 15, Assumption of Mary

Mary, also known as St. Mary the Virgin, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Mary, Mary Mother of God or the Virgin Mary is believed by many to be the greatest of all Christian saints. The Virgin Mother "was, after her Son, exalted by divine grace above all angels and men."

Mary is venerated with a special cult, called by St. Thomas Aquinas, hyperdulia, as the holiest of all creatures. The main events of her life are celebrated as liturgical feasts of the universal Church.

Mary's life and role in the history of salvation is foreshadowed in the Old Testament, while the events of her life are recorded in the New Testament. Traditionally, she was declared the daughter of Sts. Joachim and Anne. Born in Jerusalem, Mary was presented in the Temple and took a vow of virginity. Living in Nazareth, Mary was visited by the archangel Gabriel, who announced to her that she would become the Mother of Jesus, by the Holy Spirit.

She became betrothed to St. Joseph and went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who was bearing St. John the Baptist. Acknowledged by Elizabeth as the Mother of God, Mary intoned the Magnificat.

When Emperor Augustus declared a census throughout the vast Roman Empire, Mary and St. Joseph went to Bethlehem, his city of lineage, as he belonged to the House of David. There Mary gave birth to Jesus and was visited by the Three Kings.

Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, where St. Simeon rejoiced and Mary received word of sorrows to come later. Warned to flee, St. Joseph and Mary went to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. They remained in Egypt until King Herod died and then returned to Nazareth.

Nothing is known of Mary's life during the next years except for a visit to the Temple of Jerusalem, at which time Mary and Joseph sought the young Jesus, who was in the Temple with the learned elders.

The first recorded miracle of Jesus was performed at a wedding in Cana, and Mary was instrumental in calling Christ's attention to the need. Mary was present at the Crucifixion in Jerusalem, and there she was given into John the Apostle's care. She was also with the disciples in the days before the Pentecost, and it is believed that she was present at the resurrection and Ascension.

No scriptural reference concerns Mary's last years on earth. According to tradition, she went to Ephesus, where she experienced her "dormition." Another tradition states that she remained in Jerusalem. The belief that Mary's body was assumed into heaven is one of the oldest traditions of the Catholic Church.

Pope Pius XII declared this belief Catholic dogma in 1950. The four Catholic dogmas are: Mother of God, Perpetual virginity of Mary, the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary. The feast of the Assumption is celebrated on August 15. The Assumption was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life. According to Pope Pius XII, the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."

In 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception - that Mary, as the Mother of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, was free of original sin at the moment of her conception. The feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8. The birthday of Mary is an old feast in the Church, celebrated on September 8, since the seventh century.

Other feasts that commemorate events in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary are listed in the Appendices. Pope Pius XII dedicated the entire human race to Mary in 1944. The Church has long taught that Mary is truly the Mother of God .

The Blessed Virgin Mary may be taken as a patroness of any good activity, for she is often cited as the patroness of all humanity. Mary is also associated with protecting many occupations and locations.

St. Paul observed that "God sent His Son, born of a woman," expressing the union of the human and the divine in Christ. As Christ possesses two natures, human and divine, Mary was the Mother of God in his human nature.

This special role of Mary in salvation history is clearly shown in the Gospel where she is seen constantly at her son's side during his soteriological mission. Because of this role, exemplified by her acceptance of Christ into her womb, her offering of him to God at the Temple, her urging him to perform his first miracle, and her standing at the foot of the Cross at Calvary Mary was joined fully in the sacrifice by Christ of himself.

Pope Benedict XV wrote in 1918: "To such an extent did Mary suffer and almost die with her suffering and dying Son; to such extent did she surrender her maternal rights over her Son for man's salvation, and immolated him - insofar as she could in order to appease the justice of God, that we might rightly say she redeemed the human race together with Christ."

Mary is entitled to the title of Queen because, as Pope Pius XII expressed it in a 1946 radio speech, "Jesus is King throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest: through him, with him, and subordinate to him, Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest, and by singular election."

