By the way, I’d like to offer my own opinions, such as they are.
Folks who know about the AC are more than likely admirers of Fr. Ripperger. As such, they’ve probably heard a great deal of his information on the demonic, and may have even developed a predisposition to see the evil one in just about everything. Satan is, apparently, under every other rock, after all. Either this fact, or the fact that the AC warns potential members about spiritual attack, or else both of these facts together, result in confirmation bias. Folks expect something to occur, and they find it in the everyday world. After a couple of weeks, they don’t expect that attack any longer, and so they cease to find it. That, for my money, is a simpler explanation than the highly speculative theology that assuming other explanations might entail
Multiple flat tires is something obviously entirely different. That’s weird, but correlation does not equal causation, and we have to be careful of fallacious thinking like post hoc ergo propter hoc. God may have permitted that for any number of reasons that we can’t know about, and until those reasons can be definitively ruled out, we shouldn’t assume He’s simply permitting evil because we happened to be asking the Blessed Virgin to protect us against satan.
But the OP in this thread has communicated that he interprets events that absolutely have nothing to do with him as being orchestrated specifically for him because he wants to grow closer to Our Lady in consecration. That sort of attitude needs to be corrected, not encouraged. Especially if we’re talking about what is or is not occurring in the preternatural realm and whether demons are angry at us or not angry at us or attacking us or whatever else. One needs to have a rational, reasonable approach to this sort of thing, not one that is unbalanced or which claims things about the spirit world that are not revealed to us by the Church, and which may or may not be a consensus view amongst exorcists and demonologists. We also need to be careful about making folk heroes out of Priests, and treating everything they say as if it’s infallible truth about the demonic.
Hi. I can’t comment on the AC, but the Church has spoken about demonic influence and this is most certainly the case with many aspects of the faith, to which we try to draw closer - including Mass. How many people miss Mass, how many people don’t attend Confession, how many people keep putting off prayer until they stop praying…and yes, of course, if someone is to draw closer to God via His Holy Mother, than Satan is going to do something to try and upset that.
If you think that demonic interference is not all about then you need to know that there has been an increase in the number of exorcists trained, in recent years.
Look around the world and see the evil that is there!
You mentioned the word ‘rational’. This word is a dangerous word if people don’t use it in the right context. And especially when used int he context of the Catholic faith.
The discernment of spirits is a lot of the time what faith is about, not walking around without being aware. One doesn’t have to only be thinking of demons all the time to be aware. Those who are aware are a lot more likely to not grow complacent.
Demons are not so much angry at us, that it is, they simply find us disgusting and want us to go to Hell, at all costs.
One can do acts of love and this is important so that we are focusing on God and not on Satan, but still, have you never heard the saying, that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was…no, not knitting jumpers for Christmas presents, but making people believe that he doesn’t exist.
Exorcists ought to be believed. There is always room that people can be wrong, even at a very high level, but I would imagine exorcists do know what they are talking about, because they are some of the best trained people in the world, and this training is something that comes after having realised that each one has a gift. A GIFT, from Christ. These gifts we are not meant to spurn. One ought to pray for more exorcists and people who have such sensitivity to the spiritual life. Otherwise, Satan does a whole load of Guerilla Warfare tactics and before you know it, the world is in crisis. Or do you think that the physical world is the only reality. Obviously, not.
I don’t personally know about this priest but the devil does upset people’s plans and this is no secret.
