Catholics Out in the Public Square

Since becoming a Catholic many years ago, I have never been shy about my Faith. Why should I be? I'm a subject of the King of Kings, Christ, Our Lord!

From Crisis

By Casey Chalk

In the face of increasing hostility towards religion, and especially the Catholic Church, lay Catholics should in fact more fully live their faith.

How “out” should Catholics be in the public square? Depending on the part of the country you live in, your career, and even your coworkers or boss, you might have a very different answer to that question. In some parts of the United States, finding a devout, practicing Catholic is about as rare as seeing a protected species in the wild. In other places, you can barely walk down the street without stumbling into a Catholic who is at least on the spectrum of “practicing.”

Regardless of where you are, warns Bishop Barron in his new booklet, What Do Their Deaths Demand?: Christian Persecution Today, we would be foolish to feel comfortable as Catholics in America today. Granted, Bishop Barron’s book is primarily about persecution of Christians elsewhere in the world, with a very specific objective: “I do indeed want to shake people—especially my fellow Christians—out of complacency in the face of an unconscionable violation of human rights.” And, as much as the most violent persecution of Christians occurs an ocean away, it’s impossible to deny that there is increasing antagonism here toward the Catholic Church and that we must all consider the character and texture of our public Catholic identity.

Christianity, Bishop Barron reminds us, “is by far the most persecuted religion today, all around the world.” In a chapter cataloging recent examples of contemporary persecution of Christians (Catholic and otherwise), there is an uncomfortable theme in the provided examples. From the Coptic martyrs of Libya, to Fr. Jacques Hamel in France, to the Middle East, Nigeria, and Pakistan, the most egregious examples of persecutions of Christians all seems to occur at the hands of Muslims. That’s certainly food for thought, and it is something I discuss in great detail in my 2021 book, The Persecuted.

Yet there are also plenty of (non-Muslim) examples that are much closer to home. Barron warns:

Those of us who live in a still relatively tolerant and religion-friendly cultural environment might imagine that the problem of anti-Christian persecution is manageable and at a distance. Not so. It is a rampant and growing problem around the globe, including in the West.

Bishop Barron cites the extensive vandalism and desecration that followed the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. To wit, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops recently noted that since May 2020 there have been more than 400 incidents of arson, statues desecrated, gravestones defaced, and other destruction and vandalism involving Catholic property.

As the United States becomes an ever more post-religious society, we can expect that antagonism toward our faith to grow. The Church’s teachings on a variety of issues, but especially those in tension with the ideology and bitter fruits of the sexual revolution, are offensive to younger generations of Americans taught that abortion, contraception, IVF, surrogacy, and decisions about gender identity are all tethered to their rights as citizens.

Of course, there’s nothing particularly new about this. Surveying the history of Christian persecution beginning in the New Testament, Bishop Barron notes that “Christianity was never simply a matter of a new moral teaching or a deeper insight into spirituality, or one among many ways to discover God.” Rather, Jesus pronounced a new kingdom that was owed men’s allegiance. Thus, “just as Jesus was opposed, his Church has been opposed from the beginning…this antagonism is a function of the very nature of Christianity.”

I don’t know about you, but I feel that tension in my life every day, especially at my day job. Sure, I can’t be explicitly persecuted in the workplace because religion is a legally protected category; but implicit persecution can take many forms. If you are vocal about your Catholic beliefs regarding the aforementioned topics related to sexuality, you may acquire a negative “hall file” that affects your reputation and thus your ability to progress in your career or get promoted. Thus, there is a natural tendency to self-censor because our community or workplace are environments generally unfriendly, if not hostile, to Catholic moral teaching.

In the face of this, Bishop Barron exhorts us to pray for the persecuted, stay informed, persuade our government to take action, provide aid to the persecuted, respect religious liberty at home, and resist “soft” religious persecution. “Actively resist the ‘soft’ persecution that takes place in the context of the woke culture,” he writes. “In an increasingly aggressive secularist society, Christians often face mockery, discrimination in hiring, harassment in the economic sphere, and the insinuation that we represent an ideology that is hostile to marginalized people.” He encourages Christians “to live their faith boldly, unapologetically, even with a bit of a swagger.” This could manifest itself in wearing a religious symbol on your person, putting up religious imagery in your place of work, or praying before meals.

In my own experience, I would say that it is harder to hide my faith as a committed Catholic than it was when I was an evangelical Protestant. Unlike some of my other more vocal Christian coworkers, I don’t have anything religious in my email signature; no one can see the crucifix or miraculous medal under my dress shirt. My job is too busy to get into long discussions on religion or politics. But I have Catholic imagery in my office (something my old Protestant self would have labeled idolatrous). A parish calendar hangs on my wall. Because my religious experience extends beyond Sunday worship to Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and holy days of obligation, it means I am often out of the office at awkward times that are too hard to hide.

Thus, to answer the question of how “out” Catholics should be in the public square: if you authentically live your Catholic faith, it will be impossible to hide it, even if you never talk about the “hot button” political topics that so often get the Church in the news or preach the Gospel. My icon of Jesus provokes routine questions from coworkers (“Are you Orthodox?”). Relating stories about my home life to coworkers inevitably intersects with the Church because it is so intertwined with everything we do. If you eat a meal with me, you will see me cross myself; and if it’s a Friday, I won’t be eating meat. Of course, you can ignore all of that and never bring it up with me—that’s your prerogative and right. I don’t need to force it. It’s simply there.

If you’re wondering if you’re not vocal enough about your Catholic faith at work or in your community, if you worry that you are avoiding possible persecution out of fear, the answer isn’t necessarily that you need to become an outspoken, Bible-quoting evangelist. Just live your Catholic faith more fully, more freely, and more confidently. Persecution may still come. But your humble, quiet piety may still win over a few people in the process. It’s worth a shot—and a prayer.