Mary possesses a unique relationship with all three Persons of the Trinity, thereby giving her a claim to the title of Queenship. She was chosen by God the Father to be the Mother of his Son; God the Holy Spirit chose her to be his virginal spouse for the Incarnation of the Son; and God the Son chose her to be his mother, the means of incarnating into the world for the purposes of the redemption of humanity.

This Queen is also our Mother. While she is not our Mother in the physical sense, she is called a spiritual mother, for she conceives, gives birth, and nurtures the spiritual lives of grace for each person. As Mediatrix of All Graces, she is ever present at the side of each person, giving nourishment and hope, from the moment of spiritual birth at Baptism to the moment of death.

In art, Mary is traditionall portrayed in blue. Her other attributes are a blue mantle, crown of 12 stars, pregnant woman, roses, and/or woman with child.

Hundreds of thousands of pieces of Marian artwork and sculptures have been created over the years from the best and most brilliant artists, like Michelangelo and Botticell, to simple peasant artists. Some of the most early examples of veneration of Mary is documented in the Catacombs of Rome. Catacomb paintings show Mary the Blessed Virgin with her son.

The confidence that each person should have in Mary was expressed by Pope Pius IX in the encyclical Ubipriinum : "The foundation of all our confidence. . . is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. For God has committed to Mary the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is his will, that we obtain everything through Mary."

Pope Francis offers condolences, speaks of President Jimmy Carter

Former US president Jimmy Carter dies aged 100

POPE

Pope Francis offers condolences on death of Jimmy Carter

Pope Francis recalls Jimmy Carter’s “firm commitment, motivated by deep Christian faith, to the cause of reconciliation and peace between peoples, the defense of human rights and the welfare of the poor and those in need” in a telegram of condolence for the death of the former US President.

By Christopher Wells

Pope Francis says he is “saddened to learn of the death of former president Jimmy Carter” and offered his “heartfelt condolences” and prayers for those who mourn his passing.

In a telegram signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, the Pope recalled Carter’s “firm commitment, motivated by deep Christian faith, to the cause of reconciliation and peace between peoples, the defense of human rights and the welfare of the poor and those in need,” and commended him “to the infinite mercies of Almighty God.”

Exemplifying servant-leadership

In 1979, Carter became the first US president to host a Pope at the White House, when he welcomed John Paul II to the United States. Following their meeting, the Holy Father said, “I am honoured to have had, at your kind invitation, the opportunity for a meeting with you; for by your office as President of the United States of America you represent before the world the whole American nation and you hold the immense responsibility of leading this nation in the path of justice and peace.”

That meeting was recalled in a statement by Atlanta Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer, who noted that the “mutual respect” between the two world leaders “continued throughout the years as they both championed peace and human rights.”

Archbishop Hartmayer went on to say that President Carter and his wife Rosalynn “exemplified the Christian faith.” “Whether it was traveling the globe to advance democracy and champion human rights, or building houses with Habitat for Humanity and teaching Sunday school in Plains, Georgia, they made the world a better place,” the Archbishop said. Noting the former president’s many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Hartmayer said, “with Rosalynn at his side, [Jimmy Carter] always used these opportunities to teach by example what it means to be a servant-leader.”

An extraordinary leader, statesman, and humanitarian

“Today, America and the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman, and humanitarian,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement released shortly after Carter’s death was announced. Describing his predecessor as “a man of great character and courage, hope and optimism,” Biden praised Carter’s “compassion and moral clarity,” highlighting his work to “eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us.”

James Earl Carter, Jr, served one term, from 1977-1981 as the 39th president of the United States. As president, he pardoned Vietnam war draft evaders, negotiated the “Camp David Accords” between Egypt and Israel, and negotiated the treaty that resulted in Panamanian control of the Panama Canal. In 1979 he signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, limiting the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons by the United States and the USSR.

Jimmy Carter is expected to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., prior to a state funeral scheduled for 9 January. President Biden has announced that date as a day of mourning for the passing of his predecessor.

