Screwtape Lives!

One of the scenes in The Screwtape Letters that I find most chilling involves Screwtape's advice to eliminate silence. He writes to his nephew, Wormwood, expressing his concern about the woman Wormwood's "patient" is seeing. She comes from a religious family and Screwtape fears the influence she will have on the young man through her faith:

Were the 1993 Stations of the Cross with a Female Jesus an Early Push for "Transgenderism" in the Church?

Mother Angelica was hopping mad about it. And in retrospect, was this deliberate abomination an early move to soften us up to accept the radicalism of "gender fluidity" that's grown in the past thirty years to become a major threat against our children?

Don't be silly, you are probably thinking. The "transgender" movement is recent, only the past few years.

The Mark of the Beast - Are We Seeing Revelation's Prophecies Revealed in Our Time?

The woman and the dragon from
Revelation by William Blake

I was talking with a friend yesterday about the "mark of the beast" in the Book of Revelation. Many Catholics never read the book because it's difficult and its symbolism is obscure, but they would be familiar with it. Certainly they would recognize this passage which pretty much sums up the condition of many in the pews today:

I know your deeds; I know you are neither hot nor cold. How I wish you were one or the other -- hot or cold! But because you are lukewarm neither hot nor cold, I will spew out of my mouth. (Rev. 3:15-17)

They would also recognize the passage telling the story of "the woman about to give birth" and the dragon whose tail sweeps a third of the stars from the sky and plans to devour her child when he's born. We hear it on the Feast of the Assumption.

John wrote the Book of Revelation to give hope to the persecuted Christians of his time facing murderous Roman despots like Nero and Domitian: