My Struggle as Editor of OnePeterFive, Or: Mary Against the Antichrist Technocracy

Mr Flanders begins a series of essays on his struggles as the Editor of 1P5, against what he refers to as the Antichrist Technocracy of the internet.

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders, MA

Part I: My Soul was Crushed by the Matrix… and then I took over OnePeterFive

Sanctae Dei Genetrici, In signum Gratitudinis et filialis obedientiae. -Author.

For the greater glory and praise of the Immaculata, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of these United States, Brazil, Korea, Philippines, Spain, Ireland, Monaco, Nicaragua, Protugal, and many other peoples and places.

Dear reader: I’m going to tell you now the story of my struggle as editor of OnePeterFive. I’m going to open up my heart to you out of obedience to the will of my editor-in-chief, the Immaculata, whom I must glorify and praise more and more, for Christ to be born in me and the world. First, I’m going to set the scene for the story: the fateful month of the Precious Blood in the year of grace, MMXXI. Here we will attempt to tell you what is truly at stake here, and then we will proceed with the story of my struggle. -TSF

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In July of 2021, I was exhausted by the spiritual desolation of internet Catholicism.

Why?

For a number of reasons.

As Mike Parrott said once, Twitter is “the Devil’s playground.”

First and most conspicuously, Christians were at each other’s throats, mercilessly, committing sins against charity. I was afraid, indeed, that many of us were guilty of the demonic prayers of the Pharisee: Lord, I thank thee that I am not like this sinner here.

There is no mercy on the internet. And yet the Holy Ghost thunders against us: the merciless will be judged mercilessly (Ja. ii. 13, Knox).

And yet more. The internet is “the shallows” – a place where half truths and lies are rewarded with clicks, cash, and – much worse – addiction to dopamine bursts in your brain.

We were “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology… we understood this consciously and we did this anyway,” said Facebook co-founder Sean Parker.

Everyone knows that the “devil’s playground” and all the other social medias of the internet are rewiring our brains and making us literally stupider and less holy. And yet we spend more time scrolling than saving our souls. What is the proportion of hours you spend on a screen compared to the numbers of hours spent in prayer?

And yet more. Those unbelievers who see us online only know the worst Christians. Because the most pious Christians are never the ones who are “trending” in the Matrix. Allof the pious souls are too busy fasting and doing penance in reparation for the sins of men to waste time complaining on social media.

What is the Matrix? A computer-generated dream world. The following clip from the movie is more philosophically accurate than its creators could have predicted. Warning: graphic content.

Everyone who is addicted to this drug can’t get enough of the serotonin that floods their brain when they speak bitterly online with words unworthy of the name “Christian.”

And the greatest victim of the internet is truth.

For if the Algorithm Beast rewards those who tell lies, half-truths, and sensationalise everything to maximise likes, clicks, and shares, then it is marking everyone to pay homage to an idol, not the Truth Himself.

Few things in this world are simple enough to become a meme, but nobody has time anymore to read a book.

Correction: nobody takes the time to read a book. Instead, we are slaves to scrolling. Myself includedWe are Catholics, clothed with the garment of salvation – sanctifying grace – which is nothing less than the light of Tabor – and the devil laughs at us while his fallen angels devour souls by these little robots and sound waves and electrons bouncing behind our screens.

This is, as Marshall McLuhan points out, the false light of Lucifer. It has the potential to create the “mystical body of the Antichrist.” Back in 1962, when McLuhan predicted something like the internet, he said this:

I think that this could be the time of the Antichrist. When electricity allows for the simultaneity of all information for every human being, it is Lucifer’s moment. He is the greatest electrical engineer. Technically speaking, the age in which we live is certainly favorable to an Antichrist. Just think: each person can instantly be tuned to a “new Christ” and mistake him for the real Christ. At such times it becomes crucial to hear properly and to tune yourself in to the right frequency… Electric information environments being utterly ethereal fosters the illusion of the world as a spiritual substance. It is now a reasonable facsimile of the mystical body, a blatant manifestation of the Anti-Christ.[1]

The modern technocracy is the infrastructure for the Antichrist.

Its designers are dialoguing with demons, as C. S. Lewis predicted in the 1940s.

The man-created light of screens replaces the God-created light of the sun, moon, stars and fire – all spiritual symbols of Himself, our Queen, and His nature. Indeed, the world is God’s icon. No wonder the Fatima apparitions involved so much heavenly and miraculous light. (This is why we created Pelican Plus against this Antichrist Infrastructure – a Catholic alternative to Big Tech which, because it is Catholic in an integrated way, destroys the false light of Lucifer with the light of Christ.)

And moreover in July of 2021, whatever evil I saw online, I knew that I was the chief of sinners.

Who am I to judge my brother for howling on Twitter when I myself have taken guilty pleasure in my pride and vainglory, and grown bitter in my heart against my brother? I have tried to correct my brother, rationalising my pride and setting myself up as a teacher practicing the spiritual works of mercy “instructing the ignorant.” But who am I? I am guilty of this sinful, Pharisaic pleasure of the “spirituality of being right.”

I who have made so many errors against truth in my life – how can I “instruct the ignorant?” I should confine myself to a monastery to do penance for my sins of error and heresy, poisoning God’s earth and ruining souls.

But in that month of July in the year of Jesus Christ’s reign 2021, I knew that my soul owed a debt of gratitude to this thing formerly known as the world wide web.

Yes, it is the Antichrist Technocracy. But for me, there was a great mystery here that I had to admit.

Part II: Disembodied Antichrist Community: Good out of Evil?

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[1] Marshall McLuhan, The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion, eds. Eric McLuhan and Jacek Szklarek (Toronto, Canada: Stoddart, 1999), 209, 73; cited in Jason Openo, “The Eclipse of God: Marshall McLuhan’s Critique of Digital Technology,” Church Life Journal (September 5, 2025).