On this day, 2019, in his prison journal, Cardinal Pell quoted a prayer from the martyr St Thomas More, who was, like the Cardinal, a victim of persecution by government:
Pell used More’s words to pray to God to help him to be strong enough not to give access “to the subtle suggestions of the serpent ……. (to) the ears of my heart but that my reason may resist them and master my sensuality and keep me from them.”
In the Bible, in Genesis 3:1-24, the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God leading to their fall from paradise.
In response to my prompt: “modern woke secularism as a serpent”, Google AI tells me this:
“In contemporary theological and cultural critique, the metaphor of modern woke secularism as a serpent links contemporary social movements to ancient religious narratives of deception, moral inversion, and spiritual warfare. Critics—primarily from Christian, conservative, or traditional philosophical backgrounds—frequently employ this snake imagery to describe how modern progressive secularism operates under the guise of enlightenment while fundamentally reshaping human morality.”
St Thomas More wrote in De Tristia Christi (On The Sadness of Christ): “Si caput serpenti non tuleris, totum te mox corpus involvet.” (If you do not crush the head of the serpent, it will soon wrap its whole body around you.)
The persecution of Cardinal Pell was not an isolated incident. It was either the head or one head of one or more serpents of supposedly woke, secular, anti-religious bigotry.
If that is not recognized and rejected by the Victorian people on November 28, Victoria and Australia are in very deep trouble.
Geoff Fox, Melbourne, Australia, October 31, 2026
