Satan Never Looks Like Satan
God so loved the world that he spared us the indignity of making us feel good about ourselves. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil"
(1 John 3:8). If Utopians indulge the dangerous sentimentality that thinks Satan is a mythic cipher to explain the problem of evil, Jesus does not.
He knows the origin and character of Satan: "He was a murderer from the beginning. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies"
(John 8:44).
Satan hides behind the plural; he pretends to be more than he is, intimidating others by celebrity and popular support. "What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?"
But in the presence of the Truth, even Satan cannot lie. He drops the plural and confesses what no mortal yet knows: "I know who you are----the Holy One of God!" (Mark 1:24).
Our Creator knows more about the problem of evil than we do. Logically, if God did not exist, evil would not be a problem. It would just be and energy equivalent to good.
In every age, those who have cooperated with Satan have solved the problem of evil to their satisfaction by saying that it is good. Many of these figures have had a seductive power over people that cannot be explained by simple human charm and persuasiveness.
Satan hates not being God. He is only a creature. His hatred refracts into hatred of the Church, which is the only power against him in this world. He does not waste his time on false religions, heretics and braggarts. He hates the Sacrament of Reconciliation and tears down Confessional because he wants to separate man from God. "Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries --of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature -- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by Divine Providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history" (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 395).
Satan never looks like Satan. He drapes himself in celebrity and humor and humanitarianism, using celebrity to mislead, humor to mock, and humanitarianism to de-humanize. One hatred in him always exposes him for what he is. Because Our Lord said that we must become like little children to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, Satan hates babies. With great wisdom, the older Rite for the Baptism of a Child begins: "I exorcise you, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Come forth, depart from this servant of God, for He commands you, accursed and damned spirit. He who walked upon the sea and extended His right hand to Peter as he was sinking."
Source: Father George Rutler. Courages Priests.
The Devil
"Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour" (1 Peter 5-8).
That fallen spirits, like fallen men, really exist and behave maliciously in this world is a teaching drawn from Scripture (cf. e.g. Luke 8.29-30; John 8.44; Rev. 12.7-9) and faithfully taught by the Church.
The Church does not teach terror of Satan. It commends only a holy fear of God, and a fear of deliberately doing evil. For the influence of Satan is decisively subordinated to the power of God. As the Second Vatican Council recalls time and again, Christ "has freed us from the power of Satan". Because of Christ's redemptive work, the devil can genuinely harm only those who freely permit him to do so. The Gospels speak of diabolical possession; they show Christ casting out demons and instructing His apostles to do the same. Far more serious than the physical harm Satan might do, however, is the moral harm. Scripture portrays Satan also as a source of temptation. He is "the treacherous and cunning enchanter, who finds his way into us by the way of the senses, the imagination, lust, Utopian logic, or disorderly social contacts in the give and take of life to introduce deviations.
World history itself is influenced by the devil. Indeed, "a difficult struggle against the powers of darkness pervades the whole history of man; the battle was joined from the very origins of the world and will continue until the last day, as the Lord has attested. "For we are not contending against flesh and blood," says St. Paul, "but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of the present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6.12).
Anyone sensitive to the profound and bitter depths of the mystery of evil can hardly be inclined to a superficial optimism, that is, to a belief that evil in the world is merely an incidental flaw in a world ever evolving toward better days. There are traces of deep malice that puzzle us. The dark mystery of Satan is that there are personal agents in the universe, poorly
known to us, malicious and always ready to do evil, irrevocably alienated from God and hostile to Him (cf. Matt. 25.41). That human history is often marked by sad and irrational currents is partly due to such influences.
Source: The Teachings of Christ: A Catholic Catechism for Adults.