This week, my 11-year-old nephew and godson Liam delivered a crisp, 60-second speech to his entire middle school in the gym. Barely peeking over a podium at half-court, he made a clear, if jumpy, case to become student council secretary in the upcoming election.

After introducing himself, he said, “I am in sixth grade. I play soccer and the cello. I’m a hard-working student, and I’m running for secretary. I think you should vote for me because I’m organized, observant, and focused. I’ll make sure to take good notes during meetings and remind everyone of important events and activities. I am a good listener.”

He then wished the audience a wonderful rest of their day, and they rewarded him with hearty applause.

Of course, the Register’s parent company, EWTN, is a 501(c)3 non-profit that does not endorse political candidates. However, given Liam’s pithy campaign kickoff, I will accept the professional consequences of my actions to endorse him, as well as encourage his classmates to cast their vote in his favor.

Having sat through the entire Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which consisted of approximately 24 hours of empty-calorie rhetoric, Liam’s straightforward speech was refreshing. With his head held high, he simply introduced himself, outlined his skills, and shared his vision for the job.

This is how politics is supposed to work, I thought immediately. Candidates are meant to speak clearly and carry themselves with humility. These qualities are almost entirely absent on both sides of our political divide.

And we suffer for it more than we realize. Our “leaders” now rely almost exclusively on firing up the collective amygdala of their respective tribes. Voters choose the nation’s fate through a thick haze of resentment and melodrama, and only a small fraction can articulate their preferred candidates’ policy positions. This is, of course, exactly the way the politicians want it. If we don’t know what they stand for, they don’t feel the pressure to take a stand.

Of course, there are a million reasons national politics don't operate like the politics of the school gym. The fate of the world is actually at stake in our national elections (though, to be fair to middle schoolers, a student council election sure can feel that way).

But it is good to be reminded now and again what politics looks like in its purest form. There is — at least there is supposed to be — a reason we involve ourselves in politics. It is the arena in which we implement our moral worldview in concrete terms. It is, for Catholics who take seriously the implications of the creed, where the rubber meets the road.

Our catechism teaches that God calls each of us, through our baptism, to both holiness and service. Too often, Catholics today sacrifice one for the other. Many lose their grounding in the faith due to an obsession with politics, while others neglect their duty to engage in politics out of fear of becoming corrupted by worldliness. Both groups fall short of the baptismal call. By making an idol of politics, the former marginalize God. And by cloistering themselves, the latter cede vast swaths of moral territory to the forces of secularism, which places innocent souls at risk, especially our youth.

Catholics who consider themselves “above” the grubby art of politics protect their own spiritual condition at the expense of the collective spiritual condition, which has the ultimate effect of protecting neither. (Ironically, Catholics who pronounce themselves as “above” politics are often consumed each day by the pettiest Church squabbles on Catholic X).

In contrast with the high-nosed disengagement of some and the low-brow bellicosity of others, Liam’s speech rung out like a church bell on a Sunday morning. It embodied the both/and baptismal call to holiness and service without sacrificing an ounce of either. He didn’t call other candidates names, nor did he flinch from presenting himself as the best of the bunch.

In his inaugural address in 1961, our nation’s first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, called on citizens to ask themselves what they can do for their country while worrying less about what their country can do for them. And indeed, there appears to be a direct line between the sorry state of our politics and our failure to heed Kennedy’s call. Today, we are fixated on the rights and rewards of American citizenship but indifferent to the responsibility of contributing to the success of America as a whole.

Kennedy’s call has resonated through the ages because, like Liam’s speech, it struck the uniquely Catholic balance between rights and responsibilities. Catholics are a priestly people, beholden to Christ’s command to spread the good news, not to horde it for themselves. We are called, in the words of St. John Paul II, to “build the kingdom of God by working with the Lord, who is its first and decisive builder.” We are called to put our talents to use, not to bury them in the field.

America will only remain free and prosperous to the extent its people are ready and willing to put ourselves forward in service. And for doing that, I am extremely proud of Liam, and I pray that God raises up a generation of courageous and virtuous leaders committed to serving the greater good.