Fr. Ripperger was such a scandal at St. Joan of Arc in Coeur d'Alene, ID that a large group of his parishioners appealed to the bishop to remove or discipline him.  The complaints involved financial mishandlings and inappropriate friendships with female parishioners.  He even had a minion harassing people on his behalf and police were involved.  This man is a public figure in rad-trad circles.  Fr. Ripperger was transferred to Tulsa shortly after the meeting with St. Joan of Arc parishioners with the bishop.

Imperative (issuing commands) and Deprecatory (making requests).

St. Alphonsus teaches

that it's mortal sin to issue deprecatory adjurations to demons,

and also states that imperative adjurations can ONLY be issued by 1) those in authority to their subjects,

Throughout the history of the Church, various saints and even the Church herself has provided the laity with means of combatting the demons that afflict their lives. We are thinking, for example of the short form of the Prayer to Saint Michael, or even the recommendation for the laity when they are tempted to say to Satan, “In the Name of Jesus Christ, be gone!” The practice of the saints and the Church from the beginning has been one in which strict lines of authority, rights and duties are observed.

As for authority, the Church has observed that the laity do not have the right to use certain prayers because they do not have the requisite authority for its use. Here we are thinking of the 1984 docuмent from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Inde ab Aliquot Annis, “It follows also from these same prescriptions that Christ's faithful may not employ the formula of exorcism against Satan and the fallen angels which is excerpted from that formula made official by order of the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII, and certainly may not use the entire text of that exorcism.” The subsequent paragraph makes clear the need for the requisite authority from which the power to drive the demons out is necessary: “Finally, for the same reasons, Bishops are asked to guard lest those who lack the required power attempt to lead assemblies in which prayers are employed to obtain liberation from demons, and in the course of which the demons are directly disturbed and an attempt is made to determine their identity. This applies even to cases which, although they do not involve true diabolical possession, nevertheless are seen in some way to manifest diabolical influence.”

The Church in her wisdom and experience has always known that authority is one of the primary requisites in order to drive a demon out. Since diabolic influence occurs in our bodies (and not in our souls), the laity may use prayers as long as they are not forbidden by the Church and which by their nature do not imply an authority one does not have. It is for this reason that this book has been put together, viz. to provide the laity with prayers that they can use licitly and without retaliation. For it is when we remain under the authority structure that God has established by the divine positive law (i.e. the authority of the Church) and the natural law, that we remain protected. For this reason, if the laity always remain within the confines of the authority that God has given to them by the natural law, such as commanding the demons to leave their own bodies or those over whom they have authority by the natural law (such as their children or wife, etc.), then they will experience little to no retaliation, as a general rule.

 his is also true in relation to rights which grant authority in relation to the object of the right. By this we mean that spouses, who by virtue of the marital contract (a covenant is just another name for a solemn contract according to the traditional authors) have rights over each other’s bodies by virtue of the conceding of those rights to each other on the day of their marriage. For this reason, wives may command the demons to leave their husbands bodies and the husbands, their wives bodies. For the husband it is a two-fold authority, the one as head of the household and the other by virtue of the rights over his wife’s body.

From experience, most exorcists concede that there is an ability to command the demons to depart (observing the prescription given above by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding not doing it publicly and in not trying to get the name o the demon, etc.) in relation to those of one’s immediate family. It appears due to the nature of the obligations of the Fourth Commandment, that children when saying binding prayers and other prayers of this sort for the parents do not seem to affected. T his may flow from the fact that they have the obligation to take care of them in their need as a result of the natural law. For this same reason, exorcists have noted a lack of retaliation when the prayers are said from one’s siblings. This does not appear to be the case for godparents or grandparents since they do not have the same obligations under the Fourth Commandment.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that one may not have the requisite authority to command the demons, one can always modify the prayer to petition Christ or Our Lady to drive the demon out. For example, one of the standard forms of the binding prayer begi ns with the words: In the Name of Jesus, I command the spirit of N. These words may only be used as we have delineated above. However, when one does not have authority, rights or duties in relation to another, one could change the words to the following: Jesus, I ask Thee to bind the spirit of N. Any of the prayers contained in this book may be used i n that manner. T his does come with one caveat, viz. i t i s always inadvisable to say prayers to help another in his spiritual combat when one’s own spiritual life is not in order. In other words, we ought to fight our own spiritual battles first and only after we have attained a spiritual life of habitual sanctifying grace (i.e.  never falling into mortal sin) and are sufficient proficient in our prayer lives (especially meditation), that one ought to say the petition form of these prayers for another over whom one does not have authority.

