Up against status quo

The year 2013 is going to be challenging for Catholics, but then even metaphorical martyrdom is not necessarily a bad thing. Not that I long for suffering — I want to die in my bed, aged 95, surrounded by chocolate — but complacency tends to breed indifference if not contempt, especially where faith is concerned.

We need to put matters in proportion. Catholics in the Middle East, Pakistan, Africa, China, North Korea and Cuba have faced persecution for generations, with violence and arrest regular neighbours. In the west we’ve had it easy for a long time, and still do in relative terms. But the culture and the state are no longer on our side, and if we think otherwise we either do not understand the situation or we have compromised our beliefs.

That human life was sacred, that marriage was the union of a man and a woman, that promiscuity was undesirable, that honesty and integrity were admirable, that family was constructive rather than destructive, that God existed, were self-evident truths to most people in Canada and to institutions of mass communication and governance.

All of that has changed, and usually more because of prejudice than intelligent analysis. Watch mainstream television, go to movies, take courses at university, listen to politicians and it soon becomes obvious that the underlying approach to morality and manners has been transformed. And because the Church is the only institution that stands entirely firm on these matters, it is inevitable that Catholicism and Catholics will be under fire.

It’s why you will see more believers and leaders taken to human rights commissions, abused in entertainment, marginalized and silenced in the public square. Be extremely suspicious of any who boast Catholicism but are welcome in the halls of power — it’s tempting to sell out, and the earthly rewards can be glorious.

This is not about opposing something because it makes us feel special or because we’re just perennial moaners. There have always been ghetto Catholics, people who prefer the bunker to the crowded room. No, it’s far more significant than that. We’re no longer choosing to be contrary to the status quo, but now have that position thrust upon us.

In a society where babies are aborted, marriage is abused, God is abandoned and humanity re-defined, the choice to confirm and conform is simply not available any more. As such, Catholics are now revolutionaries, in a revolution that genuinely merits the name. Forgive me, but I have little time for the fellow travellers, the Catholics who want acceptance and praise from those who preach all that is opposed to that for which we are supposed to stand.

When Henry VIII began the English Reformation, there were many bishops, clergy and laity who preferred ease to opposition; during the French Revolution there were clergy who collaborated with the atheist state; even in North America and Western Europe there were (and are) priests more excited by socialism and liberalism than faith and orthodoxy. If clergy fails, congregations tend to follow.

Today we’re in a much healthier way. A papacy that shines like diamonds, a new generation of cardinals and bishops who inspire, priests bathed in strong formation and muscular faithfulness and a perhaps smaller but certainly more devout community of Catholics in the pews. We’re going to need all of them in the coming year. Nobody will be taken away to camps like in Cuba or China, nobody will be murdered in the street like in Pakistan or Egypt, but people will be fired, mocked, humiliated, threatened and punished, like in Britain and France.

Yes, nations we once thought civilized are now acting with barbarism.

Never invite suffering but never reject it or fear it. To suffer for God and His Church is an earthly bruise, but an eternal blessing. Don’t rely on political parties to protect you, and don’t assume that the situation will improve. As the earth shakes, hold on to the only thing that does not shudder or shatter when tragedy strikes. The Church is there, for you, me and all of us. I still want the nonagenarian confectionary death if possible, but it’s not really in my hands. Enjoy the year — it’s going to be an interesting one!

(Coren’s latest book is Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity. His web site is www. michaelcoren.com.)