Yesterday the US Supreme Court made two decisions regarding same sex marriage. Well technically, one decision and one non-decision. Hearing this news started me thinking, which as you may know is always dangerous for me.

I won’t bore you with my opinions on the decisions, other than to say I think that this will lead to yet another attack on, not only Catholics, but Christianity as well. It won’t be long before a same-sex couple in California will want to get married in a Catholic church by a Catholic priest and when they are refused, they will will file a lawsuit which will more than likely find it’s way to the Supreme Court. We all know it’s coming.

So this brings up the question of martyrdom. Would you become a martyr for Christ? If it ever comes to the United States government forcing you to denounce your faith, would you? Yesterday on Relevant Radio’s “”On the Journey” they aired a talk by Patrick Madrid, entitled “Battle for Faith in Mexico, Viva Cristo Rey” in which he talks about what happened in Mexico in the 1920’s when the government outlawed the Catholic faith. You can decide on whether this could happen here or not, but it raises the question, what would you do? Would you stand up to torture for refusing to renounce your Catholic faith? I admit I am not up on the saints as I should be, but there are many stories of how they were martyrs and what they did. And there are still martyrs out there today. In fact in my own parish, run by the Assumptionists, each week we pray for three kidnapped priests, who were kidnapped in the Congo. there has been no news about them  but I would guess they are martyrs. In places like Syria, Christians are persecuted every day.

So again I ask, what would you do?