Barack Obama opened his library this week. Donald Trump opened a different kind of book. As the Republic prepares to turn 250, two American men showed us the two things that one small word can mean.
You’ve done it again, Msgr Art! Brilliant, eloquent article that I’m sharing with friends and family Coast to Coast. Thank you for reminding us of reasons to be proud of our country.
Monsignor Holquin correctly identifies the "treacherous" nature of pride, distinguishing between the superbia of the tyrant and the pietas of the steward. His critique of the "specious bargain" made by those who trade the seamless moral law for political proximity is a necessary dissection of our current malaise.
Yet, one must ask: Who is this parsing for?
If the goal is to confront superbia, a theological lecture is merely a mirror held up to an empty room. To truly confront the pride that knows "no limits," the Church’s voice must move beyond the diplomatic safety of the "Vicar of Peter" and reclaim the danger of the "Vicar of Christ."
The history of the faith is not written in the elegant parsing of sins, but in the lives of those who refused to let power go unchallenged. We might consider the following as the necessary evolution of the Church’s engagement with authority:
The "Vicar of Peter" manages the institution, preserves its continuity, and navigates the compromises of the state. The "Vicar of Christ" is a disruptor whose very existence threatens the powers that be. One survives; the other is martyred. We must ask if the institution has become so concerned with its own survival that it can no longer afford to be prophetic.
In an era where institutional voices are muted by diplomatic caution, the true prophetic witness has migrated to the periphery—to the whistleblowers, the truth-tellers, and the reporters who risk their reputations and livelihoods to name the rot. These are the modern "troublers of Israel," and it is among them, not the corridors of power, that the prophetic spirit is found today.
Moses’s prayer—“Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!”—was a call to the radical responsibility of the individual. To truly resist superbia, we cannot look for the institution to act as our proxy. We must acknowledge that if the office refuses the prophetic cost, the duty of resistance falls back upon the individual conscience.
P.S. The presidential library stands as the ultimate monument to the very superbia the Church seeks to diagnose. These structures have evolved into personal reliquaries, where the "first servant of the Republic" is transfigured into a cultic figure. The recent Obama center, with its unmistakably pharaonic, pyramid-like silhouette, suggests that the architectural expression of presidential ego is only accelerating. If we know that the current political theater is a game of architectural one-upmanship, we must ask: when Trump inevitably responds, will we be looking at a library, or a mausoleum to an American Caesar?
I would humbly suggest that this Library strives for something more than a storehouse for personal reliquaries. Quoting from a search"the Obama Presidential Center, located in Chicago's Jackson Park, houses an eight-story museum, a branch of the Chicago Public Library, a multipurpose athletic facility ("Home Court"), the Obama Foundation headquarters, and extensive outdoor public spaces." More details: Home Court: A 45,000-square-foot community space featuring wellness studios, a gymnasium, and event spaces."Outdoor Spaces: Nearly 20 acres of landscaped grounds, which house a fruit and vegetable garden, teaching kitchen, children’s playground, and the Stanley Anne Dunham water terrace." Doesn't sound like an ultimate monument to superbia, rather, it seems like a place that is reaching out to the young and the old, for play and recreation, for learning about gardening, etc. Not a speck of gold dust to sprinkled around would be my expectation.
You make a fair point, and it’s important to acknowledge that the Center does include tangible public assets—the branch library, the athletic facilities, and the green space—which are undeniably positive contributions to the neighborhood. My concern, however, isn't with the utility of these spaces, but with the changing ontology of the Presidential Library itself.
When we build these massive, singular towers—regardless of how much community programming they house—we are nonetheless participating in a tradition of 'legacy-branding' that has moved far beyond the modest, functional archives of the past. Even a facility that serves the public can still, in its architectural form, embody a 'great man' theory of history that feels at odds with the democratic ideals of shared governance.
The question remains: can we build community centers without needing to encase them in a 225-foot monolith that dominates the skyline? The fact that the structure itself is being debated as a 'Klingon prison' or a 'pharaonic monument' suggests that for many, the architecture is communicating a message of power and permanence that the community programming—no matter how generous—struggles to offset. Perhaps we have reached a point where the 'servant of the republic' is being supplanted by the 'architect of an era,' and no amount of community gardens can entirely mask that shift in scale."
A tower-shaped building tells us very little about the soul of the person associated with it. If we are to judge pride, we should look at conduct, temperament, treatment of others, willingness to admit mistakes, respect for institutions, and concern for the common good.
Obama has generally exhibited qualities that most people associate with humility: intellectual curiosity, restraint, civility toward opponents, devotion to family, and a willingness to listen before speaking. One may disagree with his policies, but disagreement is not evidence of superbia.
A presidential library or cultural center may reflect legacy, historical preservation, education, or civic engagement. To infer from its silhouette that its namesake possesses the same moral defect as someone whose public life is characterized by self-aggrandizement seems a conclusion unsupported by the evidence.
