So, to reiterate briefly, St. Alphonsus distinguishes between 1) issuing commands and 2) making requests. He stated (and cited St. Thomas also) that it's grave sin to make requests of demons, as it engages the individual in a sort of fellowship with the demons. That leaves issuing commands. With regard to issuing commands, St. Alphonsus says that commands can only be issued by someone in authority to those under his authority. So, for instance, a bishop may issue commands to priests under his authority, or parents to their children, etc. Then he says that Exorcists may issue commands to demons because they have authority over them on account of the Church. At NO POINT does St. Alphonsus state that we can issue commands to to those not under our authority (i.e. to demons) simply because they are afflicting someone who IS under our authority. Father Ripperger conflated these two separate scenarios into one, and that was his logical blunder. Consequently, lay people attempting to issue commands to demons is incredibly dangerous. I've made the following analogy. I see a thief attempting to steal my car. I issue a command to the thief to stop because it's my car. That thief is more likely to just kill me and proceed to steal the car than to comply. Demons are in a state of rebellion against God's authority and will not voluntarily comply unless they are forced to by God. So, if we need demons to stop doing something, we turn to God, to Our Lady, etc. Also, we can pray to the guardian angels of those under our authority and ask them to intervene on account of the authority we have over those individuals, since the angels certainly respect God-given authority. Demons can only do what God allows them to do, and so we turn to God and stop this nonsense of engaging with demons and trying to act like lay / amateur / armchair exorcists. We also don't need to be going around trying to "find out" what demon, either by name or by type, is afflicting our loved ones. God knows this. Our Lady knows this. Our knowing this does not somehow increase our "authority" over them. That almost comes across as superstitious. All we need to do is to ask God, Our Lady, the angels and the saints, to repel "whatever demons" might be afflicting our loved ones. Period. This attempting to find out the types and names of demons leads us to dangerously interact with demons. And THAT is when they're most dangerous, when we're engaging with them. St. Francis de Sales likened demons to ferocious barking dogs on a chain. They're on a chain held by God. They can bark and growl and howl to scare us, but they can't harm us unless God permits it. So his advice is to ignore them and to turn to God. It's when we draw closer to where they're chained up that we put ourselves at risk. Let me go over to this dog and yell at it to shut up, right? Well, the closer we get, the closer we are to getting mauled. There's an old Tom & Jerry cartoon I watched one time where the dog was tied up on a chain and barking ferociously at the cat. So the cat marked a line in the dirt indicating how far the chain went, and he'd occasionally go right up to the line and beat the dog (with bats and other things). So the dog got tired of this, erased the original line, and then drew another one closer, within the perimeter where his chain could reach. This time when the cat came up the line trying to pull the same stunt, the dog proceeded to maul him. We don't know exactly where that line is, and so we shouldn't play these games lest we miscalculate and end up paying for it.
Topic: WARNING: Avoid Ripperger's Prayers Adjuring Demons (Read 14088 times)