The Forgotten Battle

So I was watching the Shawn Ryan Show the other day—the one with Father Dan Reehil, an exorcist priest—and I gotta say, it really got me thinking. He talked real plainly about demons, possession, spiritual warfare, all of it. Wasn't sensational or anything like that. Just honest, grounded stuff from a guy who's been doing this ministry for years. But here's the thing: for a lot of Catholics listening, it probably felt like he was speaking a different language. Not because what he said goes against Church teaching—it doesn't—but because anymore, you just don't hear this stuff from the pulpit.

And that raises a question that's been bugging me:

If the Church still teaches that demons are real, why don't most Catholics ever hear about them?

What the Church Actually Teaches

Let's get this straight right off: the Church has never backed away from believing in the demonic. The Catechism talks about Satan, fallen angels, temptation, and Christ's victory over all of it. Exorcism is still an official rite—every diocese is supposed to have an exorcist available if needed.

What Father Dan shared isn't some fringe stuff. It fits right inside what the Church has always taught and practiced.

So the problem isn't the doctrine. It's the emphasis—or the lack of it.

A Shift After Vatican II

Over the last bunch of decades, Catholic preaching has leaned pretty heavy into:

• Mercy and walking with people
• Social justice and human dignity
• Emotional and psychological healing
• God's love more than spiritual danger

And look, all that's good and needed. But somewhere along the way, something else got pushed to the back burner: spiritual warfare as something real, something we actually deal with.

A lot of priests today don't get much formation on demonology or exorcism—or even how to tell the difference between a mental health issue and something spiritual. Father Dan himself said seminarians are often caught off guard when they find out how active this ministry still is.

What's that leave us with? A whole generation of Catholics who believe in evil in some vague way, but not really in the Evil One.

Being Scared of Going Too Far

Now, there's a real pastoral reason for some of this silence. The Church has seen what happens when things go wrong:

• Superstition taking over
• Not blaming mental illnesses on demons
• Getting too wrapped up in deliverance stuff
• Preaching that's all fear, no hope

To steer clear of those problems, a lot of clergy just don't bring it up at all. The demonic becomes "somebody else's job"—not something to teach the faithful about in a careful, sober way.

But ducking the topic has its own costs.

What We Lose When We Don't Talk About This

Father Dan made a point that really stuck with me: evil likes to stay hidden. When Catholics never hear about spiritual warfare:

• Temptation gets chalked up to psychology and that's it
• Habitual sin becomes "just the way it is"
• Occult stuff gets brushed off as harmless
• The sacraments don't seem as important as they really are

The New Testament doesn't dance around any of this. Jesus talks to demons. He casts them out. He tells Peter that Satan wants to sift him like wheat. St. Paul flat-out says our fight isn't just against flesh and blood.

When modern Catholic teaching skips over this, Scripture itself starts to feel more like symbolism than something real.

Christ's Victory—Not Demon Obsession

I want to be clear here: Father Dan isn't trying to scare anybody. Actually, his whole message is the opposite. He keeps saying that demons are already beaten—they're afraid of Christ, the Eucharist, and the authority the Church carries.

Real Catholic teaching on the demonic isn't about getting all worked up over evil. It's about being clear-eyed.

Knowing your enemy doesn't take anything away from Christ. It makes His victory that much bigger.

Finding the Balance Again

The Church doesn't need to go back to some kind of medieval scare-preaching. But it does need balance. A Catholicism that's always talking mercy but never repentance, always healing but never sin, always love but never spiritual danger—that's incomplete. It's missing something.

Father Dan Reehil's testimony is uncomfortable because it reminds us:

• The supernatural world is real
• The sacraments matter more than we might think
• There's no such thing as being neutral in spiritual matters

The demonic isn't everywhere—but it's somewhere. And pretending it isn't doesn't keep the faithful safe.

Wrapping Up

Modern Catholic teaching hasn't denied the demonic—it's just quietly set it aside. And that's left a lot of Catholics unprepared to understand temptation, spiritual oppression, or the real power of the sacraments they receive.

Father Dan's witness isn't meant to scare us. It's a call to remember what the Church has always taught—and to trust, once again, in the authority Christ gave her over the unseen world.