Persecution in Christianity

Oh, I'm glad that I will get to respond in more than just a comment. I think this can offer some clarity to our exchange. My understanding of civil persecution is that laws are made which apply unjustly to a group. Meaning not that laws must be applied equally to all, but that laws must be applied to all in accordance with justice. I will show here that Aquinas would agree that any law which bars priests from celebrating Mass publicly (explicitly or implicitly) is unjust, and hence a persecution of the group to which those priests belong.

For context, my claim was that Ireland is persecuting Catholic priests who offer mass publicly while there is a rule not permitting public gatherings. In fact, it's not persecution because the law is targeted at Catholics, but because the right of the Catholic faithful to attend to their religious obligations should never be infringed. You see, the Church should enjoy a privilege over and above that of secular institutions, and I think that Aquinas would agree with this. The law as written makes no exception for Catholic Masses. There are two relevant points from Aquinas that I've found.

Secondly, laws may be unjust through being opposed to the Divine good: such are the laws of tyrants inducing to idolatry, or to anything else contrary to the Divine law: and laws of this kind must nowise be observed, because, as stated in Acts 5:29, "we ought to obey God rather than man." ST II-I Q96 A4

and

[I]t happens often that the observance of some point of law conduces to the common weal in the majority of instances, and yet, in some cases, is very hurtful. Since then the lawgiver cannot have in view every single case, he shapes the law according to what happens most frequently, by directing his attention to the common good. Wherefore if a case arise wherein the observance of that law would be hurtful to the general welfare, it should not be observed. For instance, suppose that in a besieged city it be an established law that the gates of the city are to be kept closed, this is good for public welfare as a general rule: but, it were to happen that the enemy are in pursuit of certain citizens, who are defenders of the city, it would be a great loss to the city, if the gates were not opened to them: and so in that case the gates ought to be opened, contrary to the letter of the law, in order to maintain the common weal, which the lawgiver had in view. ST II-I Q96 A5

It would seem to me that Aquinas would agree that priests saying Mass publicly during a pandemic where there are emergency orders in place to keep large gatherings from occurring should have exception, under Divine Law and with an eye towards the common good. How much more important is access to the sacraments in times of uncertainty and plague than in better times?

For more clarity, I didn't say any civil law that interferes with the Mass is a persecution, but that there are priests in Ireland who were arrested specifically for offering Mass publicly, which is persecution. In your initial example, the priest isn't being persecuted even though he doesn't make it to Mass because the act for which he was detained was not "offering Mass publicly." In the case in Ireland, the act for which the priest was arrested was "offering Mass publicly," even if the law used to do the arresting doesn't explicitly call out offering Mass publicly as a crime, that is the act for which he was arrested. Referring to Aquinas, this is a case in which "the lawgiver... shapes the law according to what happens most frequently, by directing his attention to the common good... [I]f a case arise wherein the observance of that law would be hurtful to the general welfare, it should not be observed." (ibid) I can think of nothing more hurtful to the general welfare than outlawing the public celebration of the Mass. Hence priests are owed an exception to the law to do so, hence giving them no exception is a persecution, even if the law is applied equally to all institutions (which we know it is not; the political elite in pretty much every Western country have been getting away with breaking their own Covid rules since early 2020).