Commentary: It's time to name Satan

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- There is no way to understand the horror of priestly pedophilia in the Archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere unless one accepts the existence of the Evil One as a powerful reality.

The Catholic celibacy rule is doubtless a contributing factor, as is the collapse of the structure of the priesthood since the Second Vatican Council.

But what is Scripture if not the story of a cosmic struggle between God and the Prince of the World, as Luther called Satan?

Suppose you were the Devil, extremely intelligent, mighty, and determined to destroy God's creation -- where would you attack most efficaciously?

First, you'd try to corrupt God's son by trying to persuade him to fall down and worship you (Matthew 4:9). When that doesn't work, you'd have him nailed to the cross.

And if that backfires, you'd do your best to attack the very men who stand in for Christ at the altar as they consecrate the Eucharist -- the priests.

That's what you would do if you were the Devil.

It was one of the most damnable misdeeds of the post-19th century liberal divines to have edited the person, Satan, out of Christian theology, transforming it into a saccharine, therapeutic worldview that drove hundreds of millions out of the Church.

That goes for parts of the Catholic Church as it does for mainline Protestants. As the Boston scandal shows, making light of the Evil One is a malady that has even infected segments of the hierarchy that is evidently blind to the eschatological urgency of this drama.

Had church leaders kept the end-time in mind, surely they would not have ignored the genuinely diabolical dimension of what to lay people just seems an immensely swinish affair.

Far be it from this commentator, a Lutheran, to condemn a sister church. "Christianity Light" is an aberration in which all denominations seem to engage, albeit in different ways.

The absence of a celibacy rule in the Anglican Communion has not prevented Brooklyn priests from celebrating sadomasochistic orgies with imported sex slaves in front of the altar of an Episcopal church in Brooklyn, N.Y., a few years ago.

And the very churches that by their own confessional vows should feel compelled to uphold Scripture, Lutheran and Presbyterian for example, have failed miserably in speaking up on behalf of the most innocent of innocents -- the unborn children.

This is where we arrive at part two of our "what if" scenario: I were the Devil, trying to destroy what is good -- what would be my preferred target?

Innocence, of course.

History, whether sacred or secular, is full of examples of evil's loathing of children. In some cultures they were sacrificed to the gods. King Herod had the boys of Bethlehem murdered in the hope of killing Jesus.

It is the sad story of our era that more than just a few of Christ's representatives, out of all people, are robbing children of their innocence. Equally egregious, the bosses of these men, Christ's representatives themselves, often seem incapable of addressing the full theological significance of this.

Two aspects of this calamity must raise the ire of fellow Christians -- Catholic or otherwise.

First, there is the evident medieval confusion of celibacy and chastity in the minds of many Roman prelates. To use a Reformation-era argument, chastity is the basic disposition of any Christian, be he or she married or celibate.

For chastity does not mean abstention from sexual activity; it very much encourages physical love in married life.

What some members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States and elsewhere in the world have done was to aid and abet unchaste behavior by celibates -- and that is contemptible and utterly unchristian.

More importantly, however, they emulate their liberal Protestant counterparts by cowardly not facing up to the existence of the Evil.

They speak the Lord's Prayer daily, and if they use the best translation of Matthew 6:13 they will say, "And do not bring us to the time of trial but rescue us from the Evil One."

Yet they behave as if Christ was only the Redeemer and Savior, as saccharine theology makes is followers believe. The biblical and frightening truth is that Christ is also the judge.

The fact that this little detail is so often ignored, even in the Roman Catholic Church, is perhaps the most saddening aspect of this whole sordid affair.