In today's world, especially in a place like Canada, being good or holy is the worst possible thing you can be in secular eyes, especially if it involves traditional forms of piety and worship. Also, how bad it is varies by province.
Where I'm from if someone is under the age of 60 and professes any sort of Catholic religious belief, the average person will immediately attack them. The strange part is they won't attack them for being holy or a "goodie-goodie" like in the old days. No, they will attack them as being positively bad or evil. This is the big difference nowadays.
Being a devout Catholic is considered very evil in this society. It's such a weird concept that it perhaps needs a little elaboration. People actually think it's bad to be holy. It's not that they think you are a hypocrite or that you are boastful, it's that they believe that being religious is evil in itself. In the past they may have made fun of religiously devout people, kind of mocked them, etc. This came from a place of pride and they may say something like "oh you think you're so good, you think you're better than us? well guess what, we are also good, just because we don't follow all your strict rules, doesn't make you better than us."
However, now they say something different. They will say "we, the people who just follow our base instincts and do whatever we please, we the people who seek revenge and act against God in so many ways, we are really the good people, but the evil people are the Christians, especially Catholics. They are so bad. They are intolerant, bigoted, hateful, nasty, etc. They are the worst people."
It's really super risky to proclaim your status as a believing Catholic in my society. You might as well say you abuse elderly people, you get the same reaction. Probably about 90% of my society is non-religious. They live by their own rules. "Do what feels good".
The new morality is kind of hard to piece together actually. It's built on a very flimsy and weak foundation. It seems your actions are irrelevant (unless your action is to worship God in a traditional way). Instead, this new morality relies on vacuous "acts of kindness".
"What's that? You have committed dozens of mortal sins? No worries because you also gave a child a cookie, so you're all good. You are a "kind" human being."
"What's that? You live an extremely selfish life and never consider anyone else? That's okay, you also pet a stray dog on the head. That makes you a decent human being."
This modern-day "morality" is really just a form of Satanism. People think Satanism is worshiping the devil, but it's not, it's really worshipping oneself. That's the basic premise of Satanism. Do what feels good, hurt people who hurt you. They throw in a few worthless "gestures" and have their newfound modernist religion.
It's a crazy world we're living in. If you choose to be Catholic, you will not be praised by people of this world, you will be hated. I know people reading this will say this is obvious. In fact, Jesus himself said we'd be hated. But I think the difference is that in the past, the evildoers implicitly acknowledged that Christians were good and accused them of other things because of what they represented. Now, on the other hand, Christianity is considered bad in and of itself to modern self-worshippers.
One of the ways they hate Catholics is by thinking "I'm open-minded and accepting. Christianity is intolerant therefore if I hate Christians I am really hating intolerance." They are only "tolerant" because they want their own sin to be tolerated. They want to be able to do whatever they want without any consequences.
Christians are hated because of what they represent to evildoers. Evildoers want to be accepted not despite but because of their sins. They proclaim their evil wherever they go, and they do not like people who bring this to their attention. They think if they eliminate or marginalize anyone who disagrees with them, then their sin will become acceptable. So the existence of any Christian who could bring their sin into view is considered a threat.
Now, more than ever, we must realize that being a good Christian takes a great deal of courage and strength, especially the more we participate in society.