Across the world, Holy Doors are being opened in cathedrals and more

CHURCH

Dioceses across the world celebrate opening of Jubilee Year

The opening of the Jubilee Year was marked worldwide on Sunday with Masses celebrated in cathedrals and co-cathedrals

By Lisa Zengarini

Bishops worldwide celebrated the opening of the 2025 Jubilee Year on December 29 with Masses in their cathedrals and co-cathedrals focused on hope, the central theme of the Holy Year which Pope Francis inaugurated on Christmas Eve with the solemn opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Holy Land

In the Holy Land Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa presided over the celebratory Mass for his diocese at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. The celebration began with a procession that symbolized a collective journey toward renewal and hope.

In his sermon, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem noted that the ongoing violence and suffering in the Holy Land has “imprisoned” all communities within their fears preventing them “from having the courage to look upon others with trust and, therefore, with hope.”

Referring to the Jubilee theme Cardinal Pizzaballa acknowledged that it is very difficult to speak of hope, “when everything around us speaks of war, violence, poverty, and hardship." At the same time, he emphasized, that "hope needs faith” and, as Saint Paul teaches us also ”requires patience”. “Patience without hope is mere resignation “ and “hope without patience is a delusion” , he said.

The Patriarch reminded the faithful that the Jubilee Year offers an opportunity for God to forgive our sins and renew our hearts, enabling us to continue our journey with hope and joy.”

London

The urgency of renewal in our world “scarred with tragedy, conflict and cruelty” and for those for whom “the pilgrimage of life is harsh and unrelenting” was also the focus of Cardinal Vincent Nichols’s reflection during the opening Mass he presided over at Westminster Cathedral in London. Jubilees, he said in the homily “are occasions for the Church to undergo a 'reset'. And this Holy Year invites us to deepen and renew the place of hope in our lives.”

Cardinal Nichols remarked that the Gospel reading of the day, centered on the Holy Family’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem, serves as a poignant metaphor for our journey of life.

United States

These themes also resonated across the United States as bishops opened the Jubilee Year in their dioceses.

In some dioceses, the opening rite preceded a procession of the faithful to or within the cathedral for Mass. The procession was to include a jubilee cross, a cross of significance for the local church designated for a special liturgical role during the Jubilee Year.

Ukraine

The opening of the Jubilee Year was also marked in several Catholic churches across Ukraine against the backdrop of the ongoing bombing and shelling of Ukrainian cities by Russia.

His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the Head of the Greek Catholic Church presided over the solemn liturgy in the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv. In his sermon he reminded the faithful that “today the hope of Ukraine is Jesus Christ.” “Christian hope,” the Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyč remarked in a Message released ahead the Holy Year, “is the secret of the stability and invincibility of our people, who, in the midst of war, know how to defend freedom at the cost of their own lives, dream of a better future, and build a better world today for their children.”

Final Saint of the Day for December

St. Sylvester

St. Sylvester, born in Rome, was ordained by Pope St. Marcellinus during the peace that preceded the persecutions of Diocletian. He passed through those days of terror, witnessed the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, and saw the triumph of Constantine in the year 312. Two years later he succeeded St. Melchiades as Bishop of Rome. In the same year, he sent four legates to represent him at the great Council of the Western Church, held at Aries. He confirmed it's decision and imparted them to the Church.

The Council of Nice was assembled during his reign, in the year 325, but not being able to assist at it in person, on account of his great age, he sent his legates, who headed the list of subscribers to its decrees, preceding the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch. St. Sylvester was Pope for twenty-four years and eleven months. He died in the year 335. His Feast Day is December 31st.

Monday, December 30, 2024

The Catholic vote, Latinos included, shifted to Trump

Catholic voters' shift toward GOP includes Latinos, new study shows

Supporters hold a sign before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign event Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP/Alex Brandon, File)

Hispanic Catholics are moving away from the Democratic party, even as a majority of them still voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, a new post-election analysis reveals. The shift among Hispanic Catholics is even larger than that of white Catholics, or Hispanic voters overall.

But the much-trumpeted shift of Catholic voters overall toward Donald Trump may have been greatly overstated in exit polls as Trump's 53% of the vote was a mere 3 percentage points higher than 2020 and one point higher than 2016.

These are some of the findings of a new study by the Public Religion Research Institute.

