Increasing discrimination against Christians in Europe and US – the “polite persecution”
Discrimination against Christians, even where they are the majority, is a serious threat to the whole of society stated Mgr. Janusz Urbanczyk, a representative of the Holy See to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Restrictions on religious freedom are also preventing the influence of faith from shaping public life and politics.
He pointed out that in various countries covered by the organization there is a disturbing tendency to separate religious beliefs from their practice, with religion, especially Christianity, being increasingly removed from the public sphere and reduced to something only done in private life.
Increasingly Christians must practice their faith in private. Although they can pray in churches, society does not allow them to follow their faith in public. Christians had their freedom taken away in the disguise of modernity and have even been brought to court for standing up for their beliefs. In the name of “political correctness” Christians are often denigrated as bigots or intolerant, noted Fr. Urbańczyk.
Pope Francis has also spoken out on the subject of persecution which he described as “ the daily bread of the Church: after all, Jesus said so.”, stating that there were two kinds of persecution: bloody persecutions that we know from Antiquity and those carried out by totalitarian regimes, and a new type of persecution against Christians, which could be dubbed “polite prosecution”. Although blood martyrdom has not yet come to the Western world, all Christians have experienced persecution cloaked in a disguise of “culture, modernity and progress”
In many western countries said the Pope “a person is not prosecuted because he calls himself a Christian, but for wanting to demonstrate the values of the Son of God. This is a persecution of the Creator in the person of his children”. Increasingly, new legislation in US and Europe does not follow, or at least does not want to take into account, Christian values.
This is a form of “persecution that takes away man’s freedom…. and even the right to conscientious objection! God made us free, but this kind of persecution takes away freedom!” Thus, “if you don’t do this, you will be punished: you’ll lose your job and many things or you’ll be set aside.”
Every day the powerful make laws that force people to take this path, and “a nation that does not follow this modern collection of laws, or at least that does not want to have them in its legislation, is accused, is politely persecuted.”
The Pope was forthright in his condemnation: “when the powerful want to impose attitudes, laws against the dignity of the children of God, persecute them and oppose God the Creator: it is the great apostasy.”
ACN Malta
