Fr. Dwight Longenecker posted on Twitter on October 31, 2019:
     
“First we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.”
 
The saying has been printed on many images.
 
“The six stages of evil” (followed by a retweet) was posted on Twitter by V. W. M. Falcon on November 1, 2019. “The sermon takes as its framework a blog post by an American convert to Catholicism, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, on what he calls The Six Stages of Evil” was printed in Alive! (Ireland) on October 28, 2020.
     
   
Dwight Longnecker     
About Fr. Longenecker
I was brought up in an Evangelical home in Pennsylvania. After graduating from the fundamentalist Bob Jones University with a degree in Speech and English, I went to study theology at Oxford University. Eventually I was ordained as an Anglican priest and served as a curate, a school chaplain in Cambridge and a country parson on the Isle of Wight.
 
Realizing that the Anglican Church and I were on divergent paths, in 1995 I and my family were received into the Catholic Church. For ten years we continued to live in England where I worked as a freelance writer and charity worker. Then in 2006 the door opened to return to the USA and be ordained as a Catholic priest.
 
I now serve as Pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina.
 
Twitter
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
@dlongenecker1
First we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.
9:18 PM · Oct 31, 2019·Twitter Web App
         
Twitter
Paul Williams
@freemonotheist
This totally sums up our culture:
First we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.
6:26 AM · Nov 1, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
     
Twitter
V. W. M. Falcon 🇺🇸
@vwmfalcon21
The six stages of evil.
Quote Tweet
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
@dlongenecker1
· Oct 31, 2019
First we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.
1:15 PM · Nov 1, 2019·Twitter for iPad
 
Google Groups: tribulaton-times
November 4, http://www.tribtimes.com
William Zambrano MD
Nov 3, 2019, 2:29:15 PM
Tribulation Times
November 4, 2019
(...)
FR. DWIGHT LONGENECKER:  First we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. Then we promote evil. Then we celebrate evil. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.
 
Twitter
𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖎𝖋𝖊🙏𝕴𝖗𝖊𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉
@Irishprolifer
First we overlook evil.
Then we permit evil.
Then we legalise it.
Then we promote evil.
Then we celebrate evil.
Then we persecute those who still call it evil.
 
Fr Dwight Longenecker
(This is also shown on an image.—ed.)
4:11 PM · Nov 30, 2019·Twitter for Android
   
Alive! (Ireland)
Recognising the Six Stages of Evil
By Alive Editor -October 28, 2020
(...)
The sermon takes as its framework a blog post by an American convert to Catholicism, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, on what he calls The Six Stages of Evil.
 
These stages are: 1. First, we overlook evil. 2. Then we permit evil. 3. Then we legalise evil. 4. Then we promote evil. 5. Then we celebrate evil. 6. Then we persecute those who still call it evil.
This is a kind of forensic examination of what Scripture calls “hardness of heart”, of our growing resistance to God’s will in our souls and in our community.
   
Twitter
🇺🇸Democracy First
@snitstwits
Replying to
@Logically_JC
First, we overlook evil.
Then we permit evil.
Then we legalize evil.
Then we [elect] evil.
Then we celebrate evil.
Then we persecute those
who still call it evil.
 
Fr. Dwight Longenecker, 
The Six Stages of Evil.
1:26 PM · Mar 28, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
 
Twitter
🌷𝓁𝒾𝓈𝒶 𝒷𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒹
@MrsLisaBaird
First, they overlook evil—
then they permit evil,
then they legalize evil,
then they promote evil,
then they celebrate evil,
Then they persecute those
who still call it evil.
 
“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil:
pride, & arrogancy, and the evil way…”
Proverbs 8:13
5:47 PM · Jul 13, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
 
The Patriot Post
JULY 16, 2022
The Progession of Evil
(The following text is shown on an image.—ed.)
First we overlook evil.
Then we permit evil.
Then we legalize evil.
Then we promote evil.
Then we persecute those who still call it evil.