Posted on 10/02/2014 12:26:07 PM PDT by markomalley
(Yes, I know. That doesn't change the fact that this is a really good book on the subject)
I hope that is performed when King Obola and the Wookie keaves the White Hut. Lord knows what demons lurked in there.
Bishop Coakley’s words concerning demons sound terribly judgmental to me. I hope he doesn’t get investigated by Rome.
I wondered if anyone was going to take the demons now living in the Civic Center seriously.
As a combination Christian and “hard” scientist I must say that devil worship must require a special kind of stupid.
A sane agnostic would say that he doesn’t know if there’s a God, but he hopes that there is.
A sane atheist would say that he doesn’t believe there’s a God, but he hopes that he’s wrong.
If you could supply proof of the existence of a devil then you have proved the existence of God. Thus, believers in the devil MUST believe in God.
If someone believes in God, and they purposely poke a stick in his eye, they are indeed a special kind of stupid.
Even seemingly benign public events and venues may present a risk of spiritual attack. A middle aged married couple I knew attended a New Age type talk in Atlanta. That night, at 3 AM, they awoke in bed to a terrible smell and a dark mass with glowing eyes at the foot of their bed. Unable to move, the couple engaged in a desperate struggle of wills against the intruder, finally succeeding only after a supreme effort. Their sense of the episode was that something foul had followed them home from the New Age talk.
Do not play with things you do not understand, very dangerous.
I have long thought that the presence of diabolical evil furnishes evidence for the existence of God. There is no reason, and no way, that blind deterministic materialist forces could produce diabolical evil. There must be a transcendent spiritual dimension.
And if there is a transcendent spiritual dimension, the demons can't be the only ones "there" --- because if they were, everything would be evil.
So you get right back to the sound reasonable inferences of Aquinas, Anselm and even Newman. And when I say "reasonable" I don't mean narrow mathematical proof: I mean that which intricately fits the human ways of knowing.
We have many weapons and great armor for our spiritual warfare as a Church. I think we should use them all.
(((
Amen! and Amen!
And we need to call on St. Michael the Archangel for help:
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle,
be our protection against
the malice and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan
and all evil spirits
who wander through the world
for the ruin of souls. Amen.
Very good points.
I’ve watched the series “Naked and Afraid” a few times and there have been several people who invoke the Universe, as in “Universe please help me”.
Obviously there is a belief in something beyond themselves but the Universe?
Evil is stupid. That doesn't mean evil people, and evil spirits aren't intelligent, crafty, clever etc ... but evil, distilled, is stupid.
That is what my friends concluded. The wife put aside the New Age stuff that she had been reading, and both returned to regular Bible study.
BTTT!
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You recommend a disgraced priest who was never an exorcist and felt up women.
My comment just before recommending the book (not the priest):
(Yes, I know. That doesn't change the fact that this is a really good book on the subject)
You will note that I endorse the book. I did not endorse the individual. Do you have specific issues with the book?
Do you remember Fr Benedict Groeschel, CFR?
You may recall he had any number of programs on EWTN, was a prolific writer that was published by OSV.
Then he had his gaffe in 2012.
If you go to the EWTN libraries...you will see NOTHING from Groeschel. If you go to the OSV publishing site...same thing.
Yes, he made a gaffe. An unacceptable gaffe.
But did that one gaffe make it necessary to turn him into an "un-person"?
Same thing with Fr. Corapi. Yes, he completely freaked out in the end. Does that mean that all of his work should be utterly scrubbed from the universe? Should he, including his early work, be vanished? Should he be an "un-person"?
Imagine if the early Church had turned Tertullian (who embraced Montanism later in life) or Origen (who embraced apokatastasis as he developed his theology)? What kind of a loss would that be?
I am not defending what Euteneur did. But if the book is solid, then it's solid. We can reject what the person did wrong without doing the 1984 trick of making them an "unperson", completely erasing them from history.
So if you have issues with the content of the book, please let me know what they are...
Father can answer for himself.He was never an exorcist.You want to throw everybody in-I’ll answer later.
The greatest vanity is to not only think we understand evil, but that we can control it as well.
Thanks for posting this. Unfortunately, judging from the words “prayers of exorcism”, the new watered-down ritual was used. I fear it was ineffective. A real exorcism involves an official delegate of Christ COMMANDING demons to depart. It’s the same with the watered-down ritual for confecting Holy Water: no exorcisms, just blessings - resulting at best in Happy Water. Most bishops these days shrink from commanding anyone - except for commanding their sheep to shun the “schismatic” SSPX.
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