First, Let’s Be Honest About the History of Persecution

I’ve spent nearly eleven years of my life as a Catholic, and all of it under Pope Francis. (I Left Eastern Orthodoxy for the Church Led by Pope Francis, and I Don’t Regret It). Is this the worst pontificate in the midst of the worst crisis the Church has ever faced? Perhaps. In reviewing history, it seems that some of the worst times are times of open and violent persecution. We sometimes look at these times as the glory days, when many saints, martyrs and confessors arose. And this is true.

However, we should not minimize the difficulty of open persecution. It would be unwise to look nostalgically at those times. In those times of open persecution, there are many unnamed, forgotten souls who were weak and denied the faith as a result of being afraid of death or suffering. I would hazard that the majority of Catholics are in this category, who are maybe in and out of a state of grace, or, even worse, do not attend Mass except on Christmas and Easter. How the Catholic Churc... Thomas E. Woods Best Price: $8.00 Buy New $9.06 (as of 05:30 UTC - Details)

Think about it for a second: these Catholics are mostly doing these things out of habit or guilt or something. But consider this as well: how many of this majority will die with the Sacraments? If they’ve kept up the habit their whole life, why would they stop at their death? I would hope that, in God’s mercy, many of them would die in a state of grace because the approach of death awakens true repentance in them.

This is the state of many lukewarm souls when there is no persecution. These are benefits of a society where the practice of our religion is free and, even more, the government is subordinated to the King of Kings and pays Him homage through a publicly-funded cultus. Think about what will happen to all the lukewarm souls if the government is Communist or hunting down Catholics and killing them. Most of them would fall away and conform to whatever the government wants and never die in a state of grace.

Moreover, consider this: are you, O reader, truly prepared to presume that you would stay faithful under persecution? What if you were tortured? What if they tortured your spouse or children? What if they did all the wicked things that we know the enemies of Christ did and do to the martyrs? Would you have the strength of a martyr, or would you also pinch incense to Caesar?

It is spiritually wise to never presume on our own strength, as St. Peter did when he zealously protested that he would never deny the Lord. Rather, we should fear for all manner of wickedness from our own fallen, weak nature. Let us not pray that these days of persecution may come, or envy those days when our forefathers fought the fight of martyrs, but rather ask that God may turn His wrath away from us, even now. Say not: What thinkest thou is the cause that former times were better than they are now? for this manner of question is foolish (Eccl. vii. 10). Misreading Scripture w... O'Brien, Brandon J. Buy New $13.28 (as of 11:02 UTC - Details)

I say all of this not to argue that our times are worse, but rather to give a historical perspective to our time and the pontificate of Pope Francis. Some say this is the worst crisis the Church has faced, and I think that’s certainly a reasonable assertion, as I’ve said elsewhere. At the same time, open persecution is no cake walk, as we say in the States, but rather a period of intense spiritual warfare (and often real warfare).

In the same way as we might think the first two pornocracies were not as bad as ours, how would you feel if Pope Francis was openly unfaithful to his vow of celibacy? If he fathered multiple children and had male lovers? If he openly toasted Satan or sponsored orgies at St. Peter’s? What if you woke up one day to find out that Pope Francis had an army and he was invading your city? In the Second Pornocracy, you had much of this, but also open persecution from heretics, especially in the tyrannical police state known as Elizabethan England.

Or let’s take it further, as we just discussed above, as Our Lord said, when the Son of Man cometh, will he find faith upon the earth? What if the Antichrist is revealed and a worldwide conspiracy results? As I said it is a dogma of our faith that the end times will be like this. That will certainly be worse than our own time. If this is true, it is highly likely that the pope at that time will actually be worse than Pope Francis.

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