Nevertheless, he died for Christ

Today is the festival of the beheading of St. John the Baptist, who died for what Fr. James Schall called, in a brilliant essay about another martyr to marriage, St. Thomas More, "a small point of doctrine":

We sometimes think that it might be nobler to die upholding the truth of the Incarnation than in upholding, say, chastity, as Maria Goretti did. 

I sometimes joke that my motto is "I will die on all the hills." Some are rubbed the wrong way by it, getting annoyed, like a cat who fails to get the right strokes, with the foolishness of putting up resistance to anything seemingly insignificant, not to mention all the insignificant things. Pick your battles! Pick a big hill to die on! 

Why not just wear a mask? What difference does the kind of lightbulb or stove fuel you use make? Why object to teaching children all the different sorts of perverted ways human beings can use their bodies? Why point out that a beloved hospital, doing so much good, is also mutilating young people? Why not just go along, more silently? 

Fr. Schall continues:

But the truth is that Catholic teaching is a whole; the denial of any one of its teachings, when logically stretched out, undermines the whole order. And someone will always be found to stretch it out. 

About St. John the Baptist, the Venerable Bede wrote (and we read in the day's Office):

We do rightly revere his memory with joyful hearts, for he stamped with the seal of martyrdom the testimony which he delivered on behalf of our Lord.

There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to our Redeemer, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. 

The Church wants us to delve into the meaning of this witness. What does it mean for us, today, hemmed in as we are by political powers far more insistent than Henry VIII or Herod, if less dramatic; forces that wish to control our speech and thoughts, threatening us with isolation and loneliness if we fail to comply? St. Bede:

His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth.

That's all! Herod wished for John only to keep silent about the truth. Surely that is not too much to ask? Why speak out in that way, especially at a party? Why make a fuss? You are not being asked to deny Christ!

St. Bede goes on:

Nevertheless, he died for Christ. Does Christ not say: I am the truth? Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.

Truth is coherent, or we are doomed. Fr. Schall:

If no order exists in nature or man, if everything can be otherwise than what it is, no position can be more valid than another. Truth and falsity, good and evil, disappear. Catholicism is left holding to reason in a world that denies its validity.

Marriage -- the gravamen of the martyrdom of both saints, John and Thomas -- might seem like something we can compromise on. Not everyone agrees with us, after all; people have their differences. But, Fr. Schall:

Marriage is, and can only be, of one man to one woman. They are bonded to what is begotten between them. All good social and political order flows from these essential natural truths. Their violation will always lead to personal and societal disorder. 

...  Belloc pointed out that More had no particular love of the papacy at that time. His family and friends did not see why he did not follow the rest of the English hierarchy into the Anglican Church. He did not deny Henry’s political powers. What he died for was the truth of the Primacy of Peter. But this primacy, as such, was not so much the question, as the primacy deciding on a marital case.

Similarly for John, the issue that put Herod in such a tricky position was one that could easily, it seemed to that worldly monarch, be dismissed. What difference did it make who Herodias was married to? 

Besides, Herod had a promise, however rashly made, to fulfill. No going back on that -- and isn't it interesting to observe how on one side, taking a stand is regarded as foolish stubbornness, but on the other, not. It's positively rude of the Baptist to bring things to a... head.

Somehow, we even find ourselves wondering why John didn't wait for a more propitious moment to die, if martyrdom were his goal; and yet we take it for granted that a man in Herod's position simply must carry out whatever irresponsible notion he has proclaimed, even unto beheading an innocent man.

St. Bede: 

But to endure temporal agonies for the sake of the truth was not a heavy burden for such men as John; rather it was easily borne and even desirable, for he knew eternal joy would be his reward.

That's why we speak, why we ought to speak. St. John did die for Christ, in shedding his blood for truth, for a "small point of doctrine," for dying on all the hills. As Fr. Schall says of St. Thomas More: 

He saw that he must “witness” to this “abstract truth,” even if he must stand alone, and lonely, in an obscure cell to do so. Had his “witness” not been so firm, Henry might well have laid claim to rule, not only the city, but the mind.