.jpg)
During the persecutions of the Catholics in Rome in the First Century, the followers of Christ were seen as threats to the civil authorities and civic order.
Catholics were not considered good citizens by the very fact that they were Catholics. Why? Because Christians acknowledged and still do, an authority greater than the government.
As the emperors and the People and Senate of Rome looked on a group which had loyalty to a different god, not the gods of the Roman Empire, these leaders considered Catholics as dangerous.
We are dangerous. Any state which does not follow the laws of God, such as the Ten Commandments, must fear us. We have allegiance to a Divinity, the Trinity, and the Truth which has been handed down through the centuries in the Catholic Church. We do not conform to state deviancy from natural law or from revealed law.
We have a clarity of vision which may not be the same as a state, or any group which claims authority over us.
Recently, in Canada, the problem of the government pushing lgtb curriculum in the schools has meant that the bishops had to take a stand against this blatant agenda to change children's view on sex and identity.
Catholic schools which comply will most likely no longer be called "Catholic", as these will have departed from the teachings of the Catholic Church. Some people want to be good citizens and obey the law. Some want to choose compliance and conformity to the State-the Government of Canada-over God's Laws.
Catholics will always be counter-cultural, and perhaps, counter-state. The martyrs lost their lives for believing in Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity AND for living contrary to the mores of the time in that belief.
We are all being called upon now to choose between the state and the Church.
As Christ's Church is His Own Bride, we know what the choice is. Do we have the guts to follow Him?
