In the wake of the McCarrick affair and the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, like many Catholics I was feeling devastated and pretty low.

However, on reflection I am feeling a completely new spirit about all of this, and it is a soberingly good spirit.

Here’s why: Satan loves to work undercover. He is best working as a secret agent, costumed as an angel of light. He dresses up in all sorts of attractive ways. He sugar coats his deceit and delights in cover ups, hypocrisy, secrets and lies.

He is a reptile–a snake in the grass, a chameleon in camouflage, a serpent in disguise.

For so long now the homosexual mafia was undercover. They covered for each other and hid behind their clerical offices, their ranked bureaucracies and their secret soirees. They used their oily language, played the victim and blamed everyone else for being marginalized and persecuted by cruel homophobes.

But Satan can’t do that forever. He can’t stay undercover because he is a proud spirit and cannot bear to remain hidden forever. He wants to come out on the stage. He wants to be the prima diablo, the big player. He can’t resist the limelight and so he always overplays his hand.

Eventually he comes out in the open, and when he finally does we see him for what he really is. For so long we allowed ourselves to be fooled or we were genuinely deceived. For so long it was so easy to be taken in by the appearance, the subtlety and the subterfuge.

But then the mask drops, the facade slips and the truth is exposed. Satan’s fangs are out. The smiling Mephistofele is revealed as the monster he always was, and the sulfurous stench of his presence becomes obvious to all.

Now we see what he was doing. Now we understand. Now we know him and we can get our enemy in our sights.

No longer do we need to “build bridges” instead we can say clearly that the homosexual abuse of children and young men was from hell. It was demonic and it was designed all along not only to drag priests into hell and degrade the innocence of children, but also for Satan to destroy if he can the Catholic Church.

This has been his aim for the last two thousand years and in every age he has succeeded in one way or another to weaken the church from within by corruption and immorality and to attack the church from without through persecution.

So now let us no longer talk about our “disappointments” and “failing to be faithful”. Let us talk instead about the dark, demonic attacks, of sin and the sorrow of hell and the hope of heaven. Let’s talk about repentance and reparation not just “concern for the victims” and “new policies and charters.”

Most of all let us tremble before the terror of Satan, to preach Christ crucified, risen and glorified, to call on St Michael the Archangel and most of all on the Mother of God who, through the victory of her Son, tramples down the ancient foe beneath her glorious feet.