I have little instinctive sympathy with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a group that responds to every perceived attack on the Catholic Church -- no matter how trivial or silly -- with a prompt counterattack in the form of a sneering and sarcastic press release from its president, Bill Donohue.I understand the impulse to defend the Christian faith and those who practice it, but this hardly seems the right way to do it. Too often, the Catholic League seems ignorant of Christ's own words: "You will be hated by all for my name's sake" (21:17). The implication is not, "So hit 'em back with all ya got!"
Rather, as Christ says in his Sermon on the Plain: "Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets" (6:22-23).
As Christians, we should expect to face opposition and even hatred: It means we're doing it right. We cannot respond by fighting fire with fire, or feeling sorry for ourselves, or even feeling smugly superior. The early Christian martyrs went to their gruesome deaths singing hymns of praise.
If the church is under attack by the culture, we ought to feel sorry not for the church, but for the culture. Our response must be one of love.
The last words of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, were a prayer for his persecutors: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (Acts 7:60).
(Image: Jean-Leon Gerome, "The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer," 1883)
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There is a caution here: people may think they are doing right BECAUSE they are persecuted. I wonder if that's how people who hold up signs about hell on street corners think, at least subconsciously.
ReplyDeleteLet's also remember that persecution can be the greatest form of evangalism. There is something very mysterious about the martyr who goes to his death with a serene joy, and people who see it want to explore that mystery. As Tertullian observed, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."
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