It used to be so dramatic and glorious — you know — the brave Christian, refusing to worship the Roman gods, forced to face the wild beasts of the arena but bravely looking death in the face and keeping fidelity to Christ in the heart. Lots of movies about that topic. No doubt you’ve heard that “what goes around comes around” and that “history tends to repeat itself.” Not many Christians are going to actually die in a judge’s chambers or on the dock before a jury, but the principle is the same: the Church is sending out a call to members to stand firm in the faith and prepare for persecution.

That’s what happened this week when 43 different Catholic entities in 12 legal jurisdictions filed suit against the United States government for the government’s malicious attempt to destroy religious freedom by making Catholics and all other religious entities worship the false god of Obamacare. That’s what is behind the HHS mandate to force religious institutions like Catholicism to put aside their beliefs and kowtow to the secular power.

The persecution of religion speaks exactly the same ideas today as it did in Roman times. Instead of a Roman ruler saying, “You can worship whom you want in private, but in public you must put your religion second and worship the emperor first; now, we have the government saying, “You can worship as you wish behind church walls, but if you do anything in the public square like feeding the poor, tending the sick, helping the distressed, your religion comes second and we will tell you what you can and cannot believe and how you can and cannot live your faith in public.”

Already we see the hatred spewing forth against Catholics as the media tries to cast the dispute in terms of the Church’s opposition to abortion, contraception, and its supposedly irrelevant teaching on sexuality. That type of brouhaha from the “intelligentsia” is reminiscent of the pagan Romans’ claim that Christianity had to be suppressed because it supported cannibalism (in a twisted description of the Eucharist) or threatened the peace (in the Church’s pacifism and abhorrence of the emperor’s cult). Lies, lies and more damn lies from a hostile secular world that tried to eradicate us before and seems bent on doing it again.

Whether it is the Roman Empire of 65 A.D., which martyred Peter and Paul and their Christian compatriots, or the Washington, D.C., of today, which seeks control of how religious people live and what they believe in our pluralistic society, the real issue is religious liberty — a concept at the heart of our Constitution and central to the nature of our faith.

We are being asked by our bishops to prepare for a “fortnight of faith,” from June 21 through July 4, a time to stand up publicly against this persecution. Catholics will, and other faiths will follow, but we should know something clearly: just because we are right does not mean we will win. The long term victory is assured because Christ will be with us always, but in this dark time, as night falls over the common sense of human beings, we should be prepared to stand like Christians of old — willing to give our lives for what we believe.