The Rise and Restoration of Moral Order: A Celebration
The following text is a transcript of Dr. Russell’s remarks from the 2025 spring graduation ceremony. A recording of the speech can be found here.
Well, good evening and welcome to the graduation of St. Augustine’s Class of 2025. I'm Dr. Henry Russell, and on behalf of my wife and Co-Founder, Crystal, of my daughter Maria, Headmistress of our South Lyon program, of our tutors, and myself, I welcome all of you, especially our guest of honor, Dr. Marcus Peter, and his beloved bride, Stephanie, as well as all of our families, friends, and especially our 24 graduates. So, before we go any farther, perhaps we should join in prayer.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
St. Augustine, pray for us.
This is going to be a cheerful speech, by the way. I know, you're not expecting that, but it will be. All of our students know that at St. Augustine’s, we teach history as an arc that proceeds from the actions of God creating his covenants with postlapsarian man after the original sin of Adam and Eve. Without going into any of the great specifics of that, obviously the greatest of the covenants comes with the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Church, which fulfills the Old Testament and the covenants there, which have been teaching man how to know God.
Then we enter into a very long period in which the Church, in particular, is the soul of Western civilization. And it is her obligation and her cheerfully accepted duty not only to be the bridge between man and God, but to teach men and women how to live a moral life. That all seems to come to a wonderful crescendo in the 12th through the 16th centuries. After which, a number of forces–such as materialism–begin to find a way of gnawing at both faith and morals, and certainly intellectual development. And thus we are engaged in a long struggle–a kind of tug of war–for the souls and the morals of men and women and of nations. That, in brief, is what they have been learning for about the last four years.
Sir John Glubb had an unfortunate name, but he seemed to have been an extraordinary man, and wrote a much-discussed essay called, “The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival.” Have any of the adults in the room been reading that or reading about it? It lays out seven stages in the rise and fall of great nations. Now, I'm not much interested in the fall of great nations because I prefer that they rise and rise again, if possible, but I'll review these stages very briefly, so that all may appreciate why he is so much discussed right now. His words seem so prophetic about the direction of the modern West.
The first stage he calls The Outburst, where a small people, “Poor, hardy, often half-starved and ill-clad, nevertheless abound in courage, energy, and initiative, and overcome every obstacle and seem always to be in control of the situation” (Glubb 5). Already, I hope this sounds to you much like the American founding: perhaps the struggles on Plymouth Rock and Jamestown and elsewhere. The Outburst is followed by the Age of Conquests, when he says that, “The daring initiative of the original conquerors is maintained–in geographical exploration, for example: pioneering new countries, penetrating new forests, climbing unexplored mountains, and sailing uncharted seas. The new nation is confident, optimistic, and perhaps contemptuous of the ‘decadent races’ which it has subjugated” (Glubb 6). The Third Age moves from conquest to commerce.
He argues that, “The first half of the Age of Commerce appears to be peculiarly splendid. The ancient virtues of courage, patriotism, and devotion to duty are still in evidence. The nation is proud, united, and full of self-confidence. Boys are still required, first of all, to be manly,” and, “It is remarkable,” he says, “what emphasis is placed, at this stage, on the manly virtue of truthfulness, for lying is cowardice–the fear of facing up to the situation” (Glubb 9).
Of course, this commerce breeds the fourth Age of Affluence when, “The immense wealth accumulated in the nation dazzles the onlookers. Enough of the ancient virtues of courage, energy, and patriotism survive to enable the state successfully to defend its frontiers. But beneath the surface, greed for money is gradually replacing duty and public service. Indeed, the change might be summarized as being from service to selfishness” (Glubb 9).
In the fifth Age of Intellect, “We see that the cultivation of the human intellect seems to be a magnificent ideal, but only on condition that it does not weaken unselfishness and human dedication to service. Yet this, judging by historical precedent, seems to be exactly what it does do” (Glubb 12).
Sir Glubb cites many civilizations, about nine or so, throughout history, who all walked at least a large part of these stages. So he says, “Perhaps it is not the intellectualism which destroys the spirit of self-sacrifice…[but] the two…appear simultaneously in the life-story of the nation” (Glubb 12). The widespread and continued affluence breeds the sin of decadence. “And decadence,” he says, is not so much an act as: “…a moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity. The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving” (Glubb 20). This period is marked by a number of characteristics familiar to any observer of the West in the last hundred years.
A remarkable and unexpected symptom of national decline is the intensification of internal political hatreds–not debates, not differences–hatreds. To that is joined an influx of foreigners. Pessimism becomes joined with frivolity. He says, “The heroes of declining nations are always the same–the athlete, the singer, or the actor. The word celebrity today is used to designate a comedian or a football player, not a statesman, a general, or a literary genius” (Glubb 14). To these we add the welfare state, since, as Sir Glubb writes, “History, however, seems to suggest that the age of decline of a great nation is often a period which shows a tendency to philanthropy and to sympathy for other races” (Glubb 17).
