(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show is Catholic author Charles Fraune. We discussed his book The Most Powerful Saints in Exorcisms: What Exorcists Want You to Know.
We opened the episode by discussing the importance of driving out demonic spirits from our lives. Fraune explained that by living a holy life, we can drive out demons without an exorcist, as countless saints have done through the ages.
“There are great saints … who, not being exorcists, drove demons out of people because of their holiness,” he said. “So there’s a holiness, a fidelity to Christ is how you achieve that holiness only through the Church.”
“You also have priests who, only through the Church, with (the) permission of their bishops, can cast out demons through exorcisms, through the actual rite (of exorcism),” he added. “So it’s not something open to everybody in the sense of the authority; you have to be a priest delegated.”
Fraune continued: “But spiritual combat is something we all enter into if we are holy. We’re all in it, whether we’re holy or not. We’re just suffering from it if we’re not holy. But if we’re holy, we can actually be beneficial to people.”
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A bit later in the episode, I asked Fraune about the communion of saints. He emphasized the importance of fostering devotion to the saints, who died in God’s favor, and how “becoming friends” with them assists us in spiritual warfare.
“The Church Triumphant, those saints, those Christian men and women who have lived heroically here, have suffered, have been martyred, have been great preachers, (and) just lived the heroic virtue. … They have been pleasing to God, they’ve died in his favor, died as his friends, and have been taken to eternal glory,” he said.
“(T)hey are reigning with Christ… (and) we can reign with Christ in heaven if we stay faithful. So that reigning is a real power, it’s a real efficacy,” he added. “We can receive the benefits of their victories … (through) indulgences, just general graces, intercession, patron saints, all that stuff is them interceding for us based on what they merited by the holiness of their lives here, cooperating with Christ as co-redeemers.”
I jumped in to ask Fraune about the role of the saints during an exorcism. He explained that the Litany of the Saints is prayed during the exorcism rite, and the exorcist’s assistants will pay close attention to how the demons react to the invocation of certain saints and then implore their intercession to drive out the demon.
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“When they name all those saints in the Litany of the Saints, often there’s a reaction from the demon. They’ll jump or twitch or just get all angry or maybe some kind of eye-rolling … some kind of real manifestation changes. When (for instance) Saint Bartholomew is named,” he said. “And … the bystanders … they’re making a note, (and) they tell Father later, ‘When you said St. Bartholomew, the demon really jerked or did something or got angry … so let’s play on that.’”
“So after they go through the rite of exorcism, they’ll come back and say, ‘St. Bartholomew, pray for us. St. Bartholomew, drive out this demon,’ whichever saint it is,” he added.
To hear much more from Charles Fraune, watch my full interview above or by clicking here.
To purchase Fraune’s book, click here.
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