It is rare that a respected segment of American life would become vilified and hated overnight. The usual transformation from respect to vilification goes in stages which grow in intensity. And hereby the Church, once a respected aspect of American life, along with the Protestant denominations has become increasingly marginalized and hated by many. It may help us to review these stages of persecution since it would seem that things are going to get more difficult for the Church in the years ahead. Generally there are distinguished five basic stages of persecution.

By way of giving due credit I want to say that these stages were recalled to me by Johnette Benkovic, of Women of Grace EWTN. She spoke at a recent fundraiser here in DC for WMET 1160 AM, Our Catholic Radio Station in the Guadalupe Radio Network. She gave a wonderful talk and a summons to courage. And…

For most of this year, in post after post, we (along with about a million other folks, so we can’t take ALL the credit…) warned that the Obama Administration via Obamacare was coming after Religious Freedom, and was going to try to make it virtually impossible to both practice your faith AND operate your business.

Heck, that’s what that whole “contraception” battle really was. It wasn’t about access to condoms or the ‘pill’; it was about your faith being ruled out-of-bounds when it came to owning and operating your company.

And, yes, I of course heard that I was being “ridiculous”, …numerous times.

Yeah. SureI was.

Fast forward to the “Hobby Lobby” lawsuit that is STILL going on right now.