The Christian tradition calls us to judge a tree by its fruits. If we are discussing pride, the fruits matter far more than the shape of the building.
What about Obama’s militant support for every aspect of the radical LGBT agenda, Monsignor? Shouldn’t that also give a Catholic priest pause? It was also the Obama administration that sought to force nuns to pay for abortions and contraception. Are you even aware that under Obama, USaid withheld humanitarian aid to African nations that didn’t embrace abortion and the LGBT agenda? Should a Catholic really ignore these things? And ascribing humility to Barack Obama is simply laughable. I’m no fan of Trump either, but just at this morning I read that the DOJ is suing the state of New York to prevent it from forcing a group of nuns who run a hospice to submit to the radical trans pronoun nonsense. Both the Obama and Biden administrations would and did take the opposite stance? Shouldn’t that count for something?
We need to also remember that President Trump originally was pro-choice from the 1990s until he began considering a run for the presidency around 2011. Some people believe he changed his view on this matter in order to get the support of Christians. However, I am of the view that it is problematic to love the unborn but to hate those who are living and to do this by allowing the poor, refugees, and immigrants to die or to allow beautiful children to be killed in mass shootings with the empty platitude "thoughts and prayers" without being willing to do something about it. Thank you for such a wonderful article.
With respect, the Center is less a marble shrine than a working civic campus — built to bring jobs, programming, and public life to Chicago's South Side — and at its dedication the man told visitors to skip the clips of his own speeches.Pride is known by which way it points: this one points outward.
At times we do need reminding, but I have never misunderstood the truths of our constitution and the way our government was formed....flawed yes but ever striving....no president, from Kennedy, to Reagan, to Bush, Obama and now trump did not remind me of these truths...it is good when our presidents can rally us to the love of country, but their point is always....we the people, citizens. Have all the say.... never allow our leaders be the final words of our democracy, but appreciate it when they do.....msgr I agree, Obama by far exceeds Trump by his gracious humbleness.....the irony is the big hullabaloo over presidential libraries by all presidents, monuments to themselves regardless of how they spin it....
Yes, the abortion issue is vitally important. However, we cannot justify protecting the fœtus whilst ignoring and abandoning the already born.
Thank you. This is so clarifying. I pray that our country stays guided by the pride the Obama’s make us all feel.
You’ve done it again, Msgr Art! Brilliant, eloquent article that I’m sharing with friends and family Coast to Coast. Thank you for reminding us of reasons to be proud of our country.
A wonderful piece. Thank you. Your description of the role of abortion in arguments is right on point.
Thanks to the equality Juneteenth brought!
Monsignor Holquin correctly identifies the "treacherous" nature of pride, distinguishing between the superbia of the tyrant and the pietas of the steward. His critique of the "specious bargain" made by those who trade the seamless moral law for political proximity is a necessary dissection of our current malaise.
Yet, one must ask: Who is this parsing for?
If the goal is to confront superbia, a theological lecture is merely a mirror held up to an empty room. To truly confront the pride that knows "no limits," the Church’s voice must move beyond the diplomatic safety of the "Vicar of Peter" and reclaim the danger of the "Vicar of Christ."
The history of the faith is not written in the elegant parsing of sins, but in the lives of those who refused to let power go unchallenged. We might consider the following as the necessary evolution of the Church’s engagement with authority:
The "Vicar of Peter" manages the institution, preserves its continuity, and navigates the compromises of the state. The "Vicar of Christ" is a disruptor whose very existence threatens the powers that be. One survives; the other is martyred. We must ask if the institution has become so concerned with its own survival that it can no longer afford to be prophetic.
In an era where institutional voices are muted by diplomatic caution, the true prophetic witness has migrated to the periphery—to the whistleblowers, the truth-tellers, and the reporters who risk their reputations and livelihoods to name the rot. These are the modern "troublers of Israel," and it is among them, not the corridors of power, that the prophetic spirit is found today.
Moses’s prayer—“Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!”—was a call to the radical responsibility of the individual. To truly resist superbia, we cannot look for the institution to act as our proxy. We must acknowledge that if the office refuses the prophetic cost, the duty of resistance falls back upon the individual conscience.
P.S. The presidential library stands as the ultimate monument to the very superbia the Church seeks to diagnose. These structures have evolved into personal reliquaries, where the "first servant of the Republic" is transfigured into a cultic figure. The recent Obama center, with its unmistakably pharaonic, pyramid-like silhouette, suggests that the architectural expression of presidential ego is only accelerating. If we know that the current political theater is a game of architectural one-upmanship, we must ask: when Trump inevitably responds, will we be looking at a library, or a mausoleum to an American Caesar?