Lastly, we cannot recommend the constant petition and perfect confidence in Our Lady enough. For She who has perfect coercive power over demons can protect us from any diabolic attack of any kind. In fine, if we remain under Her mantle, no demon will dare to approach us. Yet this only comes when we never offend Her Son and we have perfect confidence in Her.

We ought also to petition Her under the title of Our Lady of Sorrows in the spiritual combat for two reasons. The first is that when St. Joseph and Mary took Jesus to St. Simeon, he said to Our Lady that Her heart would be pierced so that the thoughts of many would be revealed. Our Lady, by undergoing the Passion with Christ, would merit an intimacy with God that no other creature had. As a result, He reveals things to Her that He does not reveal to others. However, He will allow us to petition Her so that She may reveal hidden things relating to the spiritual life. This is true in relation to our own defects but especially in matters of spiritual combat. In spiritual warfare, precision is everything. In this respect, spiritual warfare is not any different than any other kind o warfare; the more accurate or specific the weapon, the more effective it will be. For this reason, if we pray to Our Lady of Sorrows, she will reveal to us the nature of the demon we are dealing with, whether that is in our own lives or in the lives of those to whom we have obligations. This provides us a specific target to combat.

T he second reason to pray to Our Lady of Sorrows i s because of the promises made by her to St. Bridget of Sweden, “I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives.” Ultimately we are powerless to protect ourselves in the spiritual warfare. Only Christ can protect us and those whom Christ has commissioned to protect us, among whom Our Lady stands above the rest. So it is in Her that we place our confidence; may She protect all who use this book.

Presider Ripperger is the FSSP's contestant challenging Fr. Paul "Upside-Down" Robinson for the title of "Most Dangerous to Body and Soul." Stay tuned for the cage match. :laugh2:

Where did you get this information? Are you part of that parish? Did you hear it from someone who is?
These are very serious charges not being stated as allegations but actual facts. Please provide us proof.

Warnings on his verifiable faults(what he’s said in his sermons and conferences) are good and neccessary especially since he is speaking publicly. But this borders on detraction unless it is verifiable.

I’ve heard many nasty rumors spread about priests, most likely started by someone who has a beef with them. Just saying let’s be careful.

So, I began to study the question after CathInfo poster Yeti pointed out that there's no actual Catholic Tradition related to lay deliverance.  Prior to that, I had bought into it myself, and had even purchased a copy of his Deliverance Prayers book and was using it.  I made the mistake of simply trusting someone who presents himself as a Traditional priest and a Thomist, etc.

Now, the title of the book did give me some pause, causing a gut reaction against it ... since I have never seen the term "Deliverance" used outside of Protestant circles.  But I ignored it and carried on.  As I read some of the deprecatory prayers, I found myself feeling increasingly uncomfortable ... and I'll come back to that later.

So, after Yeti pointed out that there's no precedent for any of this in Catholic Tradition, confirming that gut reaction I had to the term "Deliverance", I began researching the matter and found out that he was in fact quite correct.

Father(?) Ripperger's main argument is that the laity have the authority to issue commands (imprecations) to demons in situations where they're afflicting someone who is under your authority.  I could find absolutely no precedent for this position, and kept asking for evidence.  Finally, one of his apologists cited a passage in which Ripperger had a couple footnotes, one to St. Thomas and one to St. Alphonsus.  So I looked up those passage, in the original Latin (since I am fluent in Latin), and found that St. Thomas said no such thing, but then I found how he most likely derived this conclusion from St. Alphonsus, by conflating two separate points.  St. Alphonsus explained how one can never engage in deprecatory (requests) to demons, but can only issue commands (imprecatory prayer or imprecations or imperatives), and that we can only issue commands to those under our authority.  So Ripperger combined and conflated these two into how we can issue commands (just not deprecatory requests) to demons, if they're afflicting someone under our authority.

