In Gratitude for Joe Biden

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio - articles - email ) | Feb 26, 2021     

Sacraments, according to the Baltimore Catechism, are outward signs instituted by Christ to give grace. The Sacraments define and direct our lives. Our choices form us. When we choose to live a sacramental life, in a sense we become sacraments reflecting the Lord. But the contrary is also true.

In the Sacraments Jesus accompanies us throughout our lives: Baptism and birth, Confession and healing, the Eucharist and food, Confirmation and maturation. Marriage governs families and Holy Orders governs the Church. The Last Sacrament, the Anointing of the Sick, prepares us to enter through the narrow gate of death with God’s grace.

All creation has beautiful sacramental aspects. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” [Psalm 19:1] Psalm 104 is a poignant hymn describing how all living things clothe God with “honor and majesty.” Wherever we can see the handiwork of God, we see His image.

God created man in His image and likeness. Our response to His grace accentuates the Divine imprint. The saints in their goodness—Mary above all—reflect the holiness of God: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior….” [Luke 1:47]

But sin and evil, by analogy, are also formative and have their own “sacramental” aspects. Perhaps it is better to say, anti-sacramental characteristics. In the Gospels, we see various metaphors for sin. Leprosy is an outward sign of sin in general. Above all, the Cross is a terrible anti-sacrament of sin. But from the point of view of the Resurrection, it is the triumphant sign of final victory.

Just as holy people magnify the Lord, those spiritually deformed by the evil they commit become anti-sacraments of evil. Solomon in his splendor reflected the Lord’s wisdom. But when he took pride in God’s gifts, failing to attribute them to the Lord, he became an anti-sacrament of apostasy and his kingdom split apart.

Throughout our lives we walk the line, magnifying God’s holiness or reflecting sinful pride and rebellion. It is holy and good continually to seek the crown of sanctity. But a single seriously evil act—committed with sufficient freedom and informed consent—threatens our eternity. So it is presumptuous and dangerous to proclaim oneself as a devout Catholic or to encourage (or even allow) the description.

President Biden’s supporters repeatedly claim that he is a devout Catholic. In 2005, Biden himself protested those who questioned his Catholicism: “The next Republican that tells me I’m not religious I’m going to shove my rosary beads down their throat.” But the words of Jesus are foreboding: “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” [Mt. 7:21] Biden’s habitual and unapologetic sinful acts are on full display.

In less than a month after his inauguration, he issued a statement celebrating the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. He said he is “committed to codifying” the decision that legalized abortion. He promised he will be “appointing judges that respect foundational precedents like Roe.” He rescinded the pro-life Mexico City Policy, which ensured that foreign aid would not go to organizations that perform or refer for abortions.

Biden revoked the Trump administration’s ban on so-called gender transitioning in the military, allowing troops to serve based on their gender identity. He called on Congress to quickly pass the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Washington Post called Joe Biden a “president who has been called the most pro-transgender in history.”

Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, like Biden is Catholic. But contrary to the moral law, he supports legislation that permits partial-birth abortion, forces every healthcare plan to pay for abortions, forces pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions, forces the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraception and abortion drugs, and allows assisted suicide.

For most of his political life—from his consistent pro-abortion record to his officiating at a gay wedding in 2016—despite his Catholic affiliation and public pious practices, Joe Biden has magnified and institutionalized countless major violations of the Ten Commandments. The hypocrisy rivals that of the chief priests and Pharisees and is worthy of the same condemnation. Indeed, Biden is the most aggressively anti-Catholic President in history.

Meanwhile, Catholic clergymen are in disarray. Some of the bishops have tried silence, presumably hoping to avoid greater scandal. Others use flattery, praising Biden for those of his policies that dovetail with USCCB politics, but do not bind the faithful in conscience. A few bishops have attempted praiseworthy polemical pushbacks.

But so far the bishops have not initiated a single disciplinary measure to protect the Catholic faith from scandal. On the contrary, several prominent bishops have declared Biden worthy of Catholic-in-good-standing status. The Georgetown Jesuits celebrate with elation his Mass attendance as President.

As perhaps the most powerful man in the world, Biden’s insistent claim that he is a devout Catholic forces an unavoidable choice. We either: stand with the Church and her sacraments and reject Biden’s iconic culture-of-death policies, or we join those who celebrate Biden’s flouting of Church teaching. In so doing, we will reveal whether we intend to magnify the Lord or magnify Biden’s immorality.

