One world, under God. (Odds & Ends).

Back in the Dark Ages, prior to June 14, 1954, I remember dutifully reciting the old Pledge of Allegiance without the words "under God" after morning prayers each school day.

When I returned to St. Cajetan's Grammar School on the southwest side of Chicago in September 1954 for seventh grade, we, like school kids across the nation, had to add this faithful phrase to our pledging. Since we had become so well-programmed reciting the pledge in years past, it took a bit of effort to remember where to fit in these few words that today are causing so much upheaval. Sister M. Letitia did her best to reprogram my classmates and me to these newly added words.

Our daily Pledge of Allegiance, like in most Catholic schools then, followed an incredibly long series of morning prayers recited each school day. We prayed the Morning Offering, the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. During October and May at least a decade of the rosary was thrown in for good measure. On special occasions, a litany or a novena would be offered.

We prayed at midday, too. The Angelus was the lead noontime prayer, and it contained three full Hail Marys. During the Easter season the Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) was recited in place of the Angelus. This prayer, said only during the 40 days of Eastertide, was not as indelibly inscribed in our memories as most other prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance. The more lenient nuns passed out printed copies of the Regina Coeli for us to read; the stricter nuns assigned the prayer to be memorized and, of course, checked up on each and every one of us.

And at the end of the school day we prayed some more. We recited the Act of Contrition to make up for all the rotten things we had done that day. I can't remember exactly when the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, the Memorare, and other prayers were recited, but, rest assured, they too were prayed.

We kids in Catholic schools knew long before the 1954 change in the Pledge of Allegiance that we were "under God." Our lengthy prayers bespoke of this reality. More important, another reality was also communicated in Catholic schools: Being under God was not confined to this country alone. We learned that the entire world was under God, not just our own particular country.

Today, there's a certain political and theological arrogance that surrounds the rhetoric spinning around "under God." To proclaim only one nation is under God demeans both God and all other nations. God is not so parsimonious as to limit divine love to a single people or a single country. All peoples and all nations are under God in some wonderfully mysterious and, ultimately, unifying way.

Kids no longer memorize the vast quantities of prayers we did before Vatican II, nor do they rattle them off routinely as often happened in Catholic schools. Young people today memorize some prayers, for sure. They also learn to pray informally and spontaneously. And they come to appreciate the ultimate significance of prayer through all of these means.

Maybe our lawmakers who rush to require the Pledge of Allegiance recited in schools should take a cue from the Catholic post-Vatican II experience of prayer. Might they curtail the required rote recitation of the pledge in favor of a more in-depth and profound understanding of what being in relationship with the divine ultimately means? Might they actually stop and reflect that the whole world, not just one country, is heir to this relationship of being "under God"? I pray this will come to pass.

PETER GILMOUR ([e-mail]) teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.