I fancy there is a bar with a bunch of (pardon the pun) dispirited old demons sitting around, grousing about how much better it was in the old days.

I think of that as somebody sends me the latest bulletins of apocalyptic fear from the outskirts of Catholic religious paranoia, in which they are perpetually on the watch for fresh terrors and the imminent doom of the Church.  On one popular site, you got yer Persecution watch, yer Occult watch, yer Upheaval watch, yer Apparition watch and (recently) yer Halloween watch (of which more in a moment).  Every time a leaf rustles, there is a shiver of panic and (we are told) Christians should be afraid, be very afraid!

But I can’t help thinking such an attitude is counter-gospel.  Oh sure, there’s a possibility of martyrdom.  Welcome to the Catholic Church.  But the perpetual posture of fear—of delectation over fear—of perpetual cultivation of fear and the creepily joyful pessimism that SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!!!  Sorry, but it ain’t Catholic and it is a subversion of the theological virtue of hope masquerading as “watchfulness”.  The love of wisdom is, to be sure, the practice of death and our lives as Catholics are to be conformed to Christ crucified.  But the paranoid terrors which constantly drive some Catholics to look for conspiracies, to imagine that demons, or Jews, or Masons, or whoever are constantly just about to overthrow the Church?  It’s poison. It is the fear of the Lord, not of the devil, that is the beginning of wisdom. And though for some on that fringe it marks me out as a “crypto-Protestant” to quote the Bible, I will do it anyway:  “Hence I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:6-7)  Those words were written by a man about to have his head chopped off by a pagan emperor who would light his gardens with the burning bodies of Christians.

Does that mean there is no conspiracy?  Of course there is, and it is even demonic in nature, as Paul also tells us:

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6:12-20)

Note that: Paul’s entire point is that the conspiracy is on the defensive and we are on the offensive. As his master said, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not stand against it.” A healthy Catholic spirituality knows this and trusts in God.  A diseased Catholic spirituality does not trust in God, but in fear and in the strategies of man.  It gloms on to terrors that there is no Pope.  It harkens to false apparitions that tell us not to trust the Church.  It seizes on TV talking hairdos hawking fear.  When you get your catechesis and spiritual guidance from, for instance, apostates who become Mormon and make a living filling you with imaginary terrors of vast webs of conspiracy, rather than from the Church and the saints, you burden yourself with all manner of fears that simply destroy your happiness and give you nothing in return.  So, for instance, said panic-monger has been lately telling people to be terrified that the Occupy Wall Street movement is a communist plot that threatens our nation. 

Really?  That chaotic little group of young sprouts who are (rightly) distressed about the mismanagement of the economy and the bloated engorgement of the super-rich at the expense of the poor are the biggest threat we face?  How suburban can we get?

Seriously.  Imagine the devils who were in charge of inspiring the savagery of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Killing Fields, the Great Famine engineered by Stalin and all the rest of the massive 20th Century slaughter based on commie class hatred, faced with this sort of thing:

Imagine the frustration, the sheer impotent rage that the spirits who were in charge of Stalin’s, Mao’s, and Pol Pot’s careers must feel as protestors—rightly and justifiably upset about the wholesale looting of the economy and the naked disregard for the common good by our oligarchs—do not respond with the monstrous bloodshed and calculating evil of communists, but instead are largely peaceful and harmless, when they aren’t, well, ninnies.

Even when the police fracture the skull of an unarmed and peaceful veteran, we still don’t see people taking their cues from the hellish logic of Marx and Lenin.  Instead, we get Youtube videos, largely peaceful responses, a few vocal arguments, but not riots or street fights or assassinations or molotov cocktails or kidnappings or bombings or cities that look like Beirut in 1983 or St. Petersburg in 1917.

That’s gotta drive Satan nuts.

And the same, by the way, goes for the whole Halloween hyperventilation that hits panic-mongering Christians every year.  A couple of days ago, a friend of mine (who rather enjoys the whole “get out and meet the neighbors” feel of conviviality that surrounds Halloween) got the standard hysteria on his Facebook page when he put up a Halloween greeting featuring a photo of a couple of hand-carved pumpkins.  Somebody from the League of Terrified Internet Devil-Fearing Christians roundly denounced him with the equivalent of a verbal drive-by shooting as she rat-a-tat-tatted, “There is no such thing as a ‘happy’ hell. You are a satanist, playing with hell. Helloween will take you in in the end. BYE” and then fled. (These people always flee.  It goes with living in terror all the time).

Me: I think of this:

Two nights ago, the sweetest little girl came to the door, dressed as the most adorable little angel you ever saw, complete with halo.  “Trick or treat!” she said and was rewarded with a great to-do of “Aren’t you pretty!” from the missus and some kind words for her parents.  A few other happy kids came to the door for their dose of sugar.  A good time was had by all.  Meanwhile, the incidents of human sacrifice, devil worship, hellish behavior and vampirism remained, as they have for, oh, all my life, at zero.  No spirits from the vasty deep were summoned, no Cthulu worshipers driven mad by visions of evil from before the dawn of this age, no unspeakable eldritch horrors conjured from the Necronomicon.  Nobody gave their soul to Beelzebub.  Nobody worshipped Loki.  Pea soup for Pazazu remained off the menu at a surprising number of houses.

Now, that’s not to say there’s no such thing as the devil.  It is, rather, to say that it’s gotta just kill him to issue all the press releases about Big Bad Halloween and how business is booming, all while watching the extremely disappointing market share numbers proving that, well, not much happens on Halloween besides some kids having a good time, some neighbors visiting and getting to know each other a bit better, and some fun parties and happy conviviality.  If Halloween is supposed to be dragging us down to hell, things don’t seem to be panning out.  For a creature like Satan, who used to get suckers to truss up victims, slit their throats and throw them in bogs as human sacrifices, that’s gotta hurt.  It’s as though Christ came to redeem and overcome evil and not merely to fight a desperate losing battle. It’s as though he meant business when he said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”  I think the least we who are supposed to believe in Him should do is talk, now and then, as though He is the Victor who holds the keys of death and hell, instead of giving in to fear every time something goes bump in the night.  Memo to Fear-Mongering Christians: Let Satan be the loser for a change.