On October 19, 2026, reports emerged that Denver Archbishop James Golka had asked Fr. Chad Ripperger, the widely known American exorcist and superior of the Society of the Most Sorrowful Mother (the Doloran Fathers), to take a one-year “fast” from public speaking and interviews. The Archdiocese of Denver stated that the request came during a meeting about his ministry and community so that he could devote himself more fully to the Society and those it serves. Fr. Ripperger “readily agreed,” with a review planned at the end of the year. The archdiocese expressed gratitude for his priestly service and exorcism ministry and asked the faithful to pray for him and the Society.
LifeSiteNews framed the development more starkly, reporting that it had confirmed with the priest himself that the restrictions covered public appearances, online homilies, writings, and already-booked talks, lasting until September of the following year. Fr. Ripperger informed the outlet he could not fulfill a speaking engagement at its anniversary gala, directing questions to the Archbishop. The timing coincided with his recent high-profile appearances on the Shawn Ryan Show and with Tucker Carlson, which drew millions of views on topics including possession, the occult, addiction, communism, the mark of the beast, and end-times speculation.
No public canonical decree, finding of heresy, or formal penalty has been announced. The distinction between an agreed temporary withdrawal and a silencing order has itself become part of the online discussion. What is clear is that one of the most visible living English-speaking voices on spiritual warfare has been asked to step back from the public square.
Resources Associated with Fr. Ripperger’s Work
Fr. Ripperger’s influence rests partly on accessible materials. His books include Deliverance Prayers for Use by the Laity, Dominion: The Nature of Diabolic Warfare, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health, and Minor Exorcisms and Deliverance Prayers. He promotes the Auxilium Christianorum association and its daily prayers intended to support priests engaged in deliverance work while remaining within legitimate authority. The Society of the Most Sorrowful Mother focuses on traditional liturgy and assistance in cases of spiritual need, working under local bishops. Recorded talks appear primarily on Sensus Fidelium and related channels.
These resources emphasize frequent confession, the state of grace, the Rosary, holy water, blessed salt, the St. Michael Prayer, and sacramentals. They also stress that deliverance prayers are not magic and that living the sacramental life is primary. At the same time, critics note that some of the material presents speculative or private opinions—on generational spirits, specific demon hierarchies, or mental-health causation—with the authority of settled Catholic teaching.
Official Church resources remain the safer baseline for most Catholics: the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the reality of angels and demons, the Rite of Exorcism (which requires episcopal faculties for solemn exorcism), approved manuals used by designated exorcists, and ordinary pastoral guidance from one’s own pastor or diocesan office. Discernment of spirits is a traditional practice, but it is not a license for every priest or layperson to diagnose and command in every case. USCCB guidelines on exorcism stress that dioceses should establish protocols requiring medical, psychological, and psychiatric evaluation before referral to an exorcist, precisely to distinguish natural causes from extraordinary demonic activity.
Troubling Statements and Claims, and What the Church Teaches
Several of Fr. Ripperger’s public statements have drawn sustained criticism for potential harm or for stretching beyond what the Church formally teaches.
On mental health, he has repeatedly described diagnosable bipolar disorder as a form of demonic obsession. In one talk he stated that every person diagnosed as bipolar who came to him and followed his instructions was able to come completely off medication and be “straightened out” within about three months. He has said he has had “phenomenally good success” using an older-rite blessing that “drives out the demonic,” and that this affirms the obsession diagnosis. He has also remarked that every form of mental illness can be caused by demons. While he distinguishes patterns of psychological versus diabolical affliction in other talks and acknowledges real psychological illness, the practical claim that bipolar patients can routinely discontinue medication under spiritual protocols has alarmed clinicians and some Catholic observers. Untreated or abruptly discontinued treatment for bipolar disorder carries well-documented risks of relapse, hospitalization, and suicide.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 1673) draws a clear line: “Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church. Illness, especially psychological illness, is a very different matter; treating this is the concern of medical science. Therefore, before an exorcism is performed, it is important to ascertain that one is dealing with the presence of the Evil One, and not an illness.” Official Church practice requires moral certitude that the affliction is demonic, reached only after medical and psychiatric evaluation. The Church does not treat recognized psychiatric conditions as routinely or primarily demonic, nor does it authorize priests to instruct the faithful to abandon prescribed medication on the basis of private spiritual protocols. Fr. Ripperger’s confident generalizations sit outside this framework.
