The Crookedhart Emails – Re: You’re an Idiot

Dear Rothoof,

There’s just no other way to say it: You are an inadequate excuse for a demon. I told you which church to send him to, did I not? I told you that the ideal situation for your man to be in was one of considering Catholicism as merely another denomination, to see The Church as a church. This would have been delightful, as it subtly creates in the man a lack of commitment, a sense of well-I-can-always-leave-for-another that would dull him. The Bride of Christ would have been, for him, a convenient mistress. But you idiot! You let him read Chesterton!

In your email you said, and I quote your foolishness, “He was given The Catholic Church and Conversion by a lost soul named Gilbert Keith Chesterton, and I am happy to say that his rambling sentence style will have my man bored to tears.” That will not be the case, Rothoof. What will happen, whether or not your man enjoys the book, is always the same. The Church will, for him, cease to be a denomination to Christianity, a lifestyle choice, and will instead become his way, truth and life. It’s inevitable. Our Master will not be pleased with your annual progress report.

But as always, hope remains, that is to say, hope remains in despair, the only human condition that never lets us down. Your man is now proud to be Catholic. This started in his RCIA program, but is now sealed, perhaps for good. Thus, it is your current duty to twist his state of mind, to make him prideful of being Catholic. Such a small linguistic difference, between the proud and the prideful, but we intellectual elites relish subtleties. It’s the little things that make this job everything it is, as you’ll one day learn. There really is no fun in making a man a homicidal maniac, any third-class demon can bully him into killing a man. To possess a man is a cheap trick, one that makes it difficult to steal a soul. No, give me subtlety any day, the perversion of truth, the whisper into the ear of the first-year college student that morality is relative, or, to get back on topic, to the morphing and gentle transformation of being proud into being prideful.

To put it simply, being proud is the odd emotion that makes these miserable human beings puff up their chests and say, “Yes. This is good. I am lucky to belong to this Church. I wish the whole world could know the Truth that she gives me.” Being prideful is the vice that makes them say, “Yes. This is good. I know the Truth, and the rest of the world is mere idiocy.” Do you see the differences?

The woman Flannery O’Connor – of whom the Office of Postmortem Libel and Slander is doing a great deal of work to convince the world she was either a) a lesbian or b) a bad writer or c) both – was right when she said that smugness is the great Catholic sin. It poisons everything. So how do you go about doing it? First, let your man disdain Evangelicals. The Church has actually learned a great deal from them, yet manages to – at the same time – disagree with them whole-heartedly, an unfortunate combination that cuts Pride to the root. Have your man avoid this path and see absolutely nothing to learn from them, neither piety, nor faith, nor passion. Instead, have him see them as traitors, as complete fools. Then, when he is confronted with some one who has “been saved” and has a wonderful “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, he will begin – oh so quietly – to disdain the very ideas of being saved, the very concept of a personal relationship. It’s an excellent transfer of emotion. Now I know, to begin with, your man will never admit to ever mocking the idea of salvation, or sneering at the person who says, publicly, that Jesus is my Lord and God. But let it come from the mouth of some once-saved-always-saved, faith-alone Christian and then you shall see smugness. It makes me wriggle.

Then, let him replace knowledge for holiness. Let him learn all about Catholicism, read have a dozen books a week, memorize the lives of the Saints, but never imitate them. Let him have discussions about why his faith is the Best Ever, but don’t let that stop him visiting those pornography sites we mentioned earlier. This is the true separation of Church and State. On the one side, his Church will fill him to bursting with facts and figures, stories and truths, logic and reason, until he goes around like a puffed-up balloon of Catholicism. On the other side, his actual State of Being remains constant. Let knowledge fill in the gaps between his virtues, and more than compensate for his vices. That way he can be prideful of being Catholic, without ever being Catholic! Isn’t it brilliant? I would laugh, but such a task is for morons and degenerates.

That will do for now. Let me know how it fares. I have a few questions for you. Has your man discovered factions within the Church? How about the Seven Cheats? Does he use them?

Damn it’s hot down here,
Crookedhart