So prevalent are these characteristics as a description of what we are undergoing in the Western world at this time, that many readers rush on and conclude that we're all headed to stage seven, the Age of Decline and Dissolution, ignoring his wise words: of course the fall of nations always involves the abandonment of its religious origins. Until that really has occurred, the nation cannot decline very far, unless it's simply conquered by overwhelming outside force, but he says, “At the height of vice and frivolity the seeds of religious revival are quietly sown. After, perhaps, several generations (or even centuries) of suffering, the impoverished nation has been purged of its selfishness and its love of money, religion regains its sway and a new era sets in.” And he quotes, “‘It is good for me that I have been afflicted,’ said the psalmist, ‘that I might learn thy statutes’” (Glubb 19).
It is on this possibility of revival that I wish to focus. We have all lived through an extraordinary period in history where declining intellect, pessimism, and misguided philanthropy have turned America away from her origins in religion, freedom, and respect for the citizen. To what then have we turned? Number one, to globalism, whose ideal order is communist Chinese tyranny. Two, to the quiet theft of American taxpayer earnings via secret grants and unopposed tariffs levied on our goods to fund socialism, especially in developing nations. Three, acceptance of millions of non-citizens–which is constantly defined as charity–even though their presence and financial demands are clearly and directly at the expense of the poor and the lower middle class of this nation with no charity whatsoever for those people or to the works of American culture. All of this is accompanied at home and abroad by the fomenting of racial, gender, and class hatreds, the despising of religion, of self-improvement, and of law–I said this was a “pretty” cheerful speech. For you students, this has been an 18-year process, one that you perhaps associate more with America and one political party and its leaders in your lifetime.
For me, it is a process that I have viewed for over seven decades, since shortly after World War II. One forwarded by both political parties of America to almost equal measure, joined by most political parties of the Western nations and all other nations; although, with significant variation in particular policies. This has often caused me to question throughout the years, without any clear resolution, whether a society in decline can reverse its losses or whether it only descends into a tyranny of the right wing, which has been desperately accepted in order to defeat the tyranny of the left. It is not a comfortable question, especially when one looks at Nazi Germany and the following so-called German Democratic Republic, when one looks at the Russian Revolution and its follow-on effects.
Yet, improbably, and here I hope I don't lose you, a unique leader, wildly unlike the George Washington figure we would all prefer–opposed by the media, the deep state, universities, unions, all the once honored associations for civic order–became a leader elected by 75 million Americans, precisely to end the drift away from being a constitutional republic, to end the becoming a cog in the new world order. And to all reasonable analysis, in your time I think he is actually striving to do so and even succeeding in many–although not all–ways. Yet it's very important for us all to realize how unlikely an event this has been in your lifetime.
Just as unlikely has been the radical turn of the Catholic Church in your lifetime. When you were born, its doctrines were unambiguously preached on the issue of life, of economic and sexual morality, and the centrality of worship to a meaningful life. Liturgical abuses abounded but were being gradually made better, and the glory of a universal mass was being allowed to regrow. But in about a decade, ambiguity seemed, at least, to become the hallmark of magisterial teaching, and morals seemed, at least, to be becoming relativistic. Worship and advancing the health of the soul was declared temporarily unnecessary in the face of COVID, where the health of the body was the central goal. Those who speak for the unborn, as Dr. Monica Miller has done for so long, and for clear morality, were unmercifully derided as pharisaical and unloving. Yet, with the ascension of Pope Leo XIV to the throne of Peter, there is, for the moment at least, little talk of continuing such ambiguity, or casting out those who, like St. Francis, tried to uphold what they saw, rightly or wrongly, as a tottering church. What will come of the new papacy is a mystery hidden within the Holy Spirit, within Pope Leo, and within the prayers and efforts of all true believers, including, especially, those in this room. But how extraordinarily providential it seems that such a radical change, even if in atmosphere and rhetoric, by an American, should accompany the great political change in America. Either may fail their promises, but that is no excuse for pessimism on your part, students or anyone else.
Thus, my central message for all of you graduates is that you are living in truly extraordinary times, where great evil and great good are done, as you know, side by side, from moment to moment. Do not let pessimism, or a Hegelian sense that history flows in inevitable channels, afflict you. Hard predestination that does not respect the choices of individuals is desperately wrong on a personal level in Calvinism, and it is absolutely foolishly wrong as an analysis of history. In both individual and national salvation, there are clear patterns, but the shape of those patterns is made by the interaction of grace and of the choices of individual human beings, who are always free to keep fighting or to give up. What is supremely needed for right choices? Courage has always seemed to me the grounding of all virtues. Beyond any reasonable doubt, the supernatural virtues and even the cardinal virtues are graces of God, but none of them will avail you anything unless you have the fortitude to accept them and live them out at whatever cost to your comfort. As Gandalf is always saying to Bilbo, in The Hobbit and to the dwarves of Thorin, especially when they're about ready to enter Mirkwood, where almost no one has ever come out alive recently, “Well, keep up your courage, and you may come out alright.” That's what he has to give them. Courage is a necessity if you hope to come out alright. And it is always easier to be courageous when you see how often God gives you, even in dark hours, good, good reasons for hope. God bless you all and all your future choices.
Work Cited
Glubb, Sir John. “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.” William Blackwood & Sons
Ltd., 1977, Edinburgh, Scotland.
