Before the terrible dogs of war broke loose in West Asia/ Middle East, the world was shocked by the absolute scandal of the Epstein files. The Epstein files are part of a collection of millions of documents, images, videos, and emails detailing the activities of not only, the late Jeffrey Epstein, the now infamous American financier and convicted child sex offender, but also his social circle of public figures, politicians, and celebrities.
The scenario that unfolds through the perusal of these files reveals a scenario that is hellish! It recounts incidents where through the offices of Jeffery Epstein, various members of the global elite were able to have access to all manner of perverse perks and pleasures, but above all sexual favours, often with underage women. All of these are reported to have taken place either on the private island owned by Epstein, or in other locations marked by extreme luxury and privilege. Indeed, any one with Christian sensibilities would remark on the similarity of these details with the description of Babylon in the book of Revelation.
The revelation of these files has wrought so much damage that it brought down many among the great and powerful, notable among them being Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother of King Charles III, and a great many others who are now being prosecuted or investigated for sexual abuse and corruption.
How should we as Catholics reflect on the Epstein files? Should it be that we gloat now that there is a horrific scandal amongst those same secular elites who would have crowed when the Church was embroiled in similar cases of unspeakable abuse?
Reflecting on the A-list personalities he associated with, and who have been identified as being stuck in the same web of sin that he is credited with spinning, I was struck by the banality of Epstein’s origins. His father, Seymour George Epstein, worked as a groundskeeper and gardener for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Before that, Seymour Epstein was a construction laborer and worked for his father's house-wrecking company. Former neighbors and acquaintances described Jeffrey Epstein’s parents as a "quiet and humble" couple. Working class origins.
That Epstein was not born into wealth but gained access to it through his natural talent with numbers, and no doubt his charm, makes his seduction by Babylon all the more sorrowful. It is sorrow, therefore, that should be one part of the Catholic response to this monumental tragedy. The other dimension to this response was captured by Bishop Erik Varden during the annual Lenten retreat he preached to the Roman curia this year precisely whilst dealing with the horrific sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic clergy: “A secular mindset will simplify: when it meets calamity, it designates monsters and victims.”
Bishop Varden also pointed out that “the Church possesses, when she remembers to use them, more delicate and more effective tools.” Through the centuries of Her existence, Our Holy Mother Church has come to recognize the existence of diabolical assault. “Existential hunger, vulnerability, a yearning for comfort. Such experiences” Bishop Varden reminds us, “may arise by way of assault.”
A number of potential Catholic responses are revealed when considering this teaching. First, it reminds us that the world is not only composed of that which can be seen, but also the unseen, and that this unseen world is occupied not just by God and His angels, but also by the devil and his minions. The latter seek to corrupt and assault us to achieve this diabolical end. It also becomes clear that is not for members of the Church to fall into the game of demonizing those who have fallen victim of demonic assault. One condemns the sin, but one also prays for the sinner.
Briefly viewing a clip of an interview of Epstein with Steve Bannon (a polemical figure in his own right, but let’s not go there now) the impression one came away with, was of a man who was defeated, trying to gain sympathy, still trying to use charm to get out of a situation, but above all, very confused that none of this was working any more. One pitied the man.
Contemplating Epstein – and the many men and women he associated with, and the sins they have been accused of – for a while, one realizes that this is how the diabolical works. It plays on our weaknesses, on our very human needs, as well as the strengths and talents that we are gifted by God. It promises fulfillment and resolution of our human failings, and then, once we have succumbed completely to temptation, we are dropped, so that the talents we were gifted by Our Lord, become the very weights that drag us down into hell. The Devil – the Catholic Church teaches – hates life, and how he delights when it is through our potential to live that we are compromised!
For this reason, while a Christian does let the law take its own course, because we recognize that human free will is necessary and involved in assent to diabolical propositions; mercy, and compassion – to the fallen as much as the victim – must be the face of the Christian response to sexual, or any other scandal.
In his preaching to the Roman Curia, Bishop Varden concluded with the following observation that we would do well to reflect on:
The spiritual life is not adjunct to the remainder of existence. It is its soul. We must beware of all dualism, always remembering that the Word became flesh so that our flesh might be imbued with Logos. We must keep a look-out both to the left and to the right while taking care, [Saint] Bernard [of Clairvaux] insists on this point, not to mistake the left for the right or the right for the left. We must learn to be equally at ease in our carnal and spiritual nature so that Christ our Master may govern peacefully in both.
The mercy and compassion that form the heart of the Christian response to a tragedy of the order that the Epstein files reveal, emerge from a recognition that human life is not merely the material and visible. To use the words of Bishop Varden, the spiritual life is the soul of our existence. If there is one thing that the Catholic Church has to offer in the face of the horrors of the Epstein files, it is this truth, and the recognition that success has been couched in hedonistic terms for too long, while the spiritual has been forgotten. What the world needs is to balance the material with the spiritual and walk with both the spiritual and the carnal hand in hand, each given its due importance and not confused for the other.
For this reason, the Catholic Church must also be marked by a fierce commitment to preaching the remedies that the world cannot offer; the sacraments of our Holy Mother Church, and particularly the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist.
(A version of this text was first published in the O Heraldo on 11 March 11, 2026.)
(Image reference: The Whore Babylon, Revelation 17:1-18 Page 300 Ottheinrich Bible, Matthias Gerung, c. 1530-1532.)
No comments:
Post a Comment