Sometimes, here in our humble shop, a good story escapes our notice or just doesn’t fit into the working schedule. One such story sets us up for next June, when the rainbow flags and paraphernalia come back out of storage.

Indeed, next June we’re on board for Fidelity Month.

Aside from a recent Fox News article, the idea of Fidelity Month has received no attention. But the idea and practice of fidelity is important, argues Robert P. George, who is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program at Princeton University. (Yes, we imagine you were as surprised as we were to learn that such a member of academia exists in an Ivy League institution, but George is living proof. And protected by tenure.)

Fidelity Month came about as George’s reaction to a Wall Street Journal poll released back in March that found Americans felt patriotism, hard work, and religion were less important in their post-pandemic lives. (Our Mark Alexander weighed in on the WSJ poll when it came out as well, based on other events ongoing at the time.)

“You may have read about the rather disturbing recent WSJ poll indicating a precipitous decline in our fellow Americans’ belief in the importance of such values as patriotism, religion, family, and community,” wrote George on social media. “There are a million things we can and should do to restore the faith of our people, and begin to heal the dreadful division in our county, but I would like you to join in one small one.” That one small thing was celebrating Fidelity Month, which “by the authority vested in me by absolutely no one” was decreed for June.

So, it could be asked, how does George define fidelity? In a lengthy sit-down with the National Catholic Register, he revealed several meanings for the concept, beginning with this one for home life:

Fidelity is like charity: It begins at home. It is transmitted through the generations, parent to child, grandparent to grandchild.

It begins around the dinner table when we say our grace, or, for Catholics, when we have family Rosary.

The family is the domestic church. And there’s a beautiful understanding of this in the Jewish tradition: The home even more than the synagogue is the center of religious life. Fidelity to our spouse means we are not only faithful in the sexual sense, but in serving her, putting her first.

Being faithful to your children means being a mom or dad, being present for them. There’s a lot of [parental] infidelity today that takes the form of allowing devices to entertain our children.

I’m not an extremist on this, and I’m certainly not a Luddite, but if we are finding it convenient to allow our children to be entertained by games and devices so that we can be about our own personal satisfactions, then we’re not fulfilling our duties of fidelity to them.

In another in-depth interview, this time with Public Square Magazine, George defined fidelity when it comes to community:

But we need fidelity to our local communities as well. That needs to be rebuilt. We have to put to ourselves the challenge that John F. Kennedy famously, in his 1961 inaugural address, put to the country, put to all Americans, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.’ We need to say the same thing about our communities. Ask not, ‘What is my community doing for me?’ Your community is going to do a lot of stuff for you. But it can only do that stuff if each of us challenges himself or herself to say, what can I do for my community?

So I envision Fidelity Month to be a month in which we rededicate ourselves to fidelity to God, to our spouses and families, to our country, and to our local communities.

Here, it’s also worth noting that, while the outlets interested in George’s idea of Fidelity Month were comparatively small in reach, they should be applauded for the job they did of allowing him to add depth to his ideas. Their pieces reflect the ideal of true journalism.

Of course, another celebration has appropriated the rainbow as its symbol, but the logo designed for Fidelity Month would make a more attractive flag. George has chosen the myrtle as the symbol of fidelity, noting it’s an “almost perennial symbol of that virtue,” with logo designer Deacon John Barry designing an emblem with two myrtle leaves and “other meaningful symbols.”

In the next few days, we’ll begin seeing the rainbow logos put away for the year as we move on to the next big thing: the one day we set aside to celebrate our nation’s independence. After that, it’s on to summer clearance sales, back-to-school reminders, and the ever-popular family vacation (which may be a “staycation” in Joe Biden’s America).

Life passes us by in the blink of an eye.

So while it was tempting to declare June as “humility month” in response to the Rainbow Mafia, writer and author Tyler O'Neil notes that humility has a negative connotation. “The proper response isn’t just to negate what the LGBTQ+ movement promises,” he says, “but to take the positive view of humanity and ground it in something more noble.”

And that’s exactly what Professor George has succeeded in doing by attempting to turn the focus to fidelity. Even better, the great thing about Fidelity Month is that there’s nothing wrong with making it a year-long celebration that can turn into a personal challenge for improvement.

It’s a challenge worth undertaking every month, but we should help Robby George make this an annual reminder in 11 months’ time.