So, the problem here is that St. Alphonus quite clearly states that we can only issue commands TO those under our authority, and then adds, as exorcists have authority over demons.  In other words, the commands must be addressed TO SOMEONE UNDER OUR AUTHORITY (i.e. only to those we have a right to command), not simply to those (demons) afflicting someone under our authority.  While the victim of the attacks is under our authority, the demons themselves engaging in the attack most certainly are not.

This distortion of St. Alphonsus is evidently where Ripperger derived his entire theology regarding "Deliverance", and the simple fact that there's absolutely no Traditional precedent to be found anywhere of the Church issuing or the saints writing such imprecatory prayers against demons should suffice to demonstrate that he got this wrong.  If we have such a powerful tool or weapon against demons, that would be a huge oversight from the Church and all those saints to have neglected this.

In fact, Ripperger evidently admitted that he had to adapt Protestant "prayers" for this purpose, since there was a shortage of Catholic ones. You don't say, Father.  I wonder why that could be.

Later I hear someone else questioning Fr. Ripperger about this, evidently also having a certain uneasiness about it, wondering whether the demons might retaliate against someone who tried to issue imprecations against them.  Fr. Ripperger, suddenly sounding less confident, despite pushing out there a book of such prayers, very tentatively responded that, "well, we haven't had any reports of that."  So, instead of coming up with some theological explanation for why that wouldn't happen, he relies upon anecdotal reports.  Well, I've actually heard some people report an apparent increase in diabolical activity after people started using Ripperger's imprecatory prayers (from his booK, and people set the book aside and the activity stopped.  Besides that, the demons can only do what God permits, and it could simply be that God restrained the demons realizing that the people issuing those prayers had erred in good faith.

Then I started to read what some saints said about the matter, and they almost invariably said that the faithful should ignore the demons, with St. Francis de Sales likening the demons to dogs barking ferociously but which are tied up on a chain.  Just ignore them.  It's if you get curious and start to approach them that they can get a hold of you and then rip you to shreds.  So he advises ignoring demons, paying them no attention, and then simply praying to Our Lady, to St. Michael, to our Guardian Angel, to protect us from them.  That appears to represent the consensus among the saints, who all advise against curiosity about demons.

In fact, it's most often the people who dabble or otherwise try to satisfy their curiosity in such matters who end up being possessed.  Dimond Brothers made a great point that a lot of the various "haunting" or "Poltergeist" type of activity has the intent of forcing the one afflicted by it to begin engaging with the entities, and that's actually when they open the door to greater intrusiton.  We see that all the time with people using those "spirit boards" getting possessed.

So, we need to be very honest and admit that people have their interest tickled by talk of demons and it piques their curiosity, and it's precisely why Fr. Ripperger has become so widely known, or Father Amorth, (or how the Warrens made a name for themselves, etc.).  Otherwise, Fr. Ripperger and Fr. Amorth would be unknowns, veritable nobodies.  Fr. Ripperger has in fact capitalized on this subject ... to the point of printing and selling his book.  Oh, speaking of St. Alphonsus, both he and St. Thomas clearly indicated that it would be grave sin for an Exorcist (even one given authority to perform the Rite) to engage demons in any kind of conversation or "back-and-forth" ... except in the rarest cases of a saint who had special inspiration from the Holy Spirit to do so.  Yet Fr. Ripperger is constantly reporting on "conversations with demons".  Both those Doctors claim that it's a window into getting possessed.

Why?  Because they Church has not authorized it and they are doing those things under their own volition, not under the authority of the Church.  Church has authorized only that they perform the prescribed Rite as appears in the Ritual.  That's it.

It's only the Church's authority that really protects the Exorcists, since the Church's authority is in fact God's authority.  If for even one second an Exorcist has the slightest notion of pride, thinking thoughts along the lines of "I am going to battle it out, and I am going to beat these demons." etc. ... at that point, if God does not prevent it, the demons would rip them to shreds out of rage, since who the heck does this puss-filled meat-sack think he is pretending he can tell the demons what to do.  But if it's the Church's authority, then it's God commanding him, not this messenger ... and how much more that is the case if it's some layman?

