Author Interview: Jesse Romero

It is hard to miss the buzz in Catholic quarters surrounding well-known evangelist Jesse Romero’s new book, The Devil in the City of Angels: My Encounters with the Diabolical (TAN Books, 2019). What caught my attention in Romero’s story was how he first encountered demonic spirits not in his work as a Catholic evangelist but earlier, in his career as a Los Angeles deputy sheriff. He witnessed supernatural manifestations that police academies never dream of addressing with their cadets; but these encounters helped propel him deeper into his Catholic faith. As Jesse’s faith matured and he began sharing the gospel, his path crossed a number of others – baptized Christians – whose involvement in the occult opened them to demonic oppression and possession. Romero accumulated a wealth of knowledge regarding spiritual warfare, and he was gracious enough to answer a few questions for readers.

Shane Kapler: With Scripture and the Catechism being so clear on Christians not having anything to do with seances, astrology, psychics, etc., why do you think so many Christians still dabble in the occult? And as a follow-up, what are the occult practices in which they most frequently engage?

Jesse Romero: Baptized Christians are hungering for the mystical and other worldly, we were hard wired that way.  Many people are simply 'curious', just like Eve, that’s what got her in trouble, wanting to discover the unknown. Many people are drawn to the occult because they are low information Americans who have a malformed, uninformed, misinformed conscience and the allure of the occult is all around: psychics, tarot card readers, fortune tellers, healers online and also renting a storefront in your neighborhood. You also have the pop culture (music, movies) that promotes that occult as well as the best-selling 'Harry Potter books.'  Tempting people to dabble in the occult is one of the ordinary activities of demons.

Kapler: You write a great deal about spiritual warfare. What type of spiritual warfare is reserved only for exorcists, and what type is the work of the laity? Is there a line that the laity does not have the spiritual authority to cross?

Romero: Priest have the authority to engage in healing, deliverance and exorcism. There are two types, a minor and a solemn exorcism. Any priest can engage in minor exorcism, a solemn exorcism requires the permission of their bishop. Lay people can help priest in healing, deliverance and exorcism as support and intercessors. A priest has universal authority to heal and liberate a person from the diabolical, while a lay person has authority over those under his authority. A husband and father has authority to pray healing and deliverance prayers over his wife and children. Lay people can pray healing and deliverance prayers for themselves. The ones that I have been praying every day for over ten years are the www.auxiliumchristianorum.org prayers.

Kapler: In the gospels, Jesus exorcised demons with a simple command. We see Paul appearing to do the same with a spirit of clairvoyance in Acts 16. Would you share your thoughts as to why exorcisms today are a much more protracted process? Why does the rite of exorcism often need to be repeated a number of times for a person to finally gain freedom?

Romero: Several reasons, first, more people are living in mortal sin, there are less baptisms, less couples marrying in the Church, so that means there are less people praying in the Church Militant. Exorcist have told me that this effects their prayer sessions. Also, most energumens (possessed) people continue to live in mortal sin, therefore the demon may get driven out through the session but they come right back because the person lacks sanctifying grace in their soul which keeps them out. Many peoples’ lives are so disordered; they do not have properly formed consciences based on the Word of God and their wills are weak as a result of habitual sin. Therefore, they lack the courage and fortitude to follow the exorcist protocol to live in a state of grace. Ninety percent of the deliverance is done by the spiritually afflicted person; ten percent of it is done by the priest. Exorcism is not magic; it’s hard work which requires the spiritually afflicted person, by an act of the will, to fully cooperate in pursuing a life of holiness.

Kapler: In your book you share your own experience in deliverance ministry, how to arm ourselves against the devil's activity in our lives, as well as ending the book with prayers you have found very effective in countering the demonic. If someone finishes your book and wants to receive further, solid formation in this area, where would you send them or what written resources do you recommend?

Mr. Romero: The three books on Catholic spiritual warfare that I would recommend are:
1. Deliverance Prayers for the Laity by Fr Chad Ripperger
2. Manual for Spiritual Warfare by Paul Thigpen
3.  Lord Prepare My Hands for Battle by Jesse Romero 

Kapler: Thank you so much, Jesse.

