Do you suffer persecution for your faith?

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I’ve lost most of my family connections and every non-catholic friend I ever had because of my faith. I have been ridiculed, cursed at, and marginalized for openly defending my faith in public. As a result, I have developed a bad anxiety disorder with depression over the years. Unfortunately, I am genetically predispoded to these conditions. I think to have the amount of loneliness I have because of my faith qualifies as persecution. Just the other day I was thinking that heaven is a much better place to be than earth. Sometimes I wish Jesus would take me already. I think it is called a “white martyrdom” (though I wouldn’t call myself a saint yet). Im still fighting the good fight though. I won’t give up.
 
Define persecution, physical persecution?

My sisters persecute my parents for being Catholic, though that is how they were raised and my sisters were also raised Catholic.
 
Not me so much, and not “real” persecution, but my high schooler daughter has been mocked and belittled for being Catholic by fellow evangelical and Baptist students. What’s crazy is they are so secure in being “right” based on no facts whatsoever and often wrong info. The ignorance is astounding. We live in the southeastern US where Catholics are a minority.
 
Ah, I see 🙂 I live in Florida and there are also a lot of Catholics here. Louisiana is originally French so that makes sense. How much of the state is Catholic?
 
That’s a pretty good number, Baptists in second, hmm. Hard to be persecuted when you’re in the majority I guess.
 
Hm, I’m surprised that so many are counted as not religious to be honest. I didn’t suspect so much, but I guess that makes sense with what I have seen of some people.
 
Gingersnaps4 said:
Not me so much, and not “real” persecution, but my high schooler daughter has been mocked and belittled for being Catholic by fellow evangelical and Baptist students. What’s crazy is they are so secure in being “right” based on no facts whatsoever and often wrong info. The ignorance is astounding. We live in the southeastern US where Catholics are a minority.
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It’s funny, when I was young, I was quite abused and mistreated by 7th-day Adventists who saw me as subhuman because I was Catholic. Since I was destined for hell–as both adults and children frequently reminded me, it was fin for them to do whatever they wanted.

As an adult, I rarely run into other Catholics in the “outside” world and only a few Christians. For the most part, there is a social order–so long as I don’t open my mouth people more or less lay off. But I know that one of the ladies who had excellent work reviews suddnly found herself terminated on the sortest PIP I’ve ever seen that was magically insituted only days after she wore ashes to work.
 
That’s so sad that that lady got fired after wearing ashes for Ash Wednesday!

My daughter in general does stay quiet but she happened to do a reading for the 6:30 a mass of the Immaculate Conception and she was excited about it…plus her best friend is a hardcore Baptist whose parents own the biggest Protestant bookstoare in our town so they debate religion often. So this past Homy Day she got accused of worshiping idols as well as cannIbalism etc…just sad. I do wonder, if a Protestant has been taught these things is it even a sin on their behalf? My daughter has tried to reason with her BFF on these things, but we cannot even argue on biblical points as hers says “ greetings, Mary” instead of “hail, full of grace”. It greatly saddens me that people are being led so far from the truth!
 
Gingersnaps4 said:
That’s so sad that that lady got fired after wearing ashes for Ash Wednesday!

My daughter in general does stay quiet but she happened to do a reading for the 6:30 a mass of the Immaculate Conception and she was excited about it…plus her best friend is a hardcore Baptist whose parents own the biggest Protestant bookstoare in our town so they debate religion often. So this past Homy Day she got accused of worshiping idols as well as cannIbalism etc…just sad. I do wonder, if a Protestant has been taught these things is it even a sin on their behalf? My daughter has tried to reason with her BFF on these things, but we cannot even argue on biblical points as hers says “ greetings, Mary” instead of “hail, full of grace”. It greatly saddens me that people are being led so far from the truth!
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Of course, it wasn’t officially why. PC culture would never allow that. It was just odd that after 5 years of stellar reviews and promotions, after a mid-year review that resulted in an extremely unusual merit raise—all of the sudden she was on a two-week PIP for “underperforming” many duties which she’d never done. Some were technically in her job description, but she was a really hard worker and she did many things (from the request of her superiors) that weren’t part of her job description.

