New Screwtape Letter discovered in Rome

Chapel at Palazzola

This letter was pushed under the front door at Palazzola where the seminarians of the Venerable English College in Rome were just finishing their beginning-of-year retreat. The retreat was given by Fr Gerry Sheehan...

My dear Wormwood. I'm extremely disappointed in the work you have been doing over the last few days. I appointed you as retreat director, and put these 35 patients into your hands, with the expectation that you would corrupt their minds and leave them disheartened and cynical. But now I find they are starting their new year at seminary full of hope and with zeal for the Enemy and his Kingdom above.

I told you to flatter them and make them think they were already saints - this is the safest route to the true Kingdom below. But you made the basic mistake of challenging them and telling them there is work to do. Can't you see that this cultivates a sense of responsibility in them and undermines the complacency that serves us so well? We want them to criticise everyone except themselves! We want an aggressive passivity and not a genuine desire to change!

I told you to put yourself at the centre of everything, to project the image of a gifted and successful priest who didn't need others and certainly didn't need the enemy. But you kept talking about the one they call "the Saviour", and you let slip the terrible truth that that he will come to their aid even in their moments of weakness and failure.

I told you to put your chair directly in front of the altar, not hidden away at the side of the chapel. This gave them a clear view of that peculiar cupboard in the centre of the sanctuary - what do they call it, a tabernacle? And even you, my own nephew, seemed entranced by its presence. At one point you were even talking to the Enemy, as if he were sitting at your side like an old friend!

I told you to create division in this dangerously united community. Did you simply mishear me? I gave you clear instructions to speak either about Pope Francis (to annoy those who get irritated by him), or to speak about this Jose Maria Escriva fellow (to annoy those who dislike that funny group of his - what's it called, Octopus Dei or something?) But instead you spoke about both Pope Francis and Escriva, as if they actually belonged to the same Church and believed the same Gospel; as if they might have actually liked each other!

No, no, no - we want divisions, factions, cliques, sects - not this baffling idea that if you listen attentively then you might actually learn something from these men, and the even stranger idea that you can love someone you don't initially like, and that you can be kind to everyone and not just to those in your crowd.

I must say, this week has been an utter disaster for us. I'm suspending your celebret for 12 months and putting you into a programme of ongoing formation. You will be going home on the next available flight.

I knew it was a mistake to invite a Londoner, especially someone from that diocese north of the river Thames. I need to make sure that no-one from that wretched diocese has any influence over this seminary in the years ahead.

Your less than affectionate uncle,

Screwtape