Crushing the Serpent's Head - It's All Pregnancy Weight

Many of my recent posts have looked at Mary's appearance at Guadalupe in the light of Scripture.  An interesting piece of data that emerged in my research: in the Nahuatl language, in which our Lady asked to be known as "Holy Mary of Guadalupe," there are no "g" or "d' sounds.  It has led to speculation that Mary may have said something similiar to "Guadalupe," a word that the Spanish bishop, to whom the report was given, mistook for Guadalupe (a Marian shrine in his Spanish homeland).  It has led to the speculation that Mary referred to herself as Quatlasupe, "one who crushes the serpent."

That designation would be yet another point of connection between Guadalupe, Revelation 12, and the connected passage in Genesis 3:15.  The Genesis passage, as noted previously, is known as the protoevangelion, or "first gospel."  In it God addressed the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers.  He will crush your head while you strike at his heel."  In Genesis it's clearly the seed, the Son of the woman, who crushes the serpent's head; so what is with all the Catholic art work showing Mary standing on the serpent's head ... and her possible reference to herself as Quatlasupe?

The Douay-Rheims, a popular, older Bible translation among Catholics, rendered Gen.3:15 as "she will crush your head, while you strike at her heel."  According to Jimmy Akin, the Douay's translators followed a manuscript variant found in many early Fathers and some editions of the Vulgate (although not in Jerome's original Vulgate translation).  The modern translations we are familiar - where the woman's offspring, Jesus crushes the serpent's head - are faithful to the original Hebrew.

So again, what's up with images of Mary crushing the serpent's

head?  Isn't that theologically inaccurate, applying to Mary what should only be applied to Jesus?  If it is inaccurate, then why would the Church grant approval to the 1830 Marian apparition at the Rue de Bac, where Mary appeared to St. Catherine Laboure, crushing the head of the serpent?  (Granted, Church approval doesn't say you must believe it; but it does guarantee that there is nothing harmful in the apparition, nothing at odds with the Faith handed on by the Apostles.)

A simple thought occurred to me the other day as I was preparing a talk on Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I was looking at our Lady, clearly pregnant with the Lord Jesus, thinking about how Mary's appearance and image on the Tilma dealt a death-blow to the Serpent in the New World, when it struck me - it was pregnancy weight, that's how "Mary" could be represented crushing the Serpent's head.  The weight that crushes the Serpent beneath Mary's feet is the weight of her Son's glory.  It's all pregnancy weight!

This goes right back to the gospels.  Look at the authority Jesus granted to His seventy-two disciples, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you" (Lk 10:19).  We read of it in John's first epistle too, "He that is in you is greater than he [Satan] who is in the world" (1 Jn 4:4).  Jesus was there within His Mother, the Ark of the New Covenant, crushing the enemy's head beneath her just as He decapitated the idol of Dagon before the Ark of the Old Covenant!

Jesus is within His Church, fighting the ancient serpent.  And He was clearly within His Mother, the Church's preeminent member and icon.  Stay pregnant my friends! (Mt 12:50)

O Jesus living in Mary, 
come and live in Thy servants,
in the Spirit of Thy holiness,
in the fullness of Thy might, 
in the truth of Thy virtues,
in the perfection of Thy ways,
in the communion of Thy mysteries,
subdue every hostile power
in Thy Spirit, for the glory of the Father.  
Amen.

Eve and Mary (the New Eve)

"The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith."

                  - Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons
                    Against Heresies, Book III (180-199 A.D.)

I have meant to write this post since the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec.8th).  The readings at Mass that day contrasted humanity's disobedience in the Garden of Eden with Mary's obedience at the Annunciation.  

In both stories an angel spoke to a woman, a sinless woman fresh from the hands of God.  In the first, it is a fallen angel speaking in his own name, but in the second an archangel speaking in God's.

In the first, Eve gave her husband fruit to eat from the forbidden tree.  Mary offers us fruit as well, the fruit of her womb, Jesus (Lk.2:42), given to us as "real food" in the Eucharist (Jn.6:55).  But we must join her at the tree of the Cross to receive Him.

