In an interview with The Washington Times, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois says things are getting ugly in America right now for Catholics.

It’s a 15 minute interview and I know that’s a little long for many people but it’s worth it.

Here’s some highlights:

“We [Christians] find ourselves now – just in this short period of time – where the early Christians found themselves in the Roman Empire. So the church in 2,000 years, we started out as being a persecuted faith, with Constantine being an accepted established faith, then for centuries, kind of moving in that direction that had this close relationship between the secular world’s values and Judeo-Christian values,” Bishop Paprocki said. “And now I think we are moving in a direction that – not only is it more than secular – it’s a rejection. It’s an outright rejection [of Judeo-Christian values]. It’s a pagan kind of a culture.”

“The reality is that – ironically, it is becoming more like the Church was in the time of John Paul II in Poland under Communism where you [Christians] lived in a very hostile environment. We still have the First Amendment of our Constitution but that is being sorely tested. “