Some prominent bishops and cardinals have already declared themselves sheep of Biden’s flock. Others apparently hope to go unnoticed by their silence. But they are successors of St. Peter, St. Paul, and the other apostles, who were not silenced even when authorities threatened them with incarceration or martyrdom. (Of course, fear of crippling lawsuits likely explains a good deal of current episcopal paralysis.) So their continued silence is an anti-sacrament of cowardice and the spiritual treason of collaborating with the enemy.

The election of Biden has forced a crisis. From the ashes, we can expect the Holy Spirit to raise up successors to those who opposed another anti-Catholic tyrant: Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More. May there be many of them.

If only for the clarity this brings to the Church, we have Joe Biden to thank.

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/in-gratitude-for-joe-biden/

Fr. Jerry Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington who has also served as a financial administrator in the Diocese of Lincoln. Trained in business and accounting, he also holds a Master of Divinity and a Master’s in moral theology. Father Pokorsky co-founded both CREDO and Adoremus, two organizations deeply engaged in authentic liturgical renewal. He writes regularly for a number of Catholic websites and magazines.  See full bio.

 

Why Did God Allow Biden-Harris to Prevail?

churchmilitant.com/news/article/why-did-god-allow-biden-to-prevail

News: Commentary

by David Gordon  •  ChurchMilitant.com  •  January 7, 2021   

Because your family, friends and neighbors are crooked as hell. 

The specter of an impending Joe Biden presidency is haunting America's Christian faithful, leaving many wondering why providence would grant the forces of evil such a pivotal political victory. The simple answer is this: America has gotten exactly the type of government that she deserves. She's reaped the poisonous chaff that she's spent decades and decades sowing. America will be governed by a wicked, Culture of Death, homosexualist, socialist shill because the majority of Americans are wicked, Culture of Death, homosexualist socialists (whether expressly or not). After all, the beauty — and horror — of self-governance is that nations always get the government they deserve.

President Reagan

In order to be free, a people must be virtuous and God-fearing. On this, the Founding Fathers were unanimous, with, perhaps, Samuel Adams putting it best: "Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." Since most men this side of Eden live vile, bestial lives, the norm for mankind has been to live as serfs underneath brutal, vicious regimes.

America is no exception to this infallible political calculus. A nation is always just one generation from tyranny: All that stands in the way of the degeneration from republic to dystopia, from free people to cattle, is the orientation and vitality of the aggregate conscience of the populace. As Ronald Reagan famously warned:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

The universe naturally inclines from order to disorder. The firewall against political entropy is virtue built upon grace. When virtue degenerates, so does freedom.

Our Founding Fathers — men of honor, nobility and high ideals — gifted us a constitutional republic built from the ground up as a hedge against tyranny, the default condition for the fallen human race. Ours was the unmerited privilege of taking the blank slate of a free nation and making of it what we willed. And we chose our path and chose it clearly. In her collective recklessness spurred on by hedonistic excess, intoxicant-fueled indifference and practical atheism, America has frittered away her freedom posthaste for gold-plated dung. We have assembled our own chains of political bondage "link by link and yard by yard" (as Dickens' Jacob Marley would say), girding them on by our own free will.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

We have, since the dawn of the republic, allowed judicial tyrants (beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall) to legislate from the bench, rewriting the Constitution under the guise of interpreting it. So we've been left with an untrammeled Supreme Court drunk on its own power — a judiciary that's blighted us with, inter alia, universal access to contraceptives, a "right" to possess pornography, a "right" to slaughter our own children in utero, and sodomitical faux marriage. We didn't do a thing about it, save offer a token, lip-service resistance so characteristic of the indolent, impotent Right.

