Un-Catholic: Who decides? or "The Illegalization of the Faith"

Religious Persecution

The idea of religious persecution seems like a stretch for most of us "Born and Bred" Americans. It is a far distant historical feature that somehow caused our relatives to come over to this country a long time ago. Beyond that, we don't really think much of it. I on the other hand am a little bit more convinced that our societal downward spiral is around the corner and we will face physical persecution for our faith in our lifetime.

So when I read two recent posts over at Creative Minority Report, I started thinking about how this is all going to come about. You see, it won't come in the form of some instant edict. You have to coax a culture into denying itself, otherwise you have revolution, and that would defeat the purpose. The purpose is to eliminate faith, more precisely to eliminate Christianity, especially Catholicism. I know this will get many of you to stop reading, but give me a chance here, you see, Catholicism if true (which we believe to be the case) flies directly in the face of the lifestyle that most who are in "power" in this country, have. That being the case, a dichotomy is set up between the believers and the un-believers. To them freedom is the ability to do whatever, whenever. So they see moral constraints as an affront to their freedom and way of life. Therefore, just as an enemy, we must be eliminated or suppressed. Suppression works when easily contained, but there is always the fear of "escape." Hence, elimination is more stable.

The Erasure

Stripping the world of the faithful is impossible. Let us focus on this country. If the government instantly outlawed Christianity over-night, chaos would erupt. So it has to be a slow fade, a systematic and calculated erasure of Christianity from public life. Thereby, it would turn religion into something private which could then eventually be regulated, and eventually outlawed. Think about it, how did contraception become legal? It became a personalized right, and then it became public welfare, and now healthcare. To legalize something, you take a private practice and make it a "privacy" issue, and eventually make it into a publicly acceptable practice. Homosexuality turned into same-sex marriage, recreational drug use turned into health-care covered prescription marijuana, and in-utero murder turned into the "5 day-we-don't-know-when-life-begins" pill. So to do the opposite, to erase something... we have to take it from the public sphere, and make it private.

A sign of things to come will be the removal and literal erasure of Christianity from public life. Think of all the symbols in our nation's capital that are Christian based. There are inscriptions, carvings, symbols, and the like on almost everything built prior to 1960, and even some more recent things. Now, lets imagine if they wanted to "carve out" some of the religious words on the Washington Monument, would we be upset? Would we see it as an affront to both our country and our faith? Or would we just say: "It really isn't a big deal." Isn't it?

Using the double-standard

Over at Creative Minority Report, what I read that got me thinking about all of this is that some liberals have started calling certain actions "Un-American." (Specifically criticism of a plug-in-hybrid car. Ironically, the person who said that such criticism is un-American was born a Canadian citizen: Jennifer Granholm.) What Matthew Archbold points out about this situation is that just a short while ago, liberals would lambaste anyone on the conservative end of the political spectrum that used the phrase un-American. But, for their own agenda, the phrase is completely acceptable. I am sure they have some equivocation or justification for its use.

So I wonder if one day, we as Christians will have our own principles used against us. Will Charity, Hope, Compassion, and Love be used against us? Will marriage and life laws be crafted in a way that utilizes the core beliefs of the faith to make a point? I would argue that it is already happening to some degree. We have religious suppression in the name of religious freedom. We have same-sex marriage laws crafted in the words of love, life, family, and commitment.

So when the illegalitzation of the faith occurs, it won't come beating down the door, no, it will come like a thief in the night. It will slowly make private our beliefs. It will remove religious principles in the name of religion out of the public square and into our homes. Then the ostracizing will occur. From there, the faith will become anti-social, and then eventually illegal. The precepts of the faith will be ignored by society, and the social function and purpose will be the only thing evaluated. They will be shown to have no positive purpose and therefore they will be outlawed.

Ground Zero (left); Proposed Mosque Location - "Obama Supported" (red rectangle)