As election day approaches, I want to share my letter to our future president. While we may not be satisfied with the results, we must accept them. I hope that you take the time to vote. Voting is a privilege and a responsibility.

Regardless of the outcome of the November 5th election, we need to pray for our future president. I believe that our nation and our national soul are hurting deeply. Antagonism will only make things worse. Prayer will move us to action, and loving action can help to heal our divisions. God bless you.

Dear Mr./Madam President,

You recently won the 2024 presidential election and will now be the 47th President of the United States, commencing on January 20, 2025. I pray that God gives you wisdom and humility to lead this nation forward. Our country is divided in many ways but blessed in many ways. You have inherited many responsibilities and will be president at a time in history with great challenges. The war in Ukraine continues, the conflict in the Middle East is escalating, and religious persecution of Christians in Africa, Nicaragua, and India remains. Our world and world peace are so fragile.

As I assure you of my prayers, may I please ask for your consideration regarding my concerns since you will be a person with great power and influence. As a Roman Catholic, I believe in the inviolable dignity of the human person. I believe that we are loved unconditionally by God. No person is a mistake, as unintended his/her pregnancy may be. Please reconsider your position on abortion. Abortion is eroding our nation’s soul. Abortion hurts the babies in the womb and the women and men who choose to abort their babies. Please help strengthen our families and societal networks so that they are strong and will embrace pregnant mothers and their unborn children so that new mothers are encouraged to bring their children to birth instead of opting to abort their babies.

Please also respect me and my religious values. As I said, I am a Roman Catholic, and my religion offers me evident moral truths about the dignity of the person, marriage, and gender. I am not a constitutional scholar; however, I know innately and constitutionally that I have the freedom to follow my well-formed conscience, to live and conduct my professional life according to my religious values and principles, and I have the right to worship God as I see fit. For example, because I believe in certain truths about marriage and gender, I am not a person who ‘hates’ others who do not believe so, nor am I a person who is not empathetic towards people with different viewpoints. I am subscribing to divinely revealed truth and following my conscience. Please don’t subject me to future laws and penalties that falsely ‘criminalize’ me for following my religious and moral beliefs.

Secure our borders and seek to reduce the number of guns and drugs entering our country. However, please do not group people who desire to survive and have a safer life for themselves and their children with contraband, guns, and drugs. People are not commodities or contraband. Yes, our hardworking border patrol agents and our immigration system need help, as do the people who find themselves in dire situations in their countries and are seeking to immigrate to the United States. So please protect not only our borders but also the immigrant people desperate to live.

Finally, I ask you to consider helping to reverse an alarming trend – Godlessness. Our country, of which you will be president very soon, was founded by believers. Also, faith drove people to abandon their homelands while taking great safety risks to come here to live their faith more freely. Please consider greater protections for people who believe in God. Theists are not criminals. If you allow us the freedom to bring our faith into our workplaces and schools more without penalty, maybe we can help you bring peace to our divided nation. Faith in God allows us to put into practice the belief that God loves us all unconditionally. We are created in love and redeemed by Christ in love. God is merciful. If we can live and share these truths without the risk of punishment more openly in our public settings, respecting others who think or believe differently, more public discourse about love and a God who is love should only help heal our wounded society. 

May God bless you. May God bless America.

Sincerely yours,
Bishop James T. Ruggieri