The Pandaemonium Club

My Dear Wormwood,

I have been intending to drop you a line to commend your excellent deployment of your assistant Spadaro.

He seems to me to be an altogether agreeable fellow – one with whom we can very easily do business. The Correctio Filialis chaps have, of course, got it right: there is genuine confusion among bishops and other pastors as to what guidance to give to divorced and remarried Catholics. Grist to our mill, you might say. But further opportunities present themselves.

In these circumstances, in my experience, Mortals need to be reassured that there are different kinds of truth: your truth differs from my truth, and yet all tend to the same happy conclusion. To this elementary perception your pupil Spadaro has added an ingenious refinement.

According to Antonio, there is horizontal truth and there is vertical truth. Vertical truth bad; horizontal truth good. Truth handed down from on high, by authority, by revelation, by tradition is profoundly suspect. Horizontal truth deriving from a consensus of contemporaries is engaging and commands commitment.

You will see immediately what Spadaro has achieved here. At a stroke he has dethroned the Enemy and replaced him with the Zeitgeist.

And all this ostensibly in defence of the Pope!

Well done!

Your uncle,
Screwtape