"I'd be really cautious about making sweeping generalizations about massive realignment, but it's clear that Trump made inroads with many groups," said Melissa Deckman, chief executive of the research institute.

The data offer fresh insights into a much-discussed phenomenon of the Catholic voter in the 2024 election. Despite their sometimes exaggerated role, Catholics' influence remains a matter of interest and continues to dominate political discussion of electoral politics in America. Because of the importance of the issue in public debate, the National Catholic Reporter has named the Catholic voter its Newsmaker of the Year.

Some of the largest Hispanic Catholic gains for Trump came from counties on the southern border, such as Maverick County, Texas. Voters there chose a Republican for president for the first time in 50 years. The county is 95% Hispanic and predominantly Catholic, with three parishes in its boundaries. It is home to Eagle Pass, a small border town where deaths of migrants trying to make their way to the United States by crossing the nearby Rio Grande River have been concentrated.

Such towns are full of working-class Hispanics, who may have been convinced by Trump's economic populist messaging, analysts said.

"We can't underestimate the economy as a factor in shaping the outcome of the election," said Dylan Corbett, executive director of HOPE Border Institute, a Catholic group that serves refugees and migrants. "They've borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic, the housing affordability crisis, rising food prices and the overall economic inequality we can't seem to kick as a country."

In this year's presidential election, 55% of Hispanic Catholics voted for Harris, according to the study by the Public Religion Research Institute. By comparison, an earlier Pew Research Center study showed 66% support among Hispanic Catholics for the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, in 2020 — a double-digit shift in four years.

Overall, the presidential race was still very close, and while Trump won the popular vote, he did not break the halfway mark. But small changes in voter turnout can have major consequences — and the shifts among religious Hispanic voters were more than small.

The Public Religion Research Institute's survey primarily confirmed previous patterns, said Deckman, chief executive of the institute. Ultimately, white religious voters — including white Catholics — were a deciding factor for Trump.

Click for full-size graphic

"Religious lines are pretty clearly drawn when it comes to voting behavior," Deckman said. "White people of faith tended to back Trump overall, while religious people of color tended to support Kamala Harris."

The only exception is Hispanic evangelicals — two-thirds of whom supported Trump in 2024.

The numbers for white Catholic voters are far from the 85% of white evangelicals who supported Trump, but the trend over decades continues to show growing support among white Catholics for the Republican Party.

Yet a shift among Catholic voters overall toward Trump may have been overstated in exit polls. The research institute's data for Catholics overall — with 53% of Catholics saying they voted for Trump — is only 3 points higher than 2020 and 1 point higher than 2016. Additional "verified voter" data available in the spring tends to be more accurate, analysts say.

Still, white Catholics "are slowly but surely becoming a clear base of support for Republicans," Ryan Burge, an expert on data about religion and politics, noted even before the election.

Burge has analyzed the counties where Trump made the largest gains since 2020 — and found a correlation between counties with a higher concentration of religious people and bigger gains for Trump. (The full analysis will be published on his Substack in January.)

A list of top counties where Trump improved by 10 points or more is particularly interesting: Every single one is in an area that is predominantly Catholic, and all are in counties where eight in 10 residents are Hispanic. Six of the nine counties are in Texas, along the Mexican border.

The largest gain was in Maverick County, where Trump received nearly 60% of the vote. This is not only a significant increase from 2020, it represents a 36-point shift in the last two election cycles, a swing Burge calls "unbelievable in the modern landscape."

Shifts among Hispanics, many of them Catholic, in those border counties must be about immigration — not abortion — Burge concludes. By comparison, he said, there weren't comparably sized swings in non-border cities such as Houston or Dallas.

"The most logical, simplest explanation is that this is about immigration," said Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University.

While it might seem obvious to assume that immigrants would support immigration, voting patterns suggest that is not always true. Some researchers have found that established, successful immigrants oppose immigration because of fears that newly arrived migrants will contribute to negative stereotypes about all immigrants.

