The Mystery of Possession
In recent days, the horrific shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church…where children were gathered for Mass…has forced me to once again wrestle with possession and the depths of radical evil. To imagine the terror of little ones at prayer confronted with sudden violence is almost unbearable…and to think that they were the targets of this shooting is unfathomable. Yet, this is the world we live in. This reflection on the possession of evil is my attempt to face that reality, to wrestle with what overtakes people and to ponder what it means for those who push back.
When Humanity Is Seized
There are moments when a human loses the ability to act human. Their eyes go cold and hollow. Their voice hardens into something detached. Every movement gains a deliberate and terrifying precision. Thoughts press in from somewhere beyond…twisting thoughts that they once held dear. Choices emerge that betray everything they once valued. The path they tread is guided by something relentless…something external…something alive. It is not weakness. It is not confusion. It is possession. The self…once sovereign…is seized, twisted, unrecognizable. The light of recognition dims. Familiar gestures become foreign. Love turns brittle. Mercy dries up. What was once warm and human becomes rigid, mechanical and almost ritualistic. Friends withdraw, terrified by the gaze. Family wonders if they still know the one standing before them. The body remains…but the spirit seems hijacked. What was once trustworthy begins to feel dangerous. The ground of relationship collapses. You look into their face…and you see someone…and no one…all at once.
Defining Radical Evil
This is radical evil. It is precise. It is persistent. It presses against morality, corrodes empathy and bends human thoughts and action toward cruelty. Even the most disciplined human can be caught in its currents…struggling against impulses that feel invasive, alien and unrelenting. Integrity hangs by a thread. Life is balanced on the edge of chaos. Radical evil is not content with small corruptions. It multiplies. It seeks cracks in conscience and expands them until everything fractures. It does not announce itself loudly at first. It whispers. It tempts. It erodes. Then, it overwhelms. Radical evil operates like a shadow that lengthens until light itself is suffocated. You begin to see it in their posture…in their tone…in their decisions. It is not just wrong…it is calculated wrong. Not just cruelty…but rehearsed cruelty. A choreography of destruction. Those caught in its grip often appear calm and rational. That is part of the terror. It feels natural to them.
The Horror of Possession
Some people…those who commit acts of unspeakable cruelty, deliberate harm and systematic deception…are possessed. They are vessels through which a force opposed to life moves. Yet…even in the grip of possession…they remain human. Beneath the horror the self still exists. Fragile, battered and struggling…but somehow still present. It may be buried under layers of distortion. It may be twisted beyond recognition. It may be almost impossible to find. But the human is there. The child they once were. The dreams they once carried. The hopes they once held. Somewhere…beneath the mask…beneath the terror…beneath the violence…there is still a pulse of humanity. That is what makes possession so horrifying. Because we cannot simply dismiss the possessed as monsters. They are not wholly other. They are us. They are what we could become. They are humans who have been overtaken…not humans who have ceased to exist.
Justice and Possession
Even when the possessed move as instruments of cruelty…even when the darkness within them seems absolute…life remains. The self…however seized or fractured…continues to exist. To recognize this is to confront the painful necessary work of vigilance in the face of evil. True justice is measured not in finality…but in the refusal to become what we oppose. It is not neat. It is not simple. It demands that we hold the tension. That we guard the fragile flame of conscience even when the world around us rages with destruction. Justice is not about resolution. It is about endurance. It keeps watch. It remembers. It resists the temptation to mirror the evil it names. And in that refusal, there is moral courage. Courage that does not seek the comfort of ending…but the endurance of resisting.
The Harder Work: Illumination and Containment
Radical evil is real. It presses, distorts and possesses. But so too does the possibility of conscience…of restraint…of moral courage. The work of confronting possession is not destruction…it is about illumination, containment and the protection of life…for the innocent and even the possessed. That is the harder work. It is easier to crush than to contain. It is easier to extinguish than to illuminate. But illumination is what keeps us human. Containment is what prevents evil from multiplying unchecked. Protection is what allows us to affirm the sanctity of life even when life has been twisted almost beyond recognition. If we abandon this work…we abandon ourselves. If we surrender to destruction…we surrender the fragile truth that even in darkness…humanity persists.
The Fragile Line Between Resisting Possession and Becoming Evil
We must feel the weight of this darkness. We must allow it to warn us that morality is hard, integrity fragile and human life precious. Some are possessed. Some are instruments of a force that defies understanding. But even in these cases…destruction is not the answer. To destroy is to join the destruction…not to end it. We cannot turn in to the very thing we claim to resist. We have to stand in opposition by refusing to become what we fear. Indeed, our response to evil will always reveal whether we too have been overtaken.
Those who respond to the actions of the possessor with the actions of the possessor will quickly become the possessed. Those who surrender to destruction will themselves be destroyed. Those who abandon the hard work of restraint will lose themselves in the very darkness they condemn. To resist radical evil is to resist its methods. To confront possession is to refuse possession’s ways. The line between the possessed and the unpossessed is both thin and fragile. We cross it the moment we surrender to destruction. If we are to remain human…if we are to remain free…we must resist not only evil itself…but also the temptation to fight evil by becoming it.
Final Word: On Restraining Possession and Pursuing Justice
In the midst of possession, justice cannot look like vengeance. It cannot be about pretending that destruction will heal us. Justice must be about holding on to what is still human…sometimes barely human…in both the harmed and the one who harms. We cannot cure possession by mirroring it. We cannot drive out darkness by becoming darkness ourselves. What we can do is contain, protect, keep watch and pray. We can guard the fragile spark of life…even when it flickers faintly. Justice is not clean. It is not simple. But it is the refusal to give up on humanity…even when humanity has been twisted almost beyond recognition. That is the work we are left with.
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