It was pretty clear that her “closed minded” and “refusal to foster company culture” were directly related to her practicing openly.
 
It’s really hard when your workplace puts out a memo declaring, “Any stance against the rights of individuals that have been granted to LGBQ-whatever citizens will be considered contributing to a hostile workplace and will result in a PIP, restricted duty (like an unpaid suspension) and firing.”

So it was imperative to keep one’s mouth shut about being Catholic. I had a couple of gay co-workers and one straight one who frequently tried to bait me into saying church teachings and what I believed (which was grounds for termination). Fortunately, I was mostly able to avoid these people, change the conversation or have a non-hostile witness around and carefully say that they had Catholic teaching correct…and then find a way to say that I believed in church teaching without addressing the subject directly.

It was tricky.
 
Horton said:
I don’t know if persecution is the right term but I have family members who are rather uncharitable regarding my Catholic faith. One continually posts anti-Catholic rhetoric on Facebook, you know the kind of things that Catholics “believe” that are just myth or completely untrue.
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It was my in-laws for me. (My father in law was not part of it though)

They went from uncharitable initially to down right nasty when my wife converted. Once I was told “We don’t care if you go to hell, but we will not allow you to drag our daughter there.” They actively worked to the end of their lives trying to split us up, but they failed there.

I think all of us get the snarky remarks from co-workers etc I usually just brush it off, or try and use humor.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
It’s really hard when your workplace puts out a memo declaring, “Any stance against the rights of individuals that have been granted to LGBQ-whatever citizens will be considered contributing to a hostile workplace and will result in a PIP, restricted duty (like an unpaid suspension) and firing.”
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That is something that a Catholic should be able to follow without any memo.

We are to respect the dignity of all persons and to stand up against unjust discrimination.
 
TheLittleLady said:
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Xanthippe_Voorhees:
It’s really hard when your workplace puts out a memo declaring, “Any stance against the rights of individuals that have been granted to LGBQ-whatever citizens will be considered contributing to a hostile workplace and will result in a PIP, restricted duty (like an unpaid suspension) and firing.”
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That is something that a Catholic should be able to follow without any memo.

We are to respect the dignity of all persons and to stand up against unjust discrimination.
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Not really. They were alluding to Gay marriage. Everyone knew what they meant. This is not about “respect and dignity” but about the rights they are granted. Saying that you did not believe in gay marriage was considered an act of hostility. We had a “giving doubling” programs and all organizations that supported traditional marriage were listed as “hostile and inappropriate for donation” 80% of that list was Catholic orgs.
 
Nope. I live in a city that has people of all different religions living peacefully. It’s a blessing.
 
No. My sister in law strongly doesn’t like Catholic’s though, but that’s about as close as it gets so far. I try to love her out of it so I actively try not to offend her on purpose, but I am also trying to get her to be some sort of Christian so it can be a bit of a delicate balancing act at times.
 
Personally, no.
Although there are some radical muslims where I’m from, most muslims I meet are really nice and do not condemn me to go to hell and burn there for eternity.
I even have a discussion about the contradiction of Christian teaching and Islamic teaching.
But yeah you can’t be blind, building a church is hard here, these radical muslims are always blackmailing us ,asking for money.
They said it’s sequrity fee. (This sounds like that sharia law that allows non muslims to stay in a muslim country as long as they pay money to the muslims) But this kind of blackmailing is actually frowned upon by the mass media in Indonesia ,because this country isn’t just for muslims (even the constitution declares it).
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
Real persecution? No.

Being harassed at my old job, being mocked or laughed at, dealing with a secular culture that is very hostile? Yes.
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This.

Persecution is what Christians in Mosul had. I may have hostility but not persecution.
 
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