Strangers in a Foreign Land: Christians are the Most Persecuted People in the World

"Abraham, the believer, teaches us faith; and, as a stranger on earth, shows us our true homeland.  Faith makes us pilgrims on earth, placed within the world and its history, but on the way to the heavenly homeland.  Believing in God therefore makes us bearers of values that often do not coincide with what's fashionable or the opinions of the times, it asks us to adopt criteria and engage in conduct which do not belong to the common way of thinking.  The Christian should not be afraid to go 'against the grain' in order to live his faith, resisting the temptation to 'conform'.  In many societies God has become the 'great absentee' and in his place there are many idols, first of all the autonomous 'I'.  The significant and positive advances in science and technology also have caused in man an illusion of omnipotence and self-sufficiency, and a growing self-centeredness has created many imbalances in interpersonal relationships and social behaviors."
Pope Benedict XVI Wednesday Audience 23 January 2013  On Abraham's Faith "Saying 'I believe in God' means founding my life on Him".

I thought of the above text as I heard the Holy Father repeat, today, that idea (of Christians being bearers of a superior culture, informers of the culture) in his annual instruction at the Roman Seminary.  Here is the relevant text (my translation).

(Cf. 1Peter 3-5) "'Chosen': a word of privilege and of humility at the same time.  But 'chosen' is accompanied by 'parapidemois', scattered, strangers.  As Christians we are dispersed and we are foreigners: we see that in today's world Christians are the most persecuted group because not conformed, because a stimulus, because against the tendencies of egoism, materialism, of all these things.

"Certainly Christians are not just foreigners; we are also Christian nations, we are proud to have contributed to the formation of culture; there is a healthy patriotism, a healthy joy to belong to a nation which has a great history of culture, of faith.  But, nevertheless, as Christians, we are always also foreigners--the plight of Abraham, described in the letter to the Hebrews.  We are, as Christians, precisely today, always also foreigners.  In the places of work Christians are a minority, they find themselves in a situation of estrangement; it is a marvel that today one can still thus believe and  live.

"This refers to our life also: it is the way to be with Christ Crucified; this being foreigners, not living according to the way everyone lives, but living--or at least trying to live--according to His Word, in great diversity with what everyone says.  This is proper for and characteristic of Christians.  Everyone says: 'Everyone is doing it, why not I?'  No, not I, because I want to live according to God.  Saint Augustine once said: 'Christians are those who do not have their roots below like the trees, but they have their roots above, and they live this gravity not in the natural downward gravitation'.  Let us pray the Lord that He help us accept this mission to live as dispersed, as a minority in a certain sense; to live as foreigners and to still be responsible for others, and in just this way giving strength to the good of our world."