Catholics: Acid in Uncle Sam's Belly

Burning of St. Augustine's Church in the 1844 Philadelphia Bible Riots

I want to link to a great article about Catholics in the US from the blog Forgotten Altars. The author makes the case that Catholics will always be acid in the belly of Uncle Sam, particularly the older, fatter, and more cranky he gets (these are my words not his). My take is that yes, we need to fight these "battles" like the homosexual marriage and HHS mandate stuff. But let's not kid ourselves. This country's fate was sealed when the good guys lost the civil war, and it will end the way all empires end... with coliseums and killing of Catholics. I think the final death throes are as much as a century or so in the future, but we need to be prepared for this eventuality. Don't get me wrong, I love America. This is still probably the greatest nation on earth. But as Chesterton has said:

 "My country, right or wrong is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying My mother, drunk or sober."

There comes a point where our patriotism becomes entirely something that looks back... to what our country once was, and to the men who in days past have died for it. But when increasingly our country ceases to resemble the former one, and our primary freedoms are taken from us, it gets harder and harder to wave the flag out of anything but mere nostalgia.