The two biggest mysteries for me throughout my life are the existence of Moral Evil and God’s relationship with Time and Eternity, the latter will be the subject of another essay. The two biggest things in the world that causes for me enormous distress is not my severely aching bones, but cruelty to innocent human beings and cruelty to animals.

But to distinguish between the two types of evil in the world: There’s Moral Evil and Natural Evil, the former is when human beings exert free will and commit evil acts, the latter is when natural disasters like volcano eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunami waves, etc, kill people (however, theodicy, ‘vindication of God’, is a theological/philosophical argument to resolve the problem of Natural Evil. I recommend this book: God, Freedom and Evil : Plantinga, Alvin: Amazon.ie: Books).

But back to Moral Evil: I remember first encountering it as a young boy when it was depicted in The Grapes of Wrath on TV, a 1940 movie directed by John Ford. There are some violent scenes in the film that deeply disturbed me as I watched it on TV, but by today’s standards in movies, they were quite tame.

For those unfamiliar with the movie, based on a John Steinbeck novel, the film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family of sharecroppers who lose their farm due to increases mechanization during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The family head west to California in search of work, ending up in a migrant campground for workers.

When the violent scenes against innocent people flashed on the TV, my mother jumped up from her chair and reached into the back of the TV to turn a switch to darken the screen for about 30 seconds after seeing how distressed I was. She had to explain to me that the people were only acting, and such evil didn’t occur in the movie. Little did I know as I matured into an adult what real evil looks like in the world. And to this day, it depresses me beyond words.

Some recent examples of this were the murder in England of a baby adopted by two gay men. You can read about it here: Revealed: Social workers at council responsible for murdered adopted baby Preston Davey missed chances to save THREE other children from harm | Daily Mail Online

The so-called two ‘dads’ of this baby looked and acted in public so banal, compared to sinister-looking Charles Manson or Alister Crowley-like figures. As for the baby’s mother: As a young teenager, it later transpired that she and her friend murdered and tortured an old, lonely lady who invited them in for tea. According to the UK Independent:

She [the pensioner] invited them into her home for a cup of tea and the pair then brutally tortured Lily by squirting shampoo in her eyes, cutting her with a knife and tying a gag round her mouth so tightly that her dentures were forced down her throat, choking her to death. They then crammed her lifeless body into a bin and, laughing and giggling, walked it through the streets before throwing it in the Rochdale Canal. After the killing they made hundreds of calls from her phone, used her pension money to buy crisps and chocolate and trashed her home.

Also, last month, across the sea in Ireland, convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally, a former sports coach, died in the Midlands Prison after a long illness. After sexually abusing many boys before his imprisonment, on one occasion, he took a boy to a forest, stripped him naked and handcuffed him to a tree. In another case, he plied a boy with alcohol before taking photos of him while he was naked.

Another boy was stripped naked in Kenneally’s home before being groped. But the evil continued, as Kenneally was well-connected. According to the Irish Independent newspaper:

The report could offer no explanation for the decision by a senior officer not to investigate Kenneally, despite glaring indications of abusive behaviour… Gardaí [police] were first told about his behaviour in 1987, but he was not arrested until 2013. During that time, he was a prominent basketball coach in Waterford and operated as a Fianna Fáil [Irish political party] tallyman.

There is numerous cases I could give as examples, but the main question for me is this: How is it possible for these monsters to live ordinary lives in public view while concealing diabolical tendencies? To care or love someone is such a profound natural instinct, even visible and displayed in the Animal Kingdom, where many animals rescue or nurture other species than their own who find themselves in distress.

Check out the latest example of a sloth allegedly being saved by a capybara’s prompt rescue: Gabriele Corno on X: “The sloth falls into the water and although he is able to swim, he appreciates the capybara’s prompt rescue. https://t.co/r488TCXHXx” / X  (There’s a possibility that this footage is fabricated by AI, but I’ll leave it for the reader to decide.)

The only theory I can come up with about the moral evil in the world is demonic possession. No person who is not demonically possessed could seriously harm/torture another human being without waking up in the middle of the night screaming. In fact, some of these child-abusing monsters struggle with their evil deeds (or demons) and want to be caught by police. They often leave clues behind in the aftermath of a ghastly crime.

In the case of Bill Keannely, he allegedly indicated he wanted to be arrested to stop the abuse. A similar case occurred in Ireland with two British serial killers, Geoffrey Evans and John Shaw, who raped and murdered two women in the early 1970s.

After being caught and arrested and sentenced to life in prison, one of the men, while being driven to prison, spoke to a policeman and allegedly said that he was glad he was caught. And when the policeman asked him if he wanted to say a Hail Mary, both men allegedly said the prayer with tears rolling down the killer’s face. If this is true, it’s no coincidence that Our Lady is commonly called upon for protection against demonic influences, as Christians believe that she has a unique power to shield individuals from evil entities.

“Hearing demonic voices” is a phenomenon commonly attributed to both serial killers and sudden, one-off murderers. If such demons are a contributory factor in evil acts, they cannot read your thoughts, but they can observe physical behavers in the natural world and act on that through your auditory system enveloped in your brain. Check out this: The Voices Are Real: 35-Year Investigation into the Parasitic Entities – Unidentified Phenomena