A little past 7:45 a.m. Eastern (6:45 a.m. Central), Annie Mitchell and I will discuss this blog post from the National Catholic Register, in which I responded to a great blog post on the same site by Monsignor Charles Pope about preparing for persecution:
It is time to prepare for persecutions that will get bolder by the month and year. The dark movements that marched in under the banners of tolerance never meant it. And having increasingly gained power, they are seeking to criminalize anyone who resists their vision. No tolerance for us. Religious liberty is eroding, and compulsory compliance is already here. The federal courts increasingly shift to militantly secular and activist judges who legislate from the bench.
When will we as a Church finally say to the bureaucrats who demand we comply with evil laws: “We will not comply. If you fine us we will not pay. If you seek to confiscate our buildings, we will turn maximum publicity against you, but we still will not comply. If you arrest us, off to jail we go! But we will simply not comply with evil laws or cooperate with evil.”
At the same time Monsignor Pope wondered if, after decades of what he called “comfort Catholicism” that has compromised with modern culture in many ways, Catholic bishops, priests, and laity will be able to respond so bravely.
Catholics have faced persecution before: in ancient Rome, in early twentieth century Mexico, in our own country during the colonial period, but one period may offer us a model and some hope, indeed, that “we will find our spine” as Monsignor Pope urged his readers, “before it is too late” — or even after it is.
So then I proceed to offer the example of Catholic reaction to the English Reformation, showing how response was so weak at first and how some Catholics finally began to defy their government, attending Mass when it was illegal, helping priests when that was a felony, and even reverting to Catholicism when that treason. Perhaps they resisted too late, but their faithfulness to Jesus and His Church did allow the Catholic faith to survive until the early and mid nineteenth century, when Emancipation and the Restoration of the Hierarchy restored the Church in England.
Listen live here.
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