Last November, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty, said U.S.C.C.B. staff were assembling resources for dioceses, parishes and other groups to engage Catholics during the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

In preparation for the national celebration, a diocese might “invite the faithful to participate in 250 hours of adoration, or 250 works of mercy,” Bishop Rhoades suggested, speaking during the conference’s fall assembly.

As part of the celebration, U.S. bishops will consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus during the U.S.C.C.B. spring assembly in Baltimore. Bishop Rhoades called it “an opportunity to promote the beautiful devotion to the Sacred Heart among our people—and also to remind everyone of our task to serve our nation by perfecting the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel, as taught by the Second Vatican Council.”

He described the tradition behind, and the aim of, such a consecration: “One hundred years ago, in 1925, in his encyclical instituting the feast of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI—drawing on the teaching of Pope Leo XIII—referred to the pious custom of consecrating oneself, families and even nations to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a way to recognize the kingship of Christ.”

Through his final encyclical, “Dilexit Nos” (”He Loved Us”), Pope Francis “brought devotion to the Sacred Heart to the forefront of Catholic life as the ultimate symbol of both human and divine love, calling it a wellspring of peace and unity,” Bishop Rhoades said.

Pope Leo XIV, writing in his first apostolic exhortation, “Dilexi Te” (“I Have Loved You”), carried forward his predecessor’s teaching, inviting the faithful “to contemplate Christ’s love, the love that moves us to mission in our suffering world today.”

This article appears in June 2026.