This article was first published in The
Catholic Herald
A Letter from Wormwood
With Apologies to C.S.Lewis
By Dwight Longenecker
My Dear Slubglob, Now that I have assumed
the post of my late uncle Screwtape, allow me a brief
word of instruction concerning our patients in the English
Catholic Church. You will have observed that this particular
species of religious rodent has a tendency to nostalgia.
Our colleagues in the Ministry of Information have been
successful in making sure that they do not understand real history.
Instead we have been able to feed them shallow patriotism
mixed with a misty-eyed nostalgia. When this is combined
with religious sentiment the result is especially pleasing.
Slubglob, if you handle this with finesse you will be
able to make your patient totally unhappy with the present
reality of his church. With some skill this unhappiness
will turn into a permanently sour attitude that you may
be able to turn into open rebellion. If you nurture this
rebellion, in no time your patient will actually consider
giving up the practice of his faith. Furthermore, he
will do so with a most delicious mix of tragic despair
and a most delicious brand of self-righteousness.
The training manuals
call this state of mind, ‘the nostalgic fantasy.’ The nostalgic fantasy
is one of our elementary ploys, but have you noticed
how religious rodents of exactly the opposite temperament
indulge themselves in the same way? Those who do not
incline to nostalgia opt for the fantasy of ‘progress’.
Of course we must quash any idea of a church that is really forward
looking and positive at all costs. Encourage forward
looking ideas, but do not let the patient actually do anything
that is positive. Keep him thinking about it. Then show
him how backward the church has remained and how all
the attempts to make it modern and forward looking have
failed. Bring him into contact with some of our most
successful cases—the religious people who are disgruntled
with the Catholic Church because it has not adopted ‘the
Spirit of Vatican II’ as much as they would like. With
a bit of luck your patient will become just as unhappy
contemplating the golden future that will never be, as
the other patients who are reflecting on the golden past
that never was. As in the first case, your patient may
be led from his golden fantasy about the future to a
real disgust with the church, and from there it is but
a short hop to open rebellion and a betrayal of the faith
completed with a just the right dash of self righteousness.
By combining these
two seemingly opposite temptations we should be able
to keep a large proportion
of English Catholics in a permanent state of discontent,
complacency (tell them it is not worth trying for all
is lost) and rebellion. You might even be able to get
the two sides to fight with one another. It is most satisfying
when the rodents fight, never imagining that the reason
they hate the other side is that they are both guilty
of the same faults.
I should point out a particularly
worrying development on the enemy’s side. Some Catholics
are undermining our best efforts. They are a loose knit
group who remind people of our more regrettable failures
of the past while planning new campaigns for the future.
I am most worried about something called The Continuity
Movement. Try to get your
patients to see them as ‘triumphalistic’. (The use of
this word in recent years has been one of our happiest
successes. Some of our most able servants have constantly
warned the church of being ‘triumphalistic’ while there
has never been a danger of triumphalism at all. The rats
have really needed warnings against being lukewarm and
defeatist, but as long as the ‘triumphalist’ warnings
were sounded they never realised how complacent and timid
they were.)
The Continuity Movement is the
brainchild of one of our established enemies. You will
remember one Graham Leonard, as the Anglican Bishop of
London. Well Slubglob, he has shape-shifted and now works
under the disguise of a Catholic priest. Furthermore,
he has joined a dangerous organisation called Miles
Jesu. This is Latin for ‘soldiers of Jesus’. Remember
the English hate foreign sounding names. Bring that up
then remind them how distasteful military metaphors are.
Associate Miles Jesu in their mind with dowdy
and ignorant Salvation Army Officers. Put distasteful
hymns like ‘Stand Up Stand Up for Jesus Ye Soldiers of
the Cross’ into their mind. Remind them that Miles
Jesu was founded by a Claretian priest, Fr Alphonse
Maria Duran. Make the Spanish connection seem frightening.
(When you combine the word ‘Spanish’ with religion almost
all the English will think of that delightful episode
called the Inquisition)
This priest took
the nasty little ‘Cursillo’ movement
with him and established it in America. Unfortunately,
some of the enemy’s inadequate rodents completed a Cursillo
and asked for a way to make a ‘total commitment to God.’ (Why
they insist on yielding themselves to be devoured by
that tyrant I have no idea.) These quislings didn’t feel
called to the priesthood or the conventional religious
life so the little Spanish priest set up Miles Jesu. The
community has now been approved by that impostor at theVatican.
They have over 1000 members in fifteen countries across
the globe.
You really must keep you eye on their
house in London. It is the centre of this insidious Continuity
Movement. Steve Ryan, the senior member of the house
is an intelligent former journalist. He sports a particularly
nauseating cheerfulness and an annoying sense of humour.
(This must be artificial since he has taken a vow of
poverty, chastity and obedience) Ryan and his team say
they want to help bring Britain back to her historic
roots in the Catholic faith through the modern methods
of the New Evangelisation.’ With no shame at all they
engage in school missions, street preaching, and the
distribution of gospel literature. They travel across
the country to speak at conferences and retreats and
are involved in a new lay leadership project for the
Church.
My dear Slobglob,
we have worked hard to isolate the new movements in the
Catholic Church.
We have succeeded in making some of them suspicious and
jealous of one another. Up to now we’ve managed to keep
the foreign ones from establishing bases in England,
but like damp, they seem to be creeping in everywhere.
Now Ryan and his toadies are organising a day conference
in London to draw everyone together who is interested
in the New Evangelisation.
Be there Slubglob.
I know you will find it suffocating, but you must observe
their tactics if
you wish to defeat them, and if you do not defeat them
may I remind you of the constant hunger of our father
below? They will be meeting at Westminster Cathedral
Hall on Saturday morning 20 September at 10.00am. I’m
sorry to report that their Cardinal will be there to
support them. (How His Eminence Burpgrip failed us I
have no idea)
They have lined
up various converts to speak publicly about their reasons
for converting. In
the afternoon they will process into the cathedral and
dedicate England to ‘Their Lady of Walsingham’ (She is
certainly not Our Lady) This promises to be a particularly
odious event. Gather your lieutenants your cronies and
your lowlife my dear Slubgob. Do everything you can to
ensure the day is a failure. Remember, if English Catholics
embrace their past with pride and then actually do something
about the New Evangelisation the price you pay will be
very high indeed.
Dwight
Longenecker is one of the keynote speakers for Continuity’s The
Keys to the Future conference on 20 September.
