Atheocracy

   It is so difficult for me these days to find something upbeat to write. I try to break up the serious stuff; but every day brings something for me to fret about. Again, today, it is persecution and martyrdom. We have so many modern day martyrs. Christians are being jailed, tortured, killed, just because they are Christians, in China, India, Africa, the Middle East, especially.

   I still  believe that, given what I read in the newspapers, see on TV news or on the internet, that the war against Christianity is escalating dangerously. In the Church, on this November 8, we commemorate four martyrs, brothers, put to death by Diocletian in 304 A.D., and notice is given to Forty Holy Martyrs, soldiers in Armenia under Licinius, who refused to sacrifice to false gods. This was in 320 A.D. I recommend reading St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews 11: 33-39, regarding what saints have endured. I keep wondering. How much could I endure?

   I use the title,  Atheocracy, because I just this morning read some excerpts from a speech given by Bishop James H. Conley in Dallas.  "America today is becoming what I would call an atheocracy - a society that is actively hostile to religious faith and religious believers. And I might add - the faith that our society is most hostile toward is Chrisainity in general, and Catholicism in particular."

   He goes on to say that secularism among our American elites is not a neutral stance. They are "deliberately engaged in a process that aims to remove all traces of religious faith from our public life!"  There would be, then, no foundation upon which to "establish justice, secure true freedom, or to constrain tyrants."

   I know that I'm not the only one to see what is happening; and I probably am just like everyone else. We read about these things, all over the world, we think, "Oh, well, there's nothing I can do about it." Perhaps we tsk, tsk, say a prayer for those poor people and go back to the business of our daily lives. Let's hear it for the team. I have homework to do. It's time to get an oil change. There's a party Saturday night, etc., etc.

   Well, we should pay more attention. I've been on this soapbox before. Enemies of faith are vocal, powerful, determined. From banning crosses in public places, threatening faith-based institutions with closures if they do not comply with edicts against their faith, denying school teams the right to pray before a game, to forced "tolerance" and education "for" homosexuality in our schools, even to the youngest children, the battle is being stepped up. If we continue to believe that it will never be necessary for us to stand up for our Christian faith, that we surely would not be fired, or worse, jailed for expressing and defending publicly what we believe, then pay more attention. It already is happening. It is necessary NOW to stand up. These things ARE religious persecution, in its more benign forms. With people in power in this country who are steeped in communism and marxism, it is within the realm of possibility that they could use totalitarian methods to attain the goal of a purely secularist society.

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T.S. Eliot wrote about persecution. I found it apropos. It follows:

It is hard for those who have never known persecution,
And who have never known a Christian,
To believe these tales of Christian persecution.
It is hard for those who live near a Bank
To doubt the security of their money.
It is hard for those who live near a Police Station
To believe in the triumph of violence.
Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World
And that lions no longer need keepers?
Do you need to be told that whatever has been, can still be?
Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments
As you can boast in the way of polite society
Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance?
Men! polish your teeth on rising and retiring;
Women! polish your fingernails;
You polish the tooth of the dog and the talon of the cat.
Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws?
She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget.
She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they like to be soft.
She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be. And the Son of Man was not crucified once for all,
The blood of the martyrs not shed once for all,
The lives of the Saints not given once for all:
But the Son of Man is crucified always
And there shall be Martyrs and Saints.
And if blood of Martyrs is to flow on the steps
We must first build the steps;
And if the Temple is to be cast down
We must first build the Temple.

11/8/11