We've sat idly by and allowed Congress to become a den of thieves, one that has rapaciously appropriated to itself legislative powers reserved to the states alone under the Constitution. We allowed this wake of vultures — under the pretexts of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Commerce Clause and the Tax and Spend Clause — to invade with onerous regulations and profligate spending every facet of our daily lives. They've destroyed health care; unduly restricted the right to bear arms; financed child-assassination mills like Planned Parenthood with generous gifts from the public coffers; warped our education system with No Child Left Behind; tanked manufacturing; driven up the price of energy; gutted college sports with Title IX and attacked the nuclear family with insidious, feminist legislation like the Violence Against Women Act  

And the few duties that actually wereconstitutionally delegated to the congressional circus are carried out with haphazard incompetence by vainglorious career-politician legislative pimps. The postal service is slow, expensive, disgruntled and flighty; the military, while being overextended to the four corners of the world contra the solemn admonition of George Washington in his Farewell Address, is lowering its fitness standards at the expense of public safety so that women can play soldier and treat it like a job-advancement program; the tax code is a fear-inducing labyrinth of asinine complexities where somehow, despite our communist-inspired graduated income tax, the most opulent corporations pay nothing but average citizens fear debtors' prison; and the borders are porous inlets for drug cartels and unvetted undesirables from all of Latin America.

Depiction of President Washington's
Farewell Address

We have an imperial presidency where cult-of-personality strongmen rule by executive fiat, unlawfully bypassing the legislative branch to make policy from on high while at the same time often refusing to enforce the laws that the chief executive is, by definition, charged with enforcing (e.g., President Obama's creation of the "DACA" program to avoid deporting illegal aliens in contravention of extant federal law). And we've done nothing to restore order and justice, because the Center is vulgar and illiterate, the Right is apathetic and the Left is affirmatively evil.

How did American civics devolve to this point? Make no mistake about it: We got here because of the unconstrained moral degeneracy of our good-time-Charlie family members, friends and neighbors. To care about justice in government, you first have to care about truth and goodness. And don't give me the reflexive, warmed-over, regurgitated talking points endemic among gutless conservatives: "I believe in the fundamental decency of the American people"; "I remain hopeful for America's future," yadda yadda. No. I don’t. And you shouldn't either. 

Confronted with the bleak prospects of a Marxist doom pock-marked by mob violence and overt anti-Christianity, there's no more room for optimism, not by a long shot. The "aww shucks" whistle-past-the-graveyard contrived cheerfulness that was dishonestly passed off as charity by cowardly preceding generations has to be declared anathema to men of goodwill. I hold my many ignoble countrymen in contempt, and so should you. 

Why has God allowed us to escape the natural (and preternatural) consequences of our moral decay for as long as He has?

A brief survey of Americans' moral outlook should suffice to sober up the delirious glass-is-half-full automatons of the nominal Right. So drink in deeply this alarming bevy of statistics:

• 83% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances
• 73% believe divorce is morally acceptable
• 65% believe having a baby outside of marriage is morally acceptable
• 65% believe that smoking marijuana recreationally is morally acceptable
• 91% believe birth control is morally acceptable
• 69% believe fornication is morally acceptable
• 67% percent believe homosexual relations are morally acceptable
• 54% believe euthanasia is morally acceptable.

To put this in perspective, a higher percentage of Americans believe it's immoral to wear fur clothing (37%) than believe embryonic stem cell research is unethical (29%).

Looking at the various bellwethers of America's moral integrity, it's hard to believe that the nation has been as resilient to outright socialistic tyranny as she actually has. By all indicia, we're a nation of acedia-ridden, playboy savages. So the question is not, "Why has God allowed a corrupt Biden-Harris ticket to win (or steal) this election?" The real question is, "Why has God allowed us to escape the natural (and preternatural) consequences of our moral decay for as long as He has?" That we've made it this far without a catastrophic national meltdown is a minor miracle. It's delusional to think that our countrymen are so perverse and backwards that they view almost every major vice as a virtue but that such ignominy will not translate to the polls. Of course it will, and it has. And barring a national religious awakening, things are only going to get worse.

So never again scratch your head and wonder aloud why it is that evil has been allowed to prevail politically in 2020. The answer is as close as your nearest neighbor.

David Gordon holds university degrees in political science, law and theology. He is co-author of Rules for Retrogrades: Forty Tactics to Defeat the Radical Left. Gordon is an associate copy editor at Church Militant and a co-host of the Resistance Podcast with Joe Gallagher.

The seductions of Socialism

Materialism, fantasy and false worship were the temptations Satan thrust at Christ, and he is tempting our nation the same way. 

These seductions are a formula for Socialism, which Winston Churchill in 1948 defined as "The philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."

A poorly educated generation succumbs to adolescent idealism, bereft of history, unaware that a cult of the state has been a consistent failure, costing countless millions of lives in modern times. State worship was resisted by the earliest Christians, who refused to offer incense to Caesar.  Socialism is simply Communism not yet in power, and its smiling face in the guise of "Democratic Socialism" quickly scowls once it has control.  As the economist Ludwig von Mises showed in various ways, the essence of Socialism is coercion and manipulation.  Pope John XXIII, quoting Pope Pius XI, taught in 1961: "No Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism."

