How the Devil Works

I see from Protect the Pope that the Holy Father has used his penultimate Angelus Address to discuss the action of the devil on modern society.

In particular he talks of the rise of secularist agenda, and the way that temptations are directed at us 'in the guise of suitable, effective and even good proposals'. This is, of course, the favourite trick of the Father of Lies - present something with much positive 'spin', so that people follow with the best of intentions, hoodwinked into not realising that actually this is contrary to the Will of God, and contrary, ultimately, to their own best interests.

Original Sin stems from the temtation to 'be as gods, knowing both good and evil'. One can almost imagine the serpent's line being delivered in the style of a classical actor, with the words 'be as gods' shouted, 'knowing good' spoken, 'and evil', whispered almost as an aside. Of course we want to emulate God - we are created in His image, but is it really helpful to know about evil?

Similarly, in our own time, it can sound superficially good to regulate the size of families so that children don't grow up in poverty, until we ralise that the consequences are reduction of the body to a mere object of hedonism, or more sinisterly, having power over life and death. Is sounds superfically good to assist infertile couples to have babies, until we think of the child conceived in a loveless laboratory procedure, or all those 'spare' embryos that nobody mentions. It sounds supeficially good to allow two people who love each other to 'marry', until we think of the consequences for true marriage and the family.

Let us pay attention to Benedict's words in the last few days of his papacy, and let us pray for the virtue of prudence to judge what is truly good, and the strength to resist the allurements and empty promises of Satan.