I would humbly suggest that this Library strives for something more than a storehouse for personal reliquaries. Quoting from a search"the Obama Presidential Center, located in Chicago's Jackson Park, houses an eight-story museum, a branch of the Chicago Public Library, a multipurpose athletic facility ("Home Court"), the Obama Foundation headquarters, and extensive outdoor public spaces." More details: Home Court: A 45,000-square-foot community space featuring wellness studios, a gymnasium, and event spaces."Outdoor Spaces: Nearly 20 acres of landscaped grounds, which house a fruit and vegetable garden, teaching kitchen, children’s playground, and the Stanley Anne Dunham water terrace." Doesn't sound like an ultimate monument to superbia, rather, it seems like a place that is reaching out to the young and the old, for play and recreation, for learning about gardening, etc. Not a speck of gold dust to sprinkled around would be my expectation.
You make a fair point, and it’s important to acknowledge that the Center does include tangible public assets—the branch library, the athletic facilities, and the green space—which are undeniably positive contributions to the neighborhood. My concern, however, isn't with the utility of these spaces, but with the changing ontology of the Presidential Library itself.
When we build these massive, singular towers—regardless of how much community programming they house—we are nonetheless participating in a tradition of 'legacy-branding' that has moved far beyond the modest, functional archives of the past. Even a facility that serves the public can still, in its architectural form, embody a 'great man' theory of history that feels at odds with the democratic ideals of shared governance.
The question remains: can we build community centers without needing to encase them in a 225-foot monolith that dominates the skyline? The fact that the structure itself is being debated as a 'Klingon prison' or a 'pharaonic monument' suggests that for many, the architecture is communicating a message of power and permanence that the community programming—no matter how generous—struggles to offset. Perhaps we have reached a point where the 'servant of the republic' is being supplanted by the 'architect of an era,' and no amount of community gardens can entirely mask that shift in scale."
A tower-shaped building tells us very little about the soul of the person associated with it. If we are to judge pride, we should look at conduct, temperament, treatment of others, willingness to admit mistakes, respect for institutions, and concern for the common good.
Obama has generally exhibited qualities that most people associate with humility: intellectual curiosity, restraint, civility toward opponents, devotion to family, and a willingness to listen before speaking. One may disagree with his policies, but disagreement is not evidence of superbia.
A presidential library or cultural center may reflect legacy, historical preservation, education, or civic engagement. To infer from its silhouette that its namesake possesses the same moral defect as someone whose public life is characterized by self-aggrandizement seems a conclusion unsupported by the evidence.
The Christian tradition calls us to judge a tree by its fruits. If we are discussing pride, the fruits matter far more than the shape of the building.
What about Obama’s militant support for every aspect of the radical LGBT agenda, Monsignor? Shouldn’t that also give a Catholic priest pause? It was also the Obama administration that sought to force nuns to pay for abortions and contraception. Are you even aware that under Obama, USaid withheld humanitarian aid to African nations that didn’t embrace abortion and the LGBT agenda? Should a Catholic really ignore these things? And ascribing humility to Barack Obama is simply laughable. I’m no fan of Trump either, but just at this morning I read that the DOJ is suing the state of New York to prevent it from forcing a group of nuns who run a hospice to submit to the radical trans pronoun nonsense. Both the Obama and Biden administrations would and did take the opposite stance? Shouldn’t that count for something?
We need to also remember that President Trump originally was pro-choice from the 1990s until he began considering a run for the presidency around 2011. Some people believe he changed his view on this matter in order to get the support of Christians. However, I am of the view that it is problematic to love the unborn but to hate those who are living and to do this by allowing the poor, refugees, and immigrants to die or to allow beautiful children to be killed in mass shootings with the empty platitude "thoughts and prayers" without being willing to do something about it. Thank you for such a wonderful article.
Thank you, Monsignor, for this beautiful essay. Let us all work together to make our pride the type that honors the Imago Dei in each person.
Thank you. It helped put words to something I have been wrestling with for a long time.
♥️♥️♥️
Building a massive, post-modernist monstrosity of a building to glorify yourself and your accomplishments seems like the worst kind of pride.
With respect, the Center is less a marble shrine than a working civic campus — built to bring jobs, programming, and public life to Chicago's South Side — and at its dedication the man told visitors to skip the clips of his own speeches.Pride is known by which way it points: this one points outward.
Tell us you don't understand the role of presidential libraries without telling us you don't understand the role of presidential libraries.
Or did you just want to whine?
Huh?
At times we do need reminding, but I have never misunderstood the truths of our constitution and the way our government was formed....flawed yes but ever striving....no president, from Kennedy, to Reagan, to Bush, Obama and now trump did not remind me of these truths...it is good when our presidents can rally us to the love of country, but their point is always....we the people, citizens. Have all the say.... never allow our leaders be the final words of our democracy, but appreciate it when they do.....msgr I agree, Obama by far exceeds Trump by his gracious humbleness.....the irony is the big hullabaloo over presidential libraries by all presidents, monuments to themselves regardless of how they spin it....
Thank you....