Socialism in the guise of benevolence exploits the naïve.  As a corollary, Yeats said: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."  Lack of conviction moved appeasers to sign the Munich Agreement, and in present times it has ceded the Church's integrity to the Chinese government.  Naïve people were scandalized by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but Stalin and Hitler were simply Socialists in different uniforms.  Just as the National Socialist manifesto of 1920 tried to replace the Church with a pastiche of "Positive Christianity," which was Christianity without Christ, so has the Chinese government ordered that images of Christ be replaced with images of Party leader Xi Jinping.

In 1931, Pope Pius XI denounced the exaltation of the state as "Idolatry."  He insisted that "Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist."  From a conviction born of suffering under National Socialism and Soviet Socialism, Pope John Paul II maintained that "the fundamental error of Socialism is anthropological . . . [because it] considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism… ."

As the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world, Catholics should note what a present candidate for his party's presidential nomination, who calls himself a Democratic Socialist, said years ago: "I don't believe in charities . . .government, rather than charity organizations, should take over responsibility for social programs."  But Pope Benedict VI has said: "We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces . . ."

The prophet Samuel warned the Israelites who wanted a king in charge of everything: "He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves" (1 Samuel 8:17).  That voice is louder now.

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/politics-and-the-church/the-seductions-of-socialism.html

The real-life exorcism that inspired ‘The Exorcist’

The popular 1973 film was based on a haunting exorcism that occurred in St. Louis.

Philip Kosloski

In 1949, a young 13-year-old boy in Maryland was hearing and seeing strange things in his house after playing with a Ouija board. His family didn’t know what to do, so they contacted their Lutheran pastor.

According to an historical account of the events, the pastor said, “Go to a Catholic priest; the Catholics know about this kind of thing.”

They visited a local priest who later asked permission to perform an exorcism at Georgetown University Hospital. It didn’t end well, with the boy breaking off a spring from the mattress and slashing the priest.

Supernatural events persisted and so his parents felt they needed to do something more. The boy’s mother was from St. Louis and thought it would be good to find a priest there who could help.

The family ended up staying at a relative’s house, who graduated from St. Louis University. They were familiar with the Jesuit priests at the university and asked them for advice. After getting permission from the local bishop the Jesuits performed an exorcism that spanned almost 2 months.

Initially the exorcism was performed at the house, but it was later moved to St. Louis University as well as the Alexian Brothers Hospital.

According to a Jesuit seminarian at the time, “I got in on the business with the prayers of exorcism, and the little boy would go into a seizure and get quite violent. So Father Bowdern asked me to hold him … Yes, he did break my nose.’

The Jesuit exorcist who was chiefly responsible for performing the Rite of Exorcism fasted on bread and water throughout the entire span of events and took his role very seriously. It was a spiritual battle and he was poised to do everything necessary to defeat the assaults of the evil one.

Surprisingly, many of the events portrayed on film did happen, including a vomit that shot across the room at one of the priests. Yet, the boy never remembered any of it and woke up in the morning with no recollection of the great struggle that happened the night before.

St. Louis University relates on its website, “The exorcism continued on almost a nightly basis, even though the boy seemed to be get­ting worse. The priests asked his family for permission to teach him about Catholicism and con­vert him as a way to strengthen the fight against the supposed demonic possession. As he got closer to conversion and making his first holy Communion, his episodes become increasingly violent.”

Everything culminated with the celebration of Easter, when the priests were finally able to expel the demonic influences.

The day after Easter Sunday the extraordinary events ceased and the boy went on to lead a normal life, getting married, having children and a successful career. The Jesuits believed the exorcism was a success.

While The Exorcist may seem like a work of fiction, it was inspired by real-life events and remind us all that the devil is real and the only way to defeat him is through a life of prayer, united to the sacraments of the Church.

https://aleteia.org/2018/06/12/the-real-life-exorcism-that-inspired-the-exorcist/

Fortune Telling, Ouija boards - are evil - by Fr. John Hollowell

This is Super Serious: Fortune Telling, Ouija Boards, Tarot Cards . . .