The Catholic Church supports immigration reform and opposes mass deportations, the opposite of Trump's positions. Pope Francis has been especially vocal about the plight of migrants. However, the U.S. bishops have been significantly more outspoken about "culture war" issues such as abortion or transgender rights — the latter a theme that Trump picked up on in his campaign.

Other surveys of Hispanic Catholics indicate only a slight increase in affiliation with the Republican Party over the past decade, while also seeing a corresponding increase in affiliation with the Democrats (offset by a decline in those identifying as independent). Hispanic Catholics are also less likely to identify as conservative today as they were a decade ago.

That, combined with data showing Hispanic Catholics do not support many GOP policies, leads Deckman to suspect they moved toward Trump in 2024 because of concerns about inflation and the economy. In counties like Maverick in Texas, more than one in five lives below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census.

"The economy is the most important issue for most Americans, but it is disproportionately important for Hispanic Americans," Deckman said.

Harris also failed to draw a strong contrast on the issue of immigration, running on a platform that included getting tough on the border, Corbett said.

"This should be a wake-up call that we need urgently a politics that addresses the needs of working class families, puts effective policies in place to manage migration at the border, and offers a legalization program for the millions of undocumented essential workers keeping our economy going," he said.

How else to explain the paradoxical results of Hispanic voters moving toward Trump? Some clues may be in the contrast between Hispanic Catholics and Hispanic evangelicals — a 21-point difference in support for Trump, according to the research institute study.

Polarization has led to political parties differentiating themselves based on religious identities, so that to be evangelical is to be Republican, according to Efrén Pérez, who studies race, ethnicity and politics at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he is a professor of political science and psychology.

"That convergence between partisan identity and religious identity is part of what's happening with this change in the patterns of the Latino vote," Pérez said during a webinar about the PRRI data. "They're sort of just picking the right team, so to speak."

It's possible that as Catholic identity is also increasingly associated with Republicanism, the same pattern may happen with Hispanic Catholics.

Yet Pérez wonders how durable the 2024 results may be, given Trump's uniqueness as a candidate. Latinos also tend to be low-propensity voters who don't pay significant attention to politics, he said.

"It could be that we are talking about voters who are kites in the air, where they are highly responsive to the messaging that comes their way during campaigns, because they're still trying to get their political moorings."

The Christian witness of President Jimmy Carter, rest in peace

Christian faith a hallmark of former president Jimmy Carter’s life

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter makes a short speech from the stage during the Billy Graham Library Dedication Service on May 31, 2007 in Charlotte, North Carolina. | Credit: Davis Turner/Getty Images

By Peter Pinedo, Ken Oliver-Méndez

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 29, 2024 / 17:33 pm

A lifelong Baptist, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100 on Sunday, held views that differed from Catholic teaching on a number of controversial social and doctrinal issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of female pastors.

Nonetheless, perhaps more than any other president in American history, a clear and consistent profession of Christian faith, both in word and deed, characterized Carter throughout his life.

In a chapter titled “My Traditional Christian Faith” in his 2005 book “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis,” Carter pointed out that “most of the rudiments of my faith in Christ as Savior and the Son of God are still shared without serious question by Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Copts, Seventh-day Adventists, and many other religious people.”

Speaking about his Baptist convictions, in that same book Carter stated that “as evangelicals, we were committed to a strong global mission to share our Christian faith with all other people, without prejudice or discrimination.”

Throughout his adult life, Carter demonstrated a personal commitment to evangelization by witnessing publicly to his faith, participating in missions, and most famously through teaching Sunday school for nearly four decades on most Sundays, year in and year out, at his hometown Baptist church in Plains, Georgia.

Faith and works

In addition, Carter’s humanitarian work building homes for the poor every year for nearly 40 years as a Habitat for Humanity volunteer was an integral part of his lived faith.

Carter’s sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, who died in 1983, was herself an evangelist, and the 39th president credited her with having had a major influence in bucking up his faith and practice after his first defeat for the office of Georgia governor in 1966.

That same year, Carter helped lead a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade in his home county. Later, as governor of Georgia, he also served as honorary chairman of Graham’s Atlanta crusade.