Let's say I own a car.  I see a thief vandalizing it with the intent to steal it.  So I shout commands to the thief,  "Stop.  That's my car.  I order you to stop."  Right, as if that thief is going to stop just because you tell him that.  He knows up front that it's not his car anyway, and that didn't deter him, so why is he going to stop now.  In fact, all you might accomplish is to get yourself killed.  But you can call the authorities who can arrest the individual, take him to court, and make him pay up.

Demons do NOT respect God's authority ... that's why they're demons, since they're in open rebellion against God's authority.  So they're not going to respect yours either.  Now, God could FORCE them to comply, but that's because HE is forcing them.  But if you take on the demons with this presumption that "God has my back", well, you might turn around and be surprised.  Just like some toadie of a bully on the playground who will beat someone up as the bully stands behind him since the victim is afraid of the bully, not him.  But then he comes another day, and doesn't realize the bully is out sick and not standing there, and gets his butt kicked.  So, if the Church hasn't given us authority over demons, we're presuming that we have it, and we can be tempted to think that we are locking horns in combat with the demons, thinking ourselves bigshots.  Demons will not stand for that ... and if God were not restraining them, they could and would make literal micemeat out of us.

Nor is any of this necessary.  We have our Guardian Angels, assigned to us by God.  We have the Church giving special power to the Prayer to st. Michael, where if we ask St. Michael to protect us, by the Church's endorsement, he most certainly will.  We have Our Lady to call upon.  We can wear our scapular or have blessed St. Benedict medals.  We have holy water.  Blessed holy water also scatter demons, but invoking angelic protection.  Demons flee from the presence of Our Lady, scattering like roaches, as she is the terror of demons.  So WE puny little twerps think we can do better fighting off demons than Our Lady can, or St. Michael, or St. Joseph, or our Guardian Angel?  Ridiculous.  If we take refuge in Our Lady, they can't touch us or come anywhere near us.  So why do we need these "Deliverance Prayers" ... creating a crop of these lay exorcists walking around like bigshots, such as the Warrens or Pablo, all of whom likely became possessed to a extent at some point?  I am of the belief that demons cannot possess anyone who's devoted to, enrolled in, and wears Our Lady's scapular.  That's a sign that this person is her property.  There's the story of the demon-possessed serial killer Ted Bundy who entered a girls' dormitory with the intent of slaughtering girls, at 3:00 AM (typically a diabolical hour, as it's the inversion of Our Lord's death on the cross).  He had slaughtered two girls, and then came into a third.  He came to the room of a young lady, stared at her, and then inexplicably just walked away, doing her no harm.  Well, this young lady had remained faithful to praying her Rosary every day, a promise that her mother or grandmother (can't recall) had her make, and she had fallen asleep the night before holding the Rosary, and was holding it when Bundy entered her room.  Years later, Bundy was speaking to a priest and was asked about the incident, and he said that he wanted to kill the girl but some "force" prevented him from being able to do so.

So, back to excessive curiosity about demons.  Fr. Ripperger's book also contains a section or two with lists of about 1,000 different "demons", the demon of this, the demon of that.  There is in fact even -- I kid you not -- a demon of flatulence.  So, if you have gas at night, it wasn't the bean burrito or asapragus and brussel sprouts that you had for dinner, but the dreaded "Demon of Flatulence" that did it.  There's a weird mental state, borderline psychotic, that people can get into if they start seeing demons behind every bush, since they're looking for them, and imagining them.  Some of these apparently wreak havoc on your finances ... and it wasn't just because you made some poor decisions all on your own.  Others cause impurity, as if, say, watching bad movies didn't suffice.  See, the Church has long taught that there are three sources of sin, and the devil is only one of them, the flesh and the world being the other two.  Even without the demons, our fallen nature alone suffices to draw is into sin most of the time, and the demons don't have to lift a finger.  In one sense, there probably are in fact demons everywhere, but they can't do anything.  Like St. Francis de Sales said, they're rabid dogs on chains and can't touch you.  But they flit about, circling, looking for you to let your guard down, to make a mistake, so they can find a way in and a way to attack, and one of the surest ways is for you to start "noticing" them and begin to "engage" them.  "Let me pull our my Deliverance Book and dispel this demon of flatulence."  You can actually drive yourself neurotic, crazy.

So, in the final analysis, at best unnecessary or useless (as we have many better means for dealing with such things given to us by God and the Church), and at worst incredibly dangerous.