May You Live In Interesting Times...

... The title of this post is, apparently, an ancient Chinese curse. I think that the times in this country are getting to be very interesting indeed. There is more and more persecution of Catholics: not, surprisingly, from Muslims, or even from other Christian denominations, but from the secularists who want to smash any mention of God, aided and abetted by lapsed liberal Catholics who cannot bear the idea that there is such a thing as objective truth or objective morality.

More and more, we can see that the teachings of the Church are being attacked in legislation. To me this is very redolent of the Elizabethan and Jacobean laws which made it a matter of treason to be a Catholic priest or to give shelter or assistance to a priest. I find it shocking that, in a recent attempt to clear the statute books up a bit, the House of Lords called for several "old" laws to be removed... but no-one mentioned the law which forbids the monarch to marry a Catholic.

It is illegal to discriminate against a homosexual person. Discrimination is wrong, no doubt about it, but under the SOR legislation it is wrong to present heterosexual marriage as "better" than homosexual civil partnerships. This means that the Catholic Church, with her clear teaching on matters of morality, is on a hiding to nothing. It is only a matter of time before the first Catholics end up in the dock because they tried to pass on the Faith.

I believe that we are in for a time of persecution...

...and this might be just the wake-up call that is needed for Catholics in this country. I think we have become a little too comfortable with the status quo, attempting to fit in with the laws and regulations of the land. The fact that it has been possible to consider whether Catholicism should push for the same sort of status as the Church of England demonstrates this.

Bishop O'Donoghue of Lancaster Diocese being harangued by a Parliamentary Select Committee was an indication of how unpleasant things will probably get.

People are beginning to realise that we cannot just keep quiet and hope we'll be allowed to live our own lives quietly as long as we don't upset the apple cart: we can't even teach the Catholic Faith in our own Catholic schools - the MP who said openly that Faith schools were ok just as long as they didn't take the faith too seriously made that clear.

Anyway, I was delighted to hear the kerfuffle over Cardinal Keith O'Brien's Easter sermon criticising the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embrology Bill... when the BBC and the chattering classes start condemning a Church leader for speaking out on matters of morals, we know that he must be doing something right. And in the same vein, Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue has condemned anti-life legislation such as the HFE Bill and the laws which allow euthanasia by withdrawal of food and fluids.

Our Church leaders might just be beginning to wake up. And not a moment too soon!