Yesterday the man most of us call Pope Francis helpfully helped us identify and understand one of the less famous and more confusing aspects of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder: “projection.”

“The devil sows jealousies, ambitions, ideas, but to divide! Or sows greed. Everything to destroy the Church.” He tries to attack that which is the root of unity, namely the Eucharistic celebration. The Pope Francis said in the homily of the Mass celebrated this morning in Santa Marta House, commenting on the Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, the apostle reprimanded for their fights.

“And the divisions in the Church do not allow the Kingdom to grow; they do not allow the Lord to be seen as He is. Divisions make you see this part, this one against the other. Always against! There is no oil of unity, the balsam of unity. But the devil goes elsewhere, not only in the Christian community, he goes right to the root of Christian unity. And this happens here, in the city of Corinth, to the Corinthians. Paul rebukes them precisely because divisions arise, right at the heart of unity, that is, in the Eucharistic celebration.”

In the case of Corinth, riches make divisions between the rich and the poor precisely during the Eucharist. Jesus, the Pope said, “prayed to the Father for unity. But the devil seeks to destroy it” even there:

“I ask you to do everything possible to not destroy the Church with divisions; they are ideological, they come from greed and ambition, they come from jealousy. And above all to pray, and to keep the founts, the very roots of the unity of the Church, which is the Body of Christ; which we, every day, celebrate [in] His sacrifice in the Eucharist.”

“Paul could say this to all of us today, to the Church of today. ‘Brothers, in this I cannot praise you, because you are gathered together not for the better, but for the worse!’ But the Church gathers everyone together — for the worse, for divisions: for the worse! To soil the Body of Christ in the Eucharistic celebration! And the same Paul tells us, in another passage: ‘He who eats and drinks the Body and the Blood of Christ unworthily, eats and drinks his own condemnation.’ Let us ask the Lord for the unity of the Church, that there may not be divisions. And for unity also in the root of the Church, which is precisely the sacrifice of Christ, which we celebrate every day.”

If you are one of those who has been aghast at Bergoglio’s ongoing attack on the Holy Eucharist over the last 3.5 years, you will likely be open-mouthed at this outrageous speech. And that’s precisely what the narcissist is looking for. You’re off balance. You’re standing there, doing the fish, spluttering a little, unable to sort out your thoughts.

It works like this.

You catch a narcissist stealing your chips.

You confront him and say, “Hey! Those are my chips!”

He looks at you steadily and with an expression of concerned sadness says, with perfect sincerity, “I can’t believe you’ve been stealing my chips all this time. I’m really, really disappointed in you for betraying my trust like this. I think to make it up to me, you’d better go to the shops and buy me some more, and we can forget all about it.”

Then he shoves another one of your chips into his mouth and walks away, leaving you wondering whether you’re losing your mind.

That is how gaslighting works.

Here’s some helpful memes to show I’m not making it up and that it’s him, not you.

Starting to make a little more sense now?

You’re welcome.

 

~