Eve did not believe God's word, that the fruit of the tree would bring death.  She did not trust in His love for her or her spouse, and was willing to believe that He was keeping them from true fulfillment.  She wished to put herself in the place of God.

In the sharpest contrast imaginable, Mary took God completely at His word - believing that even a virgin could conceive a child.  And Mary placed herself completely at God's service, "I am the handmaid [literally "slave girl"] of the Lord; let it be to me, according to your word.  

Both women became Mothers of the Human Race but in different ways.  Eve became mother of the fallen human race, but Mary the mother of the redeemed human race (Rev.12:17), redeemed by its union with her Son . 

Mary, "blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!"

Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Rights of the Unborn

Very honored to be asked to pen the Life Group Devotion for this morning on this feast of Our Lady.  They are an awesome organization.  Hope you click the link above to check them out.  (You can receive Pro-Life reflections on the daily Scripture readings sent to your inbox every morning.)  Here is my reflection:

Since the Roe v. Wade decision over 50 million unborn children in the United States alone have been sacrificed to maintain, or in the hope of achieving, a certain material lifestyle.  It is not the first time human sacrifice has been practiced on our continent, and today the Church celebrates the manner God chose some 500 years ago to convert the hearts of millions of native people to the Gospel of Life.  In December, 1531, Jesus sent his mother to Juan Diego, and through him millions of adherents to the Aztec religion, a religion that portrayed many of its gods as serpents and was focused upon human sacrifice.  Mary was sent to our continent as the Woman of Revelation 12 – pregnant, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, at war with “the ancient serpent, Satan” (Rev.12:9).  Within ten years of her appearance in Mexico, 9 million Native Americans embraced Jesus Christ and in doing so, renounced the culture of death.  To aid us in our current fight against the Serpent and the revival of human sacrifice on our shores, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Our Lady of Guadalupe as Patroness of the Americas and Protectress of the Unborn.
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Faith Challenge: Invoke Our Lady of Guadalupe’s intercession on behalf of the unborn today, that she petition her beloved Son to release the grace of God on our country and the world.

Cinderella and...the Devil!

I was laying in front of the t.v., watching Cinderella (shut up) with my daughter, when I heard our heroine address the household cat as, "Lucifer." I know, I know - the name of the Devil! Or is it? (That's right, I am convinced that there is a Devil; but if you're looking for the skinny on why you're going to have to wait until I get a larger piece I've written online; I can't reinvent that wheel.)

I started scanning my memory for different Scriptural mentions of Satan (a name which means adversary), or the Devil (deceiver), but I couldn't recall anyplace where this fallen angel was actually referred to by the name Lucifer. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) use the term Beelzebul, but again, that is a title meaning "lord of the flies" (death). So when did Christians start referring to the Devil by the name Lucifer, and more importantly, why?

Well, a couple of minutes of research in the Catholic Encyclopedia (online at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09410a.htm) told me that lucifer is simply Latin for "brilliant light." It was applied to the Devil because of St. Jerome's Latin translation (about 400 A.D.) of Isaiah 14:12-15:

How are you fallen from heaven, O Day Star [Lucifer], son of Dawn!
How are you cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; above the stars
of God. I will set my throne on high...I will make myself like the
Most High."
But you were brought down to Sheol, to the depth of the Pit.

In the context of Isaiah, these words are addressed to the King of Babylon who would answer to the Lord for his proud behavior and crimes against the nations. Christians have seen the words as being applicable to the Devil as well though - the "power behind the throne" of Babylon you could say. (As an aside, this same principle has been employed when reading the prophet Ezekiel's words to the King of Tyre, "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering...You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you...so I cast you as a profane thing from the mount of God." Ezekiel 28:12-16)

Long story short, Lucifer is not the Devil's proper name. It's a title, just like the other terms used to identify this fallen angel. Given that, I think it was a great name for Cinderella's cat; and my daughter and I were both glad when that thing bought it in the end.