The Pope was prophetic when he wrote those words. We shall see priests having to work as labourers, as the professional jobs will be closed to Catholics as they were under the Soviets. Look at English history. In the areas where there were strong Catholic families, there were underground Masses and catechesis. In places where there were no strong families, the Church died. We shall be hand ploughing fields or foraging for food waiting for the priest to come to our area.
Islam is a religion of the material. Even the afterlife is defined in material terms. Few of that religion understand the spiritual. They seek a perfection of a material kind. A material utopia will never last. Only the Catholic Church teaches consistently that the only utopia is in heaven. We have the Church which is the New Jerusalem, but not for here, not for now.
The Church Militant will be the Church suffering. Do not kid yourself. We shall endure, with grace, and maybe without regular sacraments, but the Church will endure, if only in scattered communities of those who are orthodox. I suggest creating communities now, and evangelizing daily in the way God granted you to do that. We must, as the time is short. The Pope gave us those words over 40 years ago. Some of us were listening. We may have been lulled into complacency for awhile, but now we are awake. We cannot afford to pretend anything else will happen. I see a world divided between the Marxists and Islam. We shall be persecuted by both. Even in France already, there is an unholy alliance between those two groups, as the Christians are hated by both. We have been given time.