On non-Catholics, he has asserted that a single deviation from an attribute of God means a person is not worshiping the same God, and that “not a solid theologian before Vatican II would have ever said that the Muslims worship the same God that we do,” despite the language of Nostra Aetate. He has further claimed that religious acts performed outside the Church (such as baptizing someone) are “actually offensive to God” because they are done contrary to the rights of those who possess the elements of sanctification.
Nostra Aetate 3 states that the Church “regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth.” Lumen Gentium 16 similarly notes that Muslims, “together with us…adore the one, merciful God.” The Catechism (841) echoes this language. The Church teaches that monotheists who acknowledge the Creator are related in various ways to the People of God, even while affirming that the fullness of revelation is in Christ and that Islam does not accept the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus. Fr. Ripperger’s stricter formulation goes beyond, and at points against, these conciliar and catechetical statements.
Regarding Harry Potter, Fr. Ripperger has said that J.K. Rowling “went to witch school” before writing the books, that some of the spells are real (because witches say so), that a woman in Spain burned down her house attempting one, and that an exorcist told him roughly 60 percent of the character names are actual demon names encountered in exorcisms. He has also recounted a possession case in which demons claimed they inspired the books. Apologists such as Trent Horn have pointed out the lack of corroborating evidence for the witch-school claim, noted that the “spells” are largely invented or broken Latin, and questioned the wisdom of treating demons’ self-descriptions as reliable. The Church has no official condemnation of the series. The Catechism (2116–2117) rejects superstition, divination, and recourse to demons, but leaves judgments about particular works of fiction to prudence. Believing the unverified claims of demons about cultural artifacts, or treating fictional Latin phrases as functional spells, is not part of Catholic teaching.
He has also rejected evolution as contrary to reason and theologically problematic, and he has described alien-abduction scenarios as identical to demonic activity once the “alien” veneer is stripped away. The Church permits a range of views on the scientific theory of evolution compatible with the creation of the soul by God; it does not require rejection of the theory as contrary to reason.
Sensationalist Elements of Popular Piety
Fr. Ripperger frequently discusses sacramentals and sacred language in ways that strike some Catholics as dramatic. He has explained that historically church bells were exorcised so that their ringing would drive demons from the surrounding area. He has described cases in which simply ringing an exercised bell produces an immediate manifestation (“Jack-in-the-box”). Other exorcists have similarly noted that demons dislike bells, beautiful music, and objects that direct attention to divine worship; the phenomenon is not unique to him. Nonetheless, the vivid anecdotes can leave the impression that these objects function almost mechanically against the demonic.
On Latin, he has stated that demons find the sacred languages—especially Latin spoken with ecclesiastical pronunciation—particularly difficult to tolerate. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew are fixed to the instrument of salvation (the Cross), according to the Fathers; the ecclesiastical pronunciation appears to matter. He has recounted demons who were fluent in Latin and fussy about grammar, or who spoke long-dead languages. Reports of xenoglossy during possession are part of the traditional literature of exorcism. The risk in popular presentation is that ordinary Catholics may conclude Latin Masses or prayers possess an automatic, near-magical superiority that vernacular ones lack, or that the precise pronunciation is decisive in a way that eclipses the Church’s actual teaching on the efficacy of the sacraments and prayer offered in faith. The Church has always valued the sacred languages, yet the Second Vatican Council and subsequent liturgical law affirm the legitimacy of the vernacular for the liturgy while preserving Latin as a privileged language. Efficacy is not tied to one pronunciation in the mechanical manner sometimes suggested.
Anecdotes That Have Caused Contention
Many of the most contested claims rest on what demons allegedly said or did during sessions. Fr. Ripperger has spoken of a hierarchy of “five generals” immediately under Satan (Baal for fornication and impurity in culture, Asmodeus for male homosexuality, Leviathan for one form of female homosexuality, Lilith for another, and Baphomet for child sacrifice/abortion). He has linked specific political and legal developments in the United States to the cultural delivery of the country into their hands. Traditional Catholic demonology acknowledges hierarchy among fallen angels (mirroring the angelic choirs), often associating principal demons with the capital sins. However, the specific roster of “five generals” with these precise functions and names does not appear in the Fathers, the Doctors, or magisterial teaching. Fr. Ripperger has indicated that the scheme emerged from discussions among exorcists rather than from established texts. Some priest-theologians have described it as constructed rather than traditional.
