Pope Francis has laid into modern cultural trends, especially the casual acceptance of abortion and the persecution of the Christian faithful, calling the present globalist mentality “a perverse new state of affairs.”

“Before, it was a sin, you couldn’t kill little children, but today you can, it’s not seen as a big deal,” the Pope lamented during his homily in the Vatican Tuesday morning. “It is a perverse new state of affairs.”

Commenting on the first biblical reading for the day from the second book of Maccabees, the Pope reflected on “the martyrdom of a man who was condemned to die for his loyalty to God and His law,” drawing lessons applicable to the persecution of Christians in today’s world.

There are various forms of modern persecution, the Pope suggested, such as religious persecution, cultural persecution and the persecution rooted in “ideological colonialism,” which could be the most insidious.