The Five Stages of Religious Persecution

Msgr. Charles Pope has written an article about the five stages of religious persecution. It's a sobering perspective, especially when you consider that the stages coincide in many respects with Alinsky's strategy in Rules for Radicals to gain power for community organizers and Kirk and Madsen's strategy in After the Ball to advance the homosexual agenda. Here are Msgr. Pope's five stages:

Step 1: Stereotype the targeted group

Step 2: Vilify the targeted group for alleged crimes or misconduct

Step 3: Marginalize the targeted group's role in society

Step 4: Criminalize the targeted group or its works

Step 5: Persecute the targeted group outright

These steps fit nicely with Alinsky's strategy for attacking particular groups. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Since Alinsky also preaches that the "end justifies the means" and portrays the organizer's goal as a "war,"
any action against the "target" is justified. Stereotype it, vilify it, marginalize it, criminalize it, and persecute it fits within his "ethics of means and ends." The only determinant of a method is the likelihood of its success. In view of the successes achieved in the attack on religion so far, Christians are right to be concerned.

Kirk and Madsen's morality (or immorality) is similar to Alinsky's and they were likely familiar with his work. Their strategy included "jamming," i.e., vilifying those who opposed homosexual behavior, and launching hate activities against them. Here's just one quote illustrating their hate-filled tactics. “At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights...it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified.... Our goal here is twofold. First, we seek to replace the mainstream’s self-righteous pride about its homophobia with shame and guilt. Second, we intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types." They go on to talk about contrasting images of hatefilled "homophobes" with pictures of innocent and normal looking gays. This has been the strategy of the media which used the same types of tactics to gain abortion on demand. The New Normal is just one example of TV propaganda.

In terms of "criminalizing" Catholics, the culture has accomplished this in spades. The sex abuse by a minority of priests has been magnified over and over and over, while the homosexual nature of the abuse has been almost totally ignored. On the other hand, the homosexual abuse of children by non-clergy (like the murder of Jesse Dirkhising by two homosexuals and the homosexual nature of Jeffrey Dahmer's murders) has been covered up by a complicit media. Apparently children abused by homosexuals in the general population is acceptable; only homosexual abuse by priests is vilified.

We are well on the way to outright persecution as Msgr. Pope points out and the HHS mandate clearly shows. Pray for courage and continue to fight with the knowledge that persecution is likely. Serious Catholics will be restricted in employment as the culture forces cooperation with more intrinisic evils. Can a doctor be sued for refusing to prescribe contraceptives? How about a surgeon who refuses to perform sex change operations? Or a pharmacist who refuses to prescribe deadly drugs in a state where assisted suicide is legal? Pharmacists, health care workers, photographers, caterers, and B & B owners  are already being sued for refusing participation in intrinsic evils on the grounds of religion. They are often losing. The doors are closing for those who love the Lord and would rather forsake income than sin against him. And only those who are blind refuse to see the blatant discrimination.

Pray for America and for our precious children and grandchildren who will suffer most as the persecution intensifies. Mary, Mother of the Americas, pray for us.