—“Do you renounce Satan, and all his works and empty promises?”
—“I do.”
Self-professed Catholic and Georgetown President John DeGioia has presumably taken this oath a few times throughout his life. So, too, have the rest of us who believe and practice, of which there are a good number at Georgetown.
The Georgetown Lecture Fund, officially funded by the University, would be hosting Lucien Greaves and Malcolm Jarry, the co-founders of the Satanic Temple on Oct. 16 to discuss “Atheism and Activism.”
If you have (understandably) forgotten, Georgetown is a Catholic institution.
While it theoretically goes without saying, a Catholic institution has absolutely no genuine, common good interest in hosting speakers from an organization whose entire existence is bent on subverting the Church. From a human perspective, it makes no sense to give a platform to people intent on the destruction of everything you hold dear. From a Catholic perspective, it is an egregious act of spiritual suicide.
Greaves and Jarry have been invited to speak under the guise of “freedom of speech.” Even though the American Constitution in no way prohibits the University from exercising its right as a private institution to advocate exclusively for the Catholic faith, Georgetown has once again betrayed its Catholic identity by adhering religiously to free speech as an absolute.
A reasonable observer may ask: “Why should the University prohibit these speakers? After all, they claim to not truly worship Satan spiritually; in fact, their seven tenets seem quite reasonable to me.”
There are many ways to answer this question. However, I believe Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson answered it more adequately than I ever could in his 1907 novel Lord of the World. This work, which is an almost prophetic novelization of the events surrounding the apocalypse, is particularly masterful for its portrayal of Humanism as the religion of the Antichrist.
The world created by Benson is almost entirely devoid of religion, with the notable exception of a Catholic remnant. Reason has triumphed over the darkness of superstition, or so the vast majority thinks.
One of the novel’s antagonists, British Socialist politician Oliver Brand, gazes over the modern London skyline and smugly reflects thus:
“There it stretched away into the grey haze of London, really beautiful, this vast hive of men and women who had learned at least the primary lesson of the gospel that there was no God but man, no priest but the politician, no prophet but the schoolmaster,” Brand says.
Greaves and Jarry view the universe through the same lens of rationalism, materialism and scientism.
While this may comfort some who mistakenly think, “oh these Satanists aren’t quite so bad then,” it actually only underscores just how successful the evil one has been in his deceits. Under the surface, the purely material outlook gives way to something more nefarious and cunning.
Ironically, most of our society adheres to this worldview in the same way that religious people adhere to religion. The scientific method is the ultimate source of dogma, and scientists are the priests whose expertise cannot be challenged. While most people do not recognize these parallels, it seems that the Satanists do, and have ritualized it in their avowedly “non-theistic” religion.
The true danger of this is illustrated well in Benson’s novel. It seems that those who adhere to scientism have all of the answers, and when Julian Felsenburgh, a mysterious political leader who undergoes a meteoric rise to power, (heavily implied to be the Antichrist) achieves world peace through strictly secular diplomacy, it appears that Catholicism does not have a leg to stand on. Mankind achieved its ultimate goal without, or even in spite of religion.
Yet the peace did not last; with total power, Felsenburgh launched a massive persecution that ultimately reduced the world’s Catholics to a measly twelve.
This tale is no mere hypothetical; in the twentieth century, men who hated religion because they saw it as an obstacle to achieving their utopia had ultimate power. The devastating consequence of this was the death of hundreds of millions of people in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China and countless other places that fell victim to either extreme of secular ideology-turned-religion.
That is because, at its core, non-theistic religions like Satanism and Communism in practice are attempts to make men into God, predominantly by making them masters and arbiters over reality itself.
Men like Greaves and Jarry spend an awful lot of time being angry at a God they supposedly do not believe in. Their anger rests predominantly on one fact—God’s will is contrary to theirs. This is the essence of sin and the origin of all evil. It was the cause of Satan’s fall; in his pride, he sought to assert his own desires above the Creator’s. Only by denying any transcendent order of reality outside of their control and imposing the philosophical dictatorship of relativism can they achieve this.
This attitude is hubristic—it ignores the very real transcendent reality of a universe created by a loving God, and it is not for rational reasons, as they claim, but simply out of hatred for God. It is, as Benson says, “exactly as clever as the devil and as old as Cain.” While the Satanists may hide behind the pseudo-intellectual arguments of people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, their irrational anger and disgusting public behavior, coupled with the tragically common history of religion-induced trauma amongst its members, betrays the reality of their true motivations.
This “rationalistic” Satanism is predicated on a lie; they hate God and religion both because God gives us a moral law which condemns their consciences, and because they hold religion to be responsible for much ignorance and violence. Perhaps, in some cases, the latter may be partly true. However, the horrors of the twentieth century would indicate their proposed solution is nothing more than a fatally false promise.
We have heard enough of the nonsense of “dialogue.” When Eve held dialogue with the serpent, the result was death and misery for all of humanity. Georgetown’s leadership, whose Lecture Fund is an official agency of the administration and not merely a student group, is committing the very same sin.
To Georgetown alumni and students: do not donate any money to this University. If you do, earmark it for organizations and groups dedicated to restoring the Catholic identity. To any Catholic parents who may wish to send their children to a Catholic university: do not send your children here, as you will not find what you seek. The administration has forgotten the meaning of the second commandment: “thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
While the administration’s gross mishandling of this issue is evident, the response from the school’s Catholic Ministry has been admirable. Please pray for them.
The Lecture Fund claims this event is consistent with their mission to “enlighten and educate” the campus community. How can one be enlightened by the father of darkness?
“What fellowship hath light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14).
To the Georgetown administration, I beg you one question: do you renounce Satan?
