On Martyrdom.
Years ago, back when I went to the YMI day retreats, one of my group leaders asked us if we knew what it meant to be a martyr. Me, always the over-achiever, raised my arm high and proclaimed that it was someone who died for their faith. The missionaries laughed at me. "Not in America!" they proclaimed.
And I think they are right. The idea of feeding Catholics to lions, or burning them to death as was the fate of the Ugandan martyrs, seems highly unlikely. The American character is too averse to such open persecution, and the evil too blatant, to really grab hold in this country. So what does martyrdom look like in America?
(And you are fooling yourself if you think there aren't American martyrs. The world cannot simultaneously hate the Church and tolerate Her presence. A sinner hates nothing more than the guilt of his sin, and cannot help but harbor a grudge against those who reinforce that guilt by denouncing the sin.)
About once a year, a priest from Vladivostok, Russia, makes the tour of Orange County, preaching at parishes, and asking for support for the missionary work in Russia, undoing the evils of the Communists. He tells the story of what happened to the Church in Vladivostok at the beginning of the Revolution. Most of the city's inhabitants were Orthodox—too many to openly persecute—so the Soviets simply bombed the churches. One Easter Sunday, in front of all the faithful, they simply closed the Orthodox churches, save one, and blew them up, to be rebuilt for The Party's use. The Catholics were not so lucky. They were a small minority, and the Communists saw no reason to try and tolerate them. Catholics were simply rounded up and executed, and the city didn't notice much difference.
So there is strength in numbers. It's hard to imagine a relatively peaceful country killing off a fifth of its inhabitants (or even a twentieth, if we only count those who meet the bare minimum requirement of weekly Mass attendance). 60 million (or 15 million) is a lot of graves to fill. But the tactics of the Soviets may lend an insight. If there are too many to round up, simply keep them out of their churches.