For Catholics, Carter was also celebrated as the first American president to welcome a pope to the White House. That milestone came in 1979 during newly elected Pope John Paul II’s first papal trip to the United States.

As a beaming U.S. President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter look on, Pope John Paul II greets then-11-year-old First Daughter Amy Carter upon arriving at the White House on Oct. 6, 1979. Credit: U.S. Government Printing Office

According to a National Archives summary of their conversation, the pope and president connected over their shared faith in Christ. The National Archives said that “these two deeply religious men — each at the pinnacle of power in their respective spheres — agreed to speak not as diplomats but as Christian brothers.”

Abortion stance

Although Carter expressed a personal aversion to abortion, as governor of Georgia and then as president he supported legal abortion in accordance with the then-recent Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. He also believed that abortion should be available to victims of rape and incest.

In a 1976 NBC News interview, then-candidate Carter said: “Under the Supreme Court ruling [Roe v. Wade], I will do anything I can as president to minimize the need for abortions. I think abortions are wrong and I think that we ought to have a comprehensive effort made by the president and Congress with a nationwide law perhaps, adequately financed to give sex instruction and access to contraceptives for those who believe in their use, better adoptive procedures.”

As president, in 1977 Carter signed into law the Hyde Amendment, a policy that bans federal tax dollars from being used for abortions, except to save the life of the mother, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape. Since being signed into law, the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2.5 million unborn lives, according to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

In recent years, Carter expressed support for homosexual marriage. In a 2018 Huffington Post interview the then-93-year-old former president said he believed “Jesus would approve of gay marriage” and that “Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.”

Steady stream of faith-based books

Carter authored 30 books, many of which have been directly related to his Christian faith, including his 1996 tome “Living Faith, Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith” (1997), “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis” (2005), and “Faith: A Journey for All” (2018).

In this last book, Carter wrote: “I consider myself to be an evangelical Christian … the basic elements of Christianity apply personally to me, shape my attitude and my actions, and give me a joyful and positive life, with purpose.”

He also affirmed his belief “that Christians are called to plunge into the life of the world and to inject the moral and ethical values of our faith into the processes of governing.”

Carter’s unabashed articulation of his Christian faith and inspiration was seen as a breath of fresh air and a boon to his presidential candidacy in the wake of the disgrace and corruption of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.

“I will never lie to you,” Carter memorably promised during his successful 1976 campaign.

China breakthrough

Among Carter’s most notable accomplishments to advance religious liberty and reopen space for evangelization were his negotiations with then-Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping leading up to the December 1978 reestablishment of full diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.

As Carter later recounted, as part of the deal he pressed for the Chinese government “to let people worship freely, to own Bibles, and for our missionaries to return.” Deng ceded the first two requests but not the third. Carter recalls that when he and his wife, Rosalynn, subsequently visited China in 1981, “there was a new law that guaranteed freedom of worship, Bibles were plentiful, and overcrowded Christian churches were thriving.”

After being defeated in the 1980 presidential election by pro-life candidate Ronald Reagan, Carter and Rosalynn, who died on Nov. 19, 2023, started the Carter Center, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to combating disease and promoting health, peace, and democracy worldwide.

For his efforts in advancing peace and human rights, including the historic 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, in 2002 Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Core Christian faith

In his 2018 book “Faith: A Journey for All,” Carter recounted that “people in my Bible class often ask what it means to be a Christian. My best explanation is that a Christian is a person professing Jesus Christ as personal savior and striving to have the human qualities demonstrated by Jesus.”

Carter went on to extol the Lord of his life as “both God and man, all-powerful but gentle and loving, all-knowing, compassionate, suffering, despised, burdened with the sin of others, abandoned by his followers, publicly executed but resurrected, and now worshipped by billions of believers throughout the world. Personal faith in Christ and a special reverence for him help us comprehend God’s transcendent love.”

“Convinced as we are that the miracle of Christ’s resurrection really happened some 2,000 years ago, we must consider this the most important event in the history of the universe,” Carter wrote in his 1997 book “Sources of Strength.” “For us, it means that Christ still lives, that his spirit is still with us, and that we can build our lives around him as our Savior.”

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