Ouija Boards and Demonic Oppression 

By Fr. John Hollowell, On This Rock:

I spoke with a young man who was battling authentic demonic oppression for over twenty years after being in a room where a Ouija Board was being used when this young man was in seventh grade.

He shared that he felt something come into him and that from that point on in his life, he knew he was battling a Demon that had considerable ability to harm him (head aches and weariness) and to suggest things to him denigrating himself, his family, discouraging him from going to Church, discouraging him from confession and priests, and much more.

Stay away from fortune telling, Ouija boards, Tarot Cards, and all that other garbage.  EVIL IS REAL.  

“All forms of divination are to be rejected:  recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future.  Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers.  They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone”
– Catechism 2116

Note that Deuteronomy compares all these evil consultations with killing children: “Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortuneteller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner, or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead.”
– Deuteronomy 18: 10-11

St. Paul and Deuteronomy note that those who engage in these types of acts commit mortal sins.  It is SUPER SERIOUS

As noted from this particular young man’s story, even those AROUND this type of activity can be harmed in serious ways.

A Call to Restore Prayers of Exorcism

R. Jared Staudt

In 1886, Pope Leo XIII added the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel to the prayers he had already ordered to be said after the Low Mass in 1884. The origin of the prayer is subject to much speculation, particularly about whether or not Leo received a locution with the voices of Jesus and the devil. Regardless of the exact details of this alleged event, which some deny for being unsubstantiated, there are some historical testimonies to the fact that a mystical experience moved the Pope to compose the prayer and to have it said daily throughout the world.

On June 29, 1972, Pope Bl. Paul VI, who stopped the recitation of the prayer, seemed to confirm an element’s of Leo’s prophecy, stating in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.” This built upon Leo’s sense that the devil would have extraordinary influence in the twentieth century, including within the Church. Paul continued his reflection on the influence of the devil on November 15 of that same year in a general audience entitled “Deliver Us from Evil,” arguing that “one of the major needs [of the Church] is defense from that evil we call the Devil.” Pope Paul, referencing Ephesians 6:11-12, argued that we need to withstand the evil one with the armor of God.

Was a large part of the smoke of Satan entering the Church our denial of his influence and a laying down of our spiritual arms to confront him? For too long we have denied or overlooked the influence of the devil on our lives and the Church. Therefore, we have grown lax in seeking the Lord’s power to overcome his opposition. Praying for this deliverance is central to Christian prayer, as we see even at the end of the Our Father, which has been translated, “deliver us from the evil one.” After being tempted, Christ commanded the devil, “away with you Satan!” and cast out many demons in his ministry. Our Lord took spiritual warfare seriously and recognized our need for deliverance, as he brought “freedom to captives.” He also gave power and authority to his disciples to exorcise: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons” (Mk 16:17; see Luke 9:1). This power has been overlooked of late, as belief in the influence of the evil one now appears superstitious to many.

Take the example of exorcism prayer in the Rite of Baptism as part of the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council, promulgated in 1969 by Paul VI. It is fascinating that the Associated Press quoted Bl. Paul as questioning the revised prayer in the audience I referenced above (though these lines have been removed from the official text). The AP article reads: “In his speech. Pope Paul appeared to regret that in the new rite of baptism, which he approved three years ago, less emphasis is given to exorcism. This is the part in which the priest orders Satan to get out of the new Christian. ‘I don’t know whether this is realistic,’ he said of the revised exorcism.” In the audience, Paul recognized both the increased influence on the devil and that the Church had softened her response.

In my opinion, the “Prayer of Exorcism” found in the revised rite, is not an exorcism at all. Here is the text:

Almighty and ever-living God, you sent your only Son into the world to cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil, to rescue man from the kingdom of darkness, and bring him into the splendor of your kingdom of light. We pray for this child: set him (her) free from original sin, make him (her) a temple of your glory, and send your Holy Spirit to dwell with him (her). We ask this through Christ our Lord.

The first sentence is simply a declarative statement on what Christ accomplished. It then asks that the child be set free from original sin and given grace, but says nothing about praying for the child to be delivered from the influence of the enemy, let alone commanding the enemy to depart.

In paragraph 1673, the Catechism describes exorcism and its relation to Baptism: “When the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism. Jesus performed exorcisms and from him the Church has received the power and office of exorcizing. In a simple form, exorcism is performed at the celebration of Baptism.” What is so striking about the exorcism prayer in the new Rite of Baptism is that is does not ask that the one being baptized “be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion.”

