My friend, Fr. Michael Sweeney, once remarked to me that the question is not whether the Church could survive persecution in the US but whether the US could survive persecuting the Church

Stories like this make me think of that remark. What with sin making you extremely stupid and all, I have to wonder if Caesar, now drunk on the wine of leftist hatred of the Church will really be stupid enough to start trying to strangle the whole network of social services provided by the Church, just out of stupid spite.

The Church will go on till the end of time somehow or other. But the US is a purely human institution that can easily commit suicide if it decides it is more important to hate and murder the Church than it is to care for the least of these.