He has described conversations in which demons identified themselves or made claims about cultural artifacts. Traditional authors such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus Liguori caution strongly against unnecessary dialogue with demons; some critics argue that public retelling of such exchanges, even when framed as pastoral data, risks giving the demons the attention they seek or presenting their statements as credible. The Church’s official approach to exorcism prioritizes the authority of Christ and the Church over curiosity about demonic self-descriptions.
Political anecdotes have also circulated. After the 2020 election, a “Prayer of Command” associated with him circulated in some Catholic circles with “Stop the Steal” language. He later clarified that a political group had modified a deliverance prayer he composed and that he had only encouraged prayer for the integrity of the election. Similar material has reappeared in subsequent cycles. Whether or not the original intent was political, the episode illustrated how spiritual-warfare language can be appropriated for partisan ends.
Imposition of Personal Views and Theories
A recurring critique is that Fr. Ripperger presents highly specific theories—on family structure, psychology, demonology, and culture—as if they were simply Catholic teaching rather than his own synthesis or opinion.
On marriage and women, he has spoken of “the curse of Eve,” whereby women after the Fall strive to dominate their husbands and must work against this tendency. He has stated that it is a mortal sin for a woman to work outside the home without sufficient reason, citing older moral manuals, and that a wife’s perfection in marriage includes piety toward her husband’s God-given authority regardless of his personal merits. He has described feminism as an inversion of the original order exploited by Satan, and has linked the movement of women into the workforce with communist-inspired attacks on the family. In one talk he remarked that giving women the right to vote divided the basic building block of society, because the husband formerly cast the vote for the family.
Catholic teaching affirms the complementary roles of husband and wife, the husband’s headship in the domestic church, and the importance of a mother’s presence. Familiaris Consortio 23, however, states that “the equal dignity and responsibility of men and women fully justifies women’s access to public functions,” while insisting that society must be structured so that wives and mothers are not compelled to work outside the home and that the maternal role is properly valued. The Church does not teach that ordinary employment by a wife is mortal sin. Older moral manuals reflecting different economic and social conditions are not the last word of the Magisterium. Fr. Ripperger’s stronger formulations can become prescriptions that collapse mutual counsel and charity into unilateral submission and that risk spiritualizing ordinary marital disagreements.
Generational spirits or “generational wounds” form another area of private theory presented with considerable confidence. Fr. Ripperger teaches that demons can attach to family lines through grave sin, curses, or the authority of a parent, producing recurring patterns of vice or affliction across generations. The idea is not defined or condemned by the Magisterium; it appears in neither the Catechism nor the writings of the Doctors of the Church in the form he develops. Multiple bishops’ conferences have addressed related practices. The Spanish bishops in 2024 stated that “intergenerational healing” has no basis in Catholic doctrine, that sin is personal, that only original sin is transmitted (and not as personal guilt), and that Baptism forgives all sins. Polish, French, and other conferences have reached similar conclusions, warning that such theories can contradict the efficacy of the sacraments and the personal nature of sin. While patterns of sin and dysfunction clearly pass through families by example, trauma, and environment, the claim of specific demonic transmission that can be identified and expelled by particular protocols remains speculative and, in its stronger forms, has been judged by Church authorities to lack foundation.
Binding prayers for the laity, detailed demon taxonomies, and confident assertions about the precise spiritual causes of widespread cultural or medical phenomena similarly move from the common teaching of the Church into the realm of one experienced practitioner’s working theories. Experience in the ministry of exorcism is valuable; it does not automatically confer the charism of infallibility on every observation or every causal explanation.
Conclusion
Fr. Chad Ripperger has spent decades in a difficult and necessary ministry. Many Catholics have found his emphasis on the reality of the demonic, the importance of the sacraments, traditional liturgy, and concrete spiritual practices helpful. The request from his archbishop for a year focused on his own community rather than the public stage may simply reflect pastoral priorities. It may also reflect concern that certain statements and anecdotes, once amplified by large platforms, have generated confusion, contention, or potential harm.
Catholics who encounter his material are free to weigh it against the broader tradition, the Catechism, the guidance of their own pastors, and, where health is involved, competent medical advice. Popular piety that multiplies bells, Latin phrases, and dramatic stories can awaken zeal; it can also slide into superstition when it is detached from the Church’s measured teaching. Personal theories about family order, mental illness, or demon hierarchies, however confidently stated, remain personal until the Church teaches otherwise. The year of reduced public ministry offers an opportunity for both the priest and his audience to distinguish more carefully between what the Church proposes for belief and what an individual exorcist has found useful in his own practice.
