“Fidelity Month” is an initiative launched by Princeton professor Robert George, the pro-religious liberty/pro-life activist, to showcase the importance of fidelity towards God, family, and community.

George has been concerned about how our society is becoming unglued, how bonds once thought critical with respect to God, to family, and to community are increasingly dissolving. In lieu of these relationships, Americans are becoming ever more isolated (and lonely) individuals, clinging to some atomized “autonomy” that thinks freedom is being free of relationships. That’s why we bowl alone, we live alone, and increasingly as we saw during COVID, we die alone.

He thinks we need to fix that.

He’s not looking for a national campaign: virtues aren’t built or distributed by campaign. They’re acquired one man and one deed at a time: one man, because virtue is about character, and character belongs to individual men; one deed, because virtues are only built up by repetitive actions, one deed at a time.

Fidelity Month is neither sectarian nor partisan. It is interfaith and ecumenical, at least in the assumption we share fidelity to Someone above us. Fidelity to Deity, home, and society are not religious or partisan preserves.

What relationships are under pressure? God. Family. Community.

God. We say we are “one nation under God” but, increasingly, we don’t act that way. John Adams said “our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

But what happens not when the Constitution changes but its citizens do? What happens not just when people somehow get the (false) idea in their heads that they must abandon their religious convictions in public life, but when people actually abandon their religious convictions in their own lives? It’s not then -- to borrow Richard John Neuhaus’s description -- that the public square is naked as much as the citizens filling that public square arrive as so many Lady Godivas.

George does not offer grandiose solutions to the God problem. Grandiose solutions generally don’t work. He’s a lot more practical. Did you go to church or synagogue this week? No? Well, then how about doing that next week? Did you pray today? No? Then pray tonight. Do you believe in God? Yes? Well, how about acting like you do? (See James 2:14-24).

Family. Fidelity here might not mean avoiding adultery -- although adultery seems to be growing. There’s a push out there for “polyamory” -- what used to once be called “swinging” or “polygamy” or “fooling around.” Fidelity to family means putting family first. Being there for family. Not babbling about “quality time” but providing time, period. Being there for kids. Again, George does not suggest grandiose solutions. Time, effort, involvement.

Community. To the degree that people have retreated into themselves, there’s still some hope for families, but it’s no secret the larger sense of community spirit in America has atrophied. Fidelity to community means involvement in community. This year that means to vote. There are still states holding primaries, not just for President but for congressional seats and state government. It can mean throwing in a few bucks to the candidate whom you think can really make a difference. And that candidate need not be for President of the United States of. It might be for your “nobody-ever-heard-of” neighbor who’s decided to run for school board because he’s tired of being called a “domestic terrorist” for opposing the pornification of children. Or maybe it means you volunteering for an advisory board in your town, a committee seat in your local political party, or some volunteer role, like maybe occasionally babysitting a single mom’s kid so she can study for her GED. All these are practical ways of fidelity to our community that yield great dividends, though they call on us to make an investment, most often of time.

Professor George hopes to make “Fidelity Month” not some great national celebration as much as a reminder of the need to recover the value of the concept of fidelity in our relationships and, in that process, recover those relationships that are essential to building a human family, community, and world under God. Why not commit to doing your share this June in “Fidelity Month”?

[For more information on Fidelity Month, see the Fidelity Month Public Group.]

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