Monday, May 14, 2012

Persecution of Catholics and Gays


If I was young and clever I would love to remake this video and change the lyrics to "You got your scap'lar hangin' out, you got your scap'lar hangin' out, looking like a Catholic with your scap'lar hangin' out!"  Feel free, someone, to steal this idea and send me a link to your video.  I would SO like to see it.

Once again I was fiddling with the straps on my brown scapular today as I was walking on the road by my house.  It is always reminding me of my consecration to the Blessed Mother, day in and day out, as it trys to peek out from under my shirt in grocery store lines and parent/teacher conferences, etc.  Maybe that is the result of simple physics or maybe it has a life of its own. . . hmmmmm.

I am not trying to hide my Catholic Faith but I take visible public signs of it seriously.  You never know when the persecution will resume.  I half expect to see it during my lifetime.  (But then I half expect to see the return of Our Lord, too, so take that for what you will.)

A really alarming sign of the coming persecution is the Catholic-themed newsfeed I see every day on my iGoogle homepage.  It shows the top stories related to the Catholic church in the mainstream press.  Lately it is getting pretty nasty,  maybe even worse than at the height of the clergy sex-abuse scandal.  Boy, threaten people's contraceptives and they turn ugly!

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
                                                            --Mahatma Gandhi

Anyway, I was pondering this as I walked past the house of a woman I know.  She was doing me a favor a few months ago and I was at her house and I had this OHHHHHHHH experience when it dawned on me that she was gay.  She is a very nice woman.  Some of my best friends from high school are gay.  The Church teaching on this one is a little hard to understand.  (See Conversion - the 95% Rule.)

My point is not to question Church teaching.  I accept it and grieve what it must mean for my neighbor (although I think she is of-another-faith and probably doesn't give a flip).

Anyway, now she and I have something in common.  We can both wonder if and when the persecution will come knocking on our door.  Her because she is gay, myself because I am Catholic.  An interesting thing to share with someone.

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Update - 2/27/2014 - So I get the Church teaching on homosexuality now.  Here is the best homily I have heard yet on the subject.  It is by Father Mike Schmitz, campus minister at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.  If you like that, you can check out about 200 of his other homilies at this page.


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