(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) Well, it’s official: The Catholic Church is on the fast track to be banned in America. Exhibit A is a U.S. Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief which lists Catholicism as an example of “religious extremism”, alongside groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and the KKK.

The brief justifies this listing on the grounds of the Catholic Church's claim to be the sole means of salvation established by Jesus Christ.  It categorizes the infallible dogma of the Church as "religious extremism":

Extremism is a complex phenomenon; it is defined as beliefs, attitudes, feelings, actions, or strategies of a character far removed from the “ordinary.” Because “ordinary” is subjective, no religious group would label itself extreme or its doctrine “extremism.” However, religious extremism is not limited to any single religion, ethnic group, or region of the world; every religion has some followers that believe that their beliefs, customs and traditions are the only “right way” and that all others are practicing their faith the “wrong way,” seeing and believing that their faith/religion superior to all others.

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, website posted a STATEMENT of protest on April 4, 2013 that included the following:  

The Archdiocese is astounded that Catholics were listed alongside groups that are, by their very mission and nature, violent and extremist. According to an investigation and reply from the Army Chief of Chaplains office, the training in question appears to have been an isolated incident not condoned by the Department of the Army. The Archdiocese and the Chaplain Alliance explained that the Army can and should take steps to prevent such incidents in the future. The Archdiocese calls upon the Department of Defense to review these materials and to ensure that tax-payer funds are never again used to present blatantly anti-religious material to the men and women in uniform.
 

Good luck with that!  This is standard operating procedure for the notorious Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). They brief military and law enforcement agencies on “hate groups”, both real and imagined, while carefully maintaining enough distance from said agencies to be categorized as “private and unofficial” after someone blows the whistle.  The U.S. Army Reserve’s training brief opens with the following:

The number of hate groups, extremists and anti-govt organizations in the U.S. has continued to grow over the past three years, according to reports by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

So based on outrageous “intelligence reports” served up by the radically Leftist SPLC,  our men and women in uniform are being subjected to bigoted, anti-Catholic indoctrination at tax-payer expense.

No wonder hate crimes against Christians are on the rise!

No wonder even secularists are beginning to admit that persecution of all things Christian is clearly on the rise throughout the world.

No wonder we're seeing more and more examples of hate speech directed at Christians over at The Remnant’s Facebook page.

We do our best to refute such attacks, of course, but trying to stem the rising tide of Christophobia here or anywhere else is like standing in front of a tsunami with a roll of paper towels in hand. Humanly speaking, it’s pretty futile.  It’s sanctioned by government agencies, including evidently the U.S. Department of Defense, and generally ignored by mainstream media.  

The question is: What’s the Christian response supposed to look like? Christians attempt to raise the alarm as loud as they can and as often as possible, but for how long will that be tolerated when Catholicism itself is now listed in U.S. Army training briefs as an extremist group that Army personnel need to guard against.

Two thousand years ago the martyrs of the coliseum taught Christians how to live in times like ours: love your enemies, turn the other cheek, and, if necessary, suffer persecution rather than deny Christ or hate those who have. There are no exceptions to this rule—whether we’re speaking of Muslims, Jews, pagans, homosexuals, or even outspoken attackers of our religion such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

The downside to this where Christians are concerned, of course, is that the enemies of the Church have come to count on it. Refusing to return hate for hate is precisely what sets Christians apart and what makes them vulnerable to every manner of attack.

Thus their unbridled hatred of Catholicism knows no limit. It is based on an intolerance of any higher moral standard or indeed even any claim of the existence of absolute truth. For “forward thinking” people, the idea is to deny objective truth at every level and to label as hateful any restrictions on the rights of men and women to do whatever they please even if it is egregiously offensive to the laws of God and nature itself. “Thou shalt not” has been replaced with “if it feels good, do it!”

“Don’t you tell me what to do with my body!” has become the mantra of those thoroughly ignorant of history and its penchant to repeat itself.   Yet those who still attempt to follow God’s law are allowing someone to tell them exactly what they can and can’t do with their bodies every single day, year in and year out. And this is the problem the secularists have with Christians.  By trying to live by God’s law, Christians become walking indictments to those who don’t, won’t or can’t.  

So, the new thinking goes something like this: It’s impossible to live up to that standard. We were all born this way.  Those who deny themselves sexually or lay claim to  absolute truth are either insane or part of a cult.  Watch out for them!

This is all they can say, really, for they know very well that Christian morality is essentially self-imposed. In fact, it even allows for all sorts of extenuating circumstances when it comes to those who are not Christian. This is called “invincible ignorance”, and it is taken into account in every aspect of Catholic moral theology since it dramatically changes the level of culpability. "Invincible ignorance," says the Catholic Encyclopedia, "whether of the law or of the fact, is always a valid excuse and excludes sin. The evident reason is that neither this state nor the act resulting there from is voluntary."

Does this sound like vitriolic hatred against all those who are not of our religion? 

Educated and conscientious Catholics, on the other hand, can hardly lay claim to being invincibly ignorant.  Moral theology is thus especially demanding on them; and yet they choose to accept the teachings of the Church anyway.  So masturbation, for example, is a mortal sin that they believe will damn them to hell.  Their own inclination toward such sins of the flesh changes nothing. They hold themselves to a higher standard.  

