Lockdown With the Devil - Chapter Nine

Taking The Screwtape Letters as a model, Mr Hall envisions the demonic attack on the family during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

From One Peter Five

By Kennedy Hall

Read chapter I here, Read chapter II here, Read Chapter III here, Read Chapter IV here, Read Chapter V here, Read Chapter VI here, Read Chapter VII here, Read Chapter VIII here.

Malthus by boy,

So you have asked for clarification as to why I am so giddy about the current state of the Church as regards the reaction to the world-wide hysteria about the contagion. Really, must we explain everything to your generation? Has the education in the Academy become so dreadful that you cannot understand such basic principles? I will have words with the professors about this; either they are incompetent or you were a terrible student and never should have been assigned such a task. Perhaps I should compile a book called “Deviling for Dummies;” you could be the main character.

In any case, I will explain what I meant in my last letter in more detail. As I said, the immediate shuttering of the churches on behalf of the majority of the world’s hierarchy reaffirms that they are largely lacking in supernatural faith. This is something we have known for a while, and it has long been our intention to engender this reality into the hearts of the Christians. Our infiltration into their Council some decades ago was perhaps our greatest triumph in centuries. Through our influence, certain highly influential clerics were able to slip foggy phrases into the documents which have led to a delightful confusion as to what the Church truly is. Now, I must admit that the Advocate did technically protect the Church, as this Council will not stand the test of time like the others. We still have not found a way to permanently alter their doctrines in a binding manner, but the perpetual confusion that has resulted from our efforts has served us nonetheless. The last half-century has been exquisite.

You see, the reality of what constitutes the Church is really quite simple; it is the Body of Christ. The Enemy commands incorporation into this Body if the humans wish to avoid our tortures and activities here below. The Terrifying Son did explain this clearly when he stated that no one goes to the Father except through Him. It is simple, but the Christians can be stupid. Through their baptism and faith, they are incorporated into the Church. Now, this Body has a visible and invisible element, with the visible pertaining to the physical Church on earth, while the invisible is the Mystical Body.

All of this hinges on the dogma that there is no salvation outside of the Enemy’s Church, which is of course true. Therefore, all our efforts have been to confuse the theologians as to how they should interpret this dogma. Beginning with Luther—that great surgeon who dissected the Body into innumerable pieces—we were able to exalt the concept of the Mystical Body to a degree wherein whole hoards of Christians came to deny the physical reality of the Church, and therefore the Sacraments contained therein. This idea has been so appealing because, like all good heresies, it does contain an element of undeniable truth—incorporation into the Body is largely an invisible and mystical affair.

The fruitful venom of this confusion has been the fact that theologians and prelates of all stripes now view membership in the Church as mostly relative, and the dogma of salvation coming from only inside the Church has been denied and ignored. It is a treat to observe the internally schizophrenic theologians as they work in their unsuccessful manner to evangelize the world in a new way, all the while not believing anyone else has to necessarily enter the Church. It is an exercise in futility of the highest order. Is it any wonder why parents baptise their children less and less? The spiritual sickness in the Church is perfectly visible in the spiritual sickness of the family.

The Church of Rome, who is the guardian of all these truths, has been influenced by a smorgasbord of theological dissent, and has formed the majority of her priests in this milieu for decades. We have ensured that even the more orthodox or conservative priests operate under a sort of cognitive dissonance. As a result of their confused ecclesiology they cannot articulate why one must be officially incorporated if membership is largely an invisible affair. The best answer that their most influential clergymen can now offer is that belonging to the Church is the “privileged path,” but not the only path. The real privilege is ours.

You have shown yourself to be exceptionally dull, therefore I imagine you are confused. I will put it in terms you can understand: the majority of bishops are confused about their ecclesiology and hold to the opinion that being a part of the Church is encouraged but not necessary. Given that the bishops tend not to hold the traditional dogmas we have heretofore explained, they therefore do not see the problem in indefinitely suspending the Enemy’s instruments of salvation. Truthfully, this mentality has resurrected a form of that thrilling heresy promulgated by Pelagius so many centuries ago. They may not know it, but by believing there is a salvation to be had, while negating the necessity of the Sacraments in pursuit of salvation—they are telling the world that as long as they “do the good” they will be saved. But which among the humans is good on his own? I will tell you one thing, they are good for us, and we shall have the lot of them.

Now, there are a select few bishops and societies of priests who do hold to the perennial understandings of their faith, and they are consequently offering the means of salvation to their flock in whichever capacity they can. These loathsome clerics are the bane of our existence. Even in places with the most suffocating state control, these troublesome priests are clandestinely working against us. Our problem is that the educator who has been such a thorn in our side is involved with clerics such as these. Just before the institutions were emptied, he mentioned this to the boy, who then promptly investigated the affair.

We must find a way to keep the boy from any interaction with these prelates. His new faith is full of fervour, but it is also delicate and therefore vulnerable. He has been swept up in a romantic notion of a Church founded by the Son, and therefore expects the hierarchs to act with the same zeal and conviction of the infamous Twelve. If we can convince him that his new religious community is in fact full of cowards, then we stand a fighting chance. However, if he does encounter priests who serve the Enemy as He demands, the young man may alternatively come to see the current situation for what it is; a persecution from without and within the Church. We do not want the boy to have any reason to focus his adolescent vigour into more zeal or to entertain delusions of grandeur that this is a time for heroic virtue. Hell forbid.

Until next time,

Quelle

Editor’s note: this serialization is from the novella Family Be Damned.