A few odds and ends on Catholicism and the Church.
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Can you name the sole Catholic among fifty six who signed the Declaration of Independence?
That would be Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), a wealthy Maryland landowner and lawyer and key advocate for religious liberty and independence, serving in the Continental Congress and later as one of Maryland’s first U.S. Senators.
Born in Annapolis, he was educated by Jesuits in France and studied law in London.
Due to his faith, Carroll was barred from holding public office or voting in Maryland for much of his early life. By signing, he risked his vast fortune and life for the patriot cause.
While Catholicism in America was in those times all but verboten, it’s now coming into its own in a new way, with almost twenty percent of Americans calling themselves such.
There has been increased acceptance of the Catholic Faith (the oldest Christian Faith), even among Evangelicals, who have all but treated Catholicism as idolatrous until lately.
Major Evangelical podcasters are now even featuring Catholic exorcists.
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Do you know that one famous Evangelical icon, Charlie Kirk, was not only married to an active Catholic (Erika) but was also buried in a Catholic funeral after his tragic death last year? Indeed, Charlie often wore a Miraculous Medal and a medal of the Archangel Michael.
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Speaking of spiritual warfare, as well as Catholicism, a question:
How often does the New Testament mention “demons” and “unclean spirits”?
If you track the actual New Testament terms behind Catholic translations (the Greek words that were translated), the count comes to something like this:
Demon and demons (Greek daimonion) is rendered sixty-three times.
Unclean spirits or spirits (Greek pneuma akatharton) appears twenty-one times.
So the total mentions tally to eighty-four.
In the New American Bible Revised Edition, which is the version commonly used in U.S, Catholic liturgies, the term Satan appears 18 times in the Old Testament and thirty-five times in the New Testament. The word devil appears roughly 36 times.
The exact English word-count can shift slightly from one Catholic-approved edition to another because translators occasionally render lines in different ways (especially in a couple of non-Gospel passages).
But the underlying New Testament usage—the “demon(s)” and “unclean spirit(s)” language—is essentially captured in the totals above.
Are they likewise discussed in sermons/homilies? Or is it rare to hear mention (and warnings) of them?
In most churches, the latter applies: either due to a lack of clerical knowledge, fear, or concern that those in the pews would be bothered by it. Spiritual warfare has not, in the main, been a part of mainstream Catholic teaching nor is it commonly included in institutional religious media.
This is damaging: in the majority of Jesus’s healing, demons and/or unclean spirits were cast out. Do modernists believe Jesus was mistaken?
And what about the Blessed Mother, who at approved apparitions often warned of “the power of darkness” and called our present hour (the hour of his power.”
Unfortunately, many seem to think Jesus was superstitious (calling something demonic when it was actually “psychological”).
Fortunately, that pretentious (and basically heretical) viewpoint of those who avoid tackling the subject is changing.
The young swarming into the Church, as well as Evangelicalism, are clamoring to know more about evil, for a simple reason: they are seeing it all around them. And an increasing number of priests are beginning to take up the subject, instead of doing as has been done for many decades now: completely ignoring it in sermons despite Mass readings that mention such spirits.
Without losing the essential Good News that is Scripture, it would behoove all clergy to do the same.
[As one commentator notes: “For now, the Church is dying—shrinking in terms of ultimate numbers. But, where Catholic life, preaching, and worship are blooming, the smaller numbers are still signs of true revival.]