Persecution to come?

[chrysostom]

Has anyone given thought to how you would prepare if things got particularly onerous for Christians where you live?

Inviting contributions even if you don't believe this this is happening or likely to happen now - maybe at some point in the future.

For many it will depend on their locale and their workplace. In industry after industry, the amount of cooperation with evil required at the risk of your job seems to increase. Doctors and nurses trying to keep their jobs after conscientiously objecting to immoral procedures, for one. Photographers and bakers doing weddings. Pharmacists prescribing certain drugs. Little Sisters of the Poor trying not to be forced to be a cog in the wheel of funding abortifacient contraceptives.

I certainly know the USA is "fine" still - compared to places in Nigeria where new martyrs are constantly being made. What goes on in some places here, or across many other wealthy countries, is more about putting up restrictions here and there which get in the way until it is easier to just go with the flow.

But some individual stories are chilling. A couple in Australia had their child taken from them because the court decided it was healthier for the child to undergo a certain kind of chemical and surgical mutilation during teen years. I don't think it's a stretch to see this sort of jurisprudence imposed by a motivated and activist legislature, executive office, and judiciary in the USA. A piece of proposed legislation - if I have this correctly (and I might not?) - could make it next to impossible for dioceses and parishes to decline hiring staff who openly oppose church teaching by lifestyle or word.

I don't know. There's not much I can do about it all, and the only reason I am posting this now is though my opinions on some current matters have changed plenty of times over the past year, one thing I am definitely convinced of is that many powerful people and organizations gaining real power in this country are in fact openly opposed to Christianity and committing to interfering in the peaceful exercise of religion and building families. I'm also convinced the permanent bureaucratic state is about to get even bigger.

Only really effective thing to do is to become holy, I guess.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, chrysostom said:

Only really effective thing to do is to become holy, I guess

  It is our only real vocation and call from The Lord and His are the Graces that accompany us in all things in every journey.  Certainly, I regard Australia as no longer a Christian country.  

It might well be we are heading for another age of persecution and why not?  Other places and ages have and do experience it.  Not only that, but every temptation is a persecution of virtue by some form of evil.  We are continually under persecution.  It has many forms and degrees.  And "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" (Tertullian - Apologeticus, L. 13).

Cause and effect are continually in motion.

Quote

 

"The Pharisees and Sadducees came and, to test him, asked him to show them a sign from heaven.   He said to them in reply, "(In the evening you say, 'Tomorrow will be fair, for the sky is red';   and, in the morning, 'Today will be stormy, for the sky is red and threatening.'

You know how to judge the appearance of the sky, but you cannot judge the signs of the times.)

An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah." 3 Then he left them and went away." (Matthew Chapter 16 and 12 - Chapter 12 is more explantory of "the sign of Jonah")

 

Quote

 

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.  For I have come to set a man 'against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

and one's enemies will be those of his household.'

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. (Matthew Chapter 10)

 

Pope Benedict when still Cardinal Ratzinger in his book "Faith and The Future" https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/spiritual-life/the-church-will-become-small.html  As a sort of summary, to me it is a prophetic text, and it is also a message of Hope.  It did remind me of the message of The Book of Revelation.

[Sponsa-Christi]

@chrysostomHonestly, I think about this all the time. I know, please God, more extreme persecutions may never happen in the United States. But I tend to be a worst-case scenario kind of person, so these sort of concerns are definitely on my radar, even if they aren't on the forefront of my daily worries. 

Obviously, we should pray for the grace to accept "red martyrdom" if it's ever set before us. But I think the "white martyrdom" of decreasing conscience protections in the face of an increasingly secular society might be more challenging to deal with. 

I'm a canon lawyer by profession and employment, so I have the luxury of not having to worry at all about reconciling my job with Catholic moral teaching. But I do wonder what I would do if dioceses ever had to go "underground" as administrative structures and couldn't function as normal workplaces anymore. Becoming a canon lawyer takes like 5+ years of focused graduate training (on top of a 4-year undergraduate degree...in philosophy!), so I don't have a whole lot of readily obvious transferable skills.

I suppose I could maybe try to break into something like freelance copyediting or technical writing if I ever needed to find non-Church, non-morally involved ways to support myself? But boy, that would be tough...

Anyway, I don't have any real predictions or answers here! I'm just kind of musing aloud. 

[chrysostom]

Yeah, I didn't really think about this till now but my current work and skillset depends on the continued stability of the Catholic church as it stands in my area. God willing it will continue just fine, but maybe it won't and I'll have to look for another type of job. Maybe never but maybe 20 years from now, maybe 5, maybe 2. It probably wouldn't be bad to, in the intervening time, set aside a regular time per week to learn to code or something...

Edited January 10, 2021 by chrysostom

[fides' Jack]

Farming and agriculture skills will be invaluable.

[tate4242]

20 hours ago, fides' Jack said:

Farming and agriculture skills will be invaluable.

I totally agree.... my wife is Pentecostal and some of those people are off the scale gifted..... I've been researching them for twenty years.......... and Jesus really likes those people and seems to be showing them some secret information........

 

 

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"There will be a sudden rush to buy farms, ranches, and homes in the country.

Thousands will attempt to flee from cities, hoping that a return to the land and

nature will provide security. There will be a growing urge to "get away from it

all"---and much money will be invested in land and acreage in rural areas by

people who have secret dreams of raising their own food and cattle and of

becoming self-supporting. The price of open rural land will continue to soar.

Acreage within 100 miles of most major cities will skyrocket out of reach to

all but syndicates." (David Wilkerson, The Vision, page 18,19).