Fr. Chad Ripperger, a prominent Catholic exorcist, claims that demons can "move" our emotions, suggesting that negative feelings like fear, anxiety, or sadness are often caused by demonic influence (while not the primary causes, the language has an impact on laity). He emphasizes that throughout Catholic spiritual tradition, saints have cautioned against following one's emotions, as they can be deceptive and potentially lead us astray.
While his intention may be to protect the faithful from spiritual deception, there's a profound irony in his approach: by suggesting our emotions are frequently manipulated by demons, he inadvertently creates the very problems he seeks to address—emotional reasoning, superstition, and internal division. This teaching risks fostering a cycle where normal human emotions become evidence of spiritual attacks, creating unnecessary fear and hypervigilance that demons would actually benefit from.