Contrast this with the exorcism from the traditional rite of Baptism:

I cast you out, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Depart and stay far away from this servant of God, N. For it is the Lord Himself who commands you, accursed and doomed spirit, He who walked on the sea and reached out His hand to Peter as he was sinking. So then, foul fiend, recall the curse that decided your fate once for all. Indeed, pay homage to the living and true God, pay homage to Jesus Christ, His Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Keep far from this servant of God, N, for Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, has freely called him (her) to His holy grace and blessed way and to the waters of baptism.

The lack of exorcism in the new rite, was lauded by some, such as Vincent Ryan, OSB:

The catechetical value of some of its rites and formulas was doubtful…. How could one justify the strongly-worded exorcisms when applied, not to converts from paganism, but to newly-born infants? …

In the old baptismal service the exorcisms loomed very large. They have now been reduced to one moderately-worded formula. No longer is the Evil One addressed directly (‘I adjure thee, Satan, …’). Instead, we have a prayer addressed to God, acknowledging what he has done for his people.

Fr. Ryan questioned the need for exorcism prayers for infants, but suggested that it may be helpful for converts. What then do we see happening in the case of someone converting as an adult from another religion? The Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), promulgated in 1971, contains a series of exorcisms that occur periodically from the Rite of Acceptance to the Scrutinies of Lent. Analyzing the prayers shows mixed results. Some meet the definition of an exorcism given by the Catechism, but a majority follow Fr. Ryan’s concern for catechetical instruction over actual spiritual warfare.

The “Introduction” to the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) describes the exorcisms that occur within the Catechumenate in the following ways: They are “addressed directly to God,” and “draw the attention … to the real nature of Christian life…” (90). Further, during Lent the elect “are freed from the effects of sin and from the influence of the devil. They receive new strength in the midst of their spiritual journey and they open their hearts to receive the gifts of the Saviour” (131).

The strongest of the many exorcism prayers within RCIA is contained within the “optional rites” section of the Rite of Acceptance, and therefore would not necessarily be used for every catechumen. The prayer states: “By the breath of your mouth, O Lord, drive away the spirits of evil. Command them to depart, for your kingdom has come among us.” This prayer, though stronger than the exorcism of Baptism, serves as a petition, not a command to the demons to depart.

The next set of exorcism prayers are the minor exorcisms found within the Catechumenate proper. Out of the 11 options, the following prayer provides a good example of their character:

God of power, who promised us the Holy Spirit through Jesus your Son, we pray to you for these catechumens, who present themselves before you. Protect them from the spirit of evil and guard them against error and sin, so that they may become the temple of your Holy Spirit. Confirm what we profess in faith, so that our words may not be empty, but full of the grace and power by which your Son has freed the world. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen (§94, Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults).

Although this is a good and even beautiful prayer, I wonder (like Bl. Paul VI) whether it would suffice to break someone away from the domination of sin, false worship, and demonic influence? There are also two options for exorcism prayers for each of the three Scrutinies of Lent. These prayers are a bit stronger at points—“defend them from the power of Satan”—but generally maintain a catechetical and petitionary character. As in the revised rite of Baptism, we do not see in these prayers the full exercise of the authority given to the Church by Christ over unclean spirits.

As we see the influence of the evil one increasing in our culture every day, we cannot stand by idly. We must take up our spiritual arms again. Returning to the scriptural passage quoted by Bl. Paul above, Ephesians 6: 11-12, we can see how St. Paul taught us to withstand the attacks of the enemy:

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

How should we put on this armor? We must surround ourselves with prayer, remaining in the presence of the Lord and strong in our faith. Beyond that, without giving in to undo fear or obsession, we should regularly pray for deliverance from any influence that the enemy may have over us. We should pray regularly the prayer to the great defender of the Church, St. Michael, as Pope St. John Paul II advised us: “Although today this prayer is no longer recited at the end of the Eucharistic celebration, I invite everyone not to forget it, but to recite it to get to be helped in the battle against the forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world.”

There are also many other effective prayers of deliverance. The one copied below is an example of taking up the authority that Christ gave us, through the power of his Holy Name, to withstand evil spirits.

Prayer Against Every Evil

Spirit of our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Most Holy Trinity, Immaculate Virgin Mary, angels, archangels, and saints of heaven, descend upon me. Please purify me, Lord, mold me, fill me with yourself, use me.

