Sigmund’s Comments (group member since Jul 08, 2011)

Sigmund’s comments from the The Canary List Q&A with Sigmund Brouwer group.

I've read where reviewers suggested that The Canary List wasn't balanced in terms of how it presented the Catholic Church, and I agree. If I could go back and rework the novel, I'd change that, because you have to read the novel too closely to find where I tried to make it clear that the Catholic Church overwhelmingly does so much good that it's sad that the issue of abuse tends to draw all the attention. This is why I find reviews that point out the negatives so helpful. Anything that helps me learn for the next novel is appreciated.

As I researched The Canary List, I learned about a statement made in the 1990 non-fiction bestseller 'The Keys of This Blood' by the late Jesuit priest Malachi Martin who was a former professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute and ex-Secretary of Cardinal Augustin Bea.

I did give much thought to whether readers would be interested in another apparent attack on the Vatican. I felt if Malachi Martin felt there was credibility to the foundational premise, it would be worth exploring, especially after reading essentially the same accusation delivered by the Vatican's chief exorcist two decades later, as mentioned in a previous post:

Here's the quote:

“Most frighteningly for [Pope] John Paul [II], he had come up against the irremovable presence of a malign strength in his own Vatican and in certain bishops’ chancelleries. It was what knowledgeable Churchmen called the ‘superforce.’ Rumors, always difficult to verify, tied its installation to the beginning of Pope Paul VI’s reign in 1963. Indeed Paul had alluded somberly to ‘the smoke of Satan, which has entered the Sanctuary’ -- an oblique reference to an enthronement ceremony by Satanists in the Vatican. Besides, the incidence of Satanic pedophilia –rites and practices– was already documented among certain bishops and priests as widely dispersed as Turin, in Italy, and South Carolina, in the United States. The cultic acts of satanic pedophilia are considered by professionals to be the culmination of the Fallen Archangel’s rites.”

One of the sparks behind The Canary List was reading a quote by Vatican's Chief Exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, in The London Times: "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true -- including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia. . .Cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon." www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/fai...

I know that there have been far too many headlines about priest abuse, but it still struck me as interesting that this explosive accusation did not garner much if any attention. Would that be because of how we have collectively learned to move on with news cycles? Or because we live in a time when demons simply aren't taken seriously, which would mean that the accusation would not be taken seriously?

I rarely hear discussion or sermons about demons from the pulpit. If they are real, is this a danger to ignore? If they aren't real, what do we make of the gospel story when Jesus cast demons into a herd of pigs? (I don't know how you can point to mental illness here as a modern interpretation of what happened.) One of the reasons I wrote The Canary List was because of what seems like very little serious discussion about this aspect of the spiritual world.