Divorce is not an option for Catholics, either. Why?   Because God’s law prohibits it and the teaching of the Church forbids it under pain of mortal sin. Catholics often choose a lifetime of unhappiness rather than divorcing and remarrying. Why? Because remaining faithful to God means following His law even when it is extremely difficult to do so. Again, what an indictment this is to the new fad of willy-nilly divorce and remarriage, which renders marriage practically meaningless.

Are Catholics thus divorc-e-phobic?     

Difficult does not mean unreasonable. Faith and Reason dictate how Catholics live their lives—not a cult or fear of the inquisition, as the SPLC and their willing accomplices in the media would have the court of public opinion believe.

Free will is the foundation of Christian practice.  Christians are not forced to follow Christ but rather choose to do so, out of love for something greater than themselves. This pits them against the world, the flesh and the devil, which is why they are branded as haters and extremists, fundamentalists and terrorists by the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

This voluntary subjection to a difficult code of conduct is why Christians are despised by a world awash in self-indulgence and secularism. Catholics present no threat to anyone on any level, and the SPLC knows it.   Morality at the point of a gun, like forced Baptism, is condemned by the Catholic Church and thoroughly antithetical to the whole point and purpose of Christianity.

It is what Catholics do in the privacy of their own homes--what they believe in the secret recesses of their own hearts-- that has become intolerable to the Tolerance Police, which is why they paint Christians as jihadists who need to be  monitored against dangerous behaviors such as acknowledging the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church—a religious supremacy, if you will, that the SPLC is attempting to make into a federal offense.  Jesus Christ instituted one true Church which Catholics believe, objectively speaking, is the sole means of salvation.  But by acknowledging that infallibly taught doctrine of the Catholic Church Catholics are now guilty of hate speech, which, again, is why the U.S. Army Reserve's training brief listed Catholicism as an example of religious extremism.  

And of course Catholics are not the only ones to acknowledge a higher law and to claim ownership of absolute truth.  Evangelical Christianity and ultra-orthodox Judaism are also on the U.S. Army Reserve's list of religious extremist organizations. We’re all in this together. I remember becoming painfully aware of this on an airplane a couple of years ago.  I had organized a pilgrimage to Rome and for the first (and last) time Remnant Tours had booked airline tickets on Alitalia.

Halfway across the Atlantic the in-flight movie began. The film was one of those vile productions that would have been considered pornographic by the standards of any decent (but "unenlightened") people born before 1960. With twenty-five young students in my charge, I was outraged.

I walked to the rear of the airplane to complain to the lead flight attendant.  As I approached, I became aware of a man in yarmulke and prayer shawl taking his son by the hand and also beating a hasty retreat to the rear of the aircraft. Once there, father and son opened their prayer books, lowered their eyes and began to pray.

I stepped past them in the aisle and began to plead my case to the Italian flight attendant (probably Catholic). "You’ll have to take your seat," he said.  “We have no control over the in-flight movie selection. Take it up with Alitalia customer service.”

“WHAT! So, in the meantime the 25 minors in my custody will be forced to watch this rot?”

 “Take your seat, sir!”

After assuring him that our company would never again fly Alitalia, I turned and nearly collided with the Jewish fellow and his son, still praying at the rear of the aircraft.  “Excuse me,” I said.

 “Not at all,” said the father, emotion plainly visible in his eyes. “I want to thank you for what you just did. We must all do what we can. God go with you, my friend.”

He shook my hand and I his. For a long moment we looked into each other’s eyes, knowing full well what the other was thinking—neither of us has a place in this new order. We have no right to object because we have forfeited that right in exchange for short-term toleration from our secularist masters.  We’re all in cattle cars now!

I was struck by the irony of 300 ‘Christians’ enjoying the ‘entertainment’ on a flight to Rome of all places, while the Jew and his son stood in silent protest, praying.  

There’s not much any of us can do about this new dictatorship of relativism, which is now in possession of absolute temporal power. Hatred only makes us look and sound like them; it's not an option for the Christian.

Armed revolution and insurrection? Please! Eleven of the twelve apostles were martyred. Don't you think one of them might have thought of that, if it were in accord with Christian belief?  Even as He was being betrayed by one of His own, Our Lord instructed Peter to put away his sword.

Like Agnes, Sebastian, Barbara, Thomas More, Father Kolbe and countless Catholics who lived during times of persecution like these, we fight back by witnessing to the Truth in the public square each and every day, while leave the hateful rants and clenched fists to those who know not what they do. We’re up against Principalities and Powers. At the end of the day, this is a spiritual war between Christ and Anti-Christ.  

The Christian mission is simple:  frustrate the designs of the haters of Jesus Christ by simply keeping the old Christian Faith.  Keep our eyes on Christ even as He carries a Cross to which we ourselves may one day be nailed. Where’s the justice in that? There is none, just as there was none for Him the first time around.

But in the end the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph, the gates of hell will never prevail, and Christ will be with us always, even unto the consummation of the world.   So we must help each other “be not afraid” to keep the Faith, even in the face of gross injustice and bloody persecution.

Can you do it?  Can I? Let’s pray for each other that our faith will not fail us.