Banish all the forces of evil from me, destroy them, vanish them, so that I can be healthy and do good deeds.

Banish from me all spells, witchcraft, black magic, malefice, ties, maledictions, and the evil eye; diabolic infestations, oppressions, possessions; all that is evil and sinful, jealously, perfidy, envy; physical, psychological, moral, spiritual, diabolical aliments.

Burn all these evils in hell, that they may never again touch me or any other creature in the entire world.

I command and bid all the power who molest me—by the power of God all powerful, in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary—to leave me forever, and to be consigned into the everlasting hell, where they will be bound by Saint Michael the archangel, Saint Gabriel, Saint Raphael, our guardian angels, and where they will be crushed under the heel of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

Amen.

Editor’s note: The image above is a detail of “St. Michael” painted by Raphael in 1504-5.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/call-restore-prayers-exorcism

satan in the World Today

http://catholicdeliverance.blogspot.com/2011/07/real-power-of-satan.html


From Exorcism and the Church Militant,

By Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer, Exorcist

In today’s day and age, Satan is growing exponentially more powerful due to the enormity of human sinfulness, and the Church must confront his power either willingly or unwillingly. Satan is normally “hidden in the dark sea of human sin and error,” like Leviathan of the Old Testament, but nowadays he is walking tall in powerful structures of sin like abortion, pornography, sex slavery, rapacious greed and terrorism. He flexes his muscles in the massive diffusion of errors and sinful practices like the doctrines of myriad false religions, pernicious ideologies like radical feminism and “pro-choice” extremism, the militant homosexual movement and the aggressive mass media which is the ministry of propaganda for Satan and all his works and all his empty promises.

Never in all of history have we seen evil promoted so effectively and the true good so roundly mocked and rejected as in this age of extreme technological prowess. Although evil has existed since the dawn of time and manifested itself to the world, the difference between the modern world and past generations is that Satan has a greater ability to use groups and institutions for increasing his wicked reach into human life and society. No longer is evil just practiced in the haunts of cemeteries, seedy parlors and hidden covens. Nowadays, objective evil is displayed out in the open air with impunity, celebrated in the public forum and strategized in plush board rooms. Whole industries and power groups are dedicated to its promotion and dissemination, and sometimes the sheer power of these industries of immorality defies imagination. They target the younger generations with an immense seductive force, and the young are almost entirely unequipped to deal with this tyranny of sin due to unparalleled attacks on faith, marriage, family and innocent human life in modern times. Not only do young people not know the truth about their salvation; they don't even know that they don’t know it.

The 21st century is a moral and spiritual battlefield of such immense proportions that no era of human history will have ever seen a war like it. Satan is using the cumulative force of this world’s sinfulness to re-define life as we know it. Now, this war is not just against trained combatants. It is total war against all that is sacred and natural. It is a war against humanity itself, something unseen before in all of history with the possible exception of atheistic Communism.

The devil now arrogates to himself the right to control the totality of human existence even in so-called free societies: from manipulating the very act of creation (in vitro fertilization, cloning, Human Genome); to the authority over life and death (abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia); to the definition of human sexuality and marriage (birth control, divorce, homosexual unions); to the very prospect of human annihilation (nuclear war, genocide and the impending New World Order). Nothing escapes the rebellious forces of hedonism and secularism in their violent march through our world. They creep into the fabric of our lives and families like a vapor until they have poisoned the entire environment and make everyone believe that their toxicity is “normal.” If the measure of a war’s ferociousness is the number of casualties, the modern war to exterminate souls is unprecedented in the history of humanity; it is nothing short of history’s worst nuclear holocaust in spiritual terms.

*****Malachi Martin, in the 1992 preface to his book, Hostage to the Devil, said that “ritualistic Satanism and its inevitable consequence, demonic Possession, are now part and parcel of the atmosphere of life in America… such pervasive cultural desolation is the most fertile ground one could possibly imagine for the causes of Possession to take root and flourish in almost unimpeded freedom.” It must be kept in mind that such a frightening observation was made at a time before the advent of the Internet, the massive diffusion of New Age beliefs and the Harry Potter books and movies. Martin’s observations suggest that this evil is so all-encompassing that only the authority of God Himself, borne and administered by the Church, is adequate to meet this challenge.