Catholics should welcome their persecution. That’s what Christianity is all about

Catholics fuss too much about anti-Catholicism. Yes, there’s been lots of hostility to next week’s papal visit. (Peter Tatchell’s documentary, which will be broadcast on Monday, looks particularly nasty.) The secularists have got their knives out, and Catholics are understandably alarmed and angry.
 
But should they really mind? Isn’t Christianity supposed to be all about suffering and persecution? Rather than moaning about prejudice, Catholics should welcome it. Having pompous men like Geoffrey Robertson bother to deliver their ‘devastating legal indictments’ against the Vatican is a compliment, of sorts. It suggests that Catholicism still has some bite in the modern world. As Peter Hitchens admits in this week’s magazine, many Anglicans are jealous of how Catholics get all the God-hating abuse. It is a sign of Rome’s vitality.
 
Some Catholic writers agree. On the Catholic Herald website, William Oddie quotes Luke 6: 22 to prove the same point:

“Blessed are you, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.”