 Is it automatically going? No, we're live. All right, fantastic. We are live. We are live. We're prayed up. Everyone who is joining on now, thank you for joining this webinar. What is a ghost? What are ghosts? What's the Catholic Church's teaching on this topic? There's a lot of misconception. Our culture has done a great job of kind of muddying the waters on a on a truthfully very important topic. It's not given the light it deserves. And that's part of what we're going to tackle here tonight with Father McManus. I'm Jordan Burke, of course, as you saw on the screen, but Father McManus is here, a fantastic speaker. And Father, your your bio is probably worth a show in and of itself. So what they did was they gave me a shortened version. And I'm just going to say now, if anything needs correction, please correct it. So what they gave me was here we go. Father Dennis McManus is a priest with the Archdiocese of Mobile in Alabama. He served as a pastoral coordinator for the Archdiocese of New York in Deliverance and Exorcism Ministry. Pope John Paul II named him Consulter in Theologian to the Vox Cleric Commission of the Congregation for Divine Worship. We have, you've taught it, you've taught as a professor at several different seminaries, where I believe the one you're right now at presently assigned to as parochial vicar at the Cathedral of Christ, the light in Oakland, California, and professor of theology at St. Patrick's and seminary in Menlo Park. And you also work at the High Calling program or with the High Calling program as director for Spiritual Direction Aval Institute. And we do absolutely you do, and that's as well as Joe, do incredible work there, helping set people up, helping serving seminarians and priests and vocational directors. And it's a it's a very important job. But what you're doing here today is more kind of my speed and my interest. And I'm very thankful that you took the time and you're here to answer these questions. Jordan, thank you. And thank you to the Aval Institute for a wonderful invitation to address your sizable listening audience on a topic that our culture seems to be fascinated with, but not always very educated about. So I'm happy if we can put out a few Catholic ideas about what's at hand. Right, right. Yeah, no, it's very important. It's very you can only direct people to know the catechism of the Council of Trent and other things so much. There's still a lot more that needs to be, you know, kind of dived into. But that's not accessible until we have somebody like you who is an expert in these things who can kind of break things down. So very excited. And I figure we might as well just get into it. And I'll go ahead with the first question. What are ghosts? Are the ghosts we perceive demons or the souls stuck in purgatory? What's the deal there? What do we believe? Do we believe culture? Do we believe the movies or what is the Catholic Church's teaching? What is our understanding? Well, the Catholic Church has teachings about the meaning of the word ghost that other churches and other religions don't. And it's important that we make those distinctions from the beginning. I'm afraid that lots of Hollywood movies and novels and spooky stories that you read around the campfire have confused people as to what ghosts really are. In Catholicism and a lot of Christian denominations, by ghost we mean the soul of someone who has died. But allowed by God, for a couple of reasons we'll talk about, allowed by God to be in touch with us who are still living. In the Catholic Church, we talk about three parts of the Church. We talk about the Church militant, which is those of us who are still alive and still carrying on soldiering with Christ, establishing the kingdom of God, bringing about justice in the hearts of people, bringing the word of God to everyone. And we're on earth and we call that the Church militant. Those who have died and died in the mercy of God, but still have sin and reparation and restitution to make for their sins, still have that on their soul. We have a part of the Church we use to describe that with the name the Church suffering. That is to say, after death, we think that souls of the faithful departed who are not yet ready to go to paradise and yet have to rid themselves of sin. God in his mercy allows them a state of existence in which they're able to address their own sin, repent from it, and ask the Church militant to help them with that. So Church suffering are the souls of the faithful departed who await and work on and get rid of everything except a desire for God. I think St. Catherine of Genoa has got the best one line definition of what our Catholic notion of purgatory and souls of the faithful departed are about. She said, when we die, we're not ready for paradise unless we desire only one thing and that is God. And until we desire only God, we have to work on letting go of the rest. And she said that letting go process, that healing up process, that's what we call purgatory. So the Church suffering, the Church in purgatory, those are the folks who would come to us in the Church militant for help. The third part of what we talk about the Church in the afterlife is the Church triumphant. Those who've made it to heaven, those who by God's mercy are forgiven their sins and admitted to eternal life. These are the saints and the angels, those who overcome the evil one redeemed in Christ Jesus. They too work to help the Church suffering, gain deliverance from their past sins, make reparation, restitution. And the Church triumphant supports us, the Church militant as well. So those three parts of Church are what we talk about just to situate the idea of ghosts. So for a Catholic a ghost is a soul of the faithful departed, not someone in hell, not someone in heaven, exactly, but someone in a purgatorial state whom God allows to come back to us, the Church militant, and ask for help. And usually that help is one of two forms. Either we need prayer and reparation and sacrifice to address the sinful past, to get rid of punishment due to sin as we say, or we need your help in the Church militant with restitution for a crime. That's usually where Hollywood steps in and says, well I know the rest of the story for you, let me describe that. But before we get to any of that, the way in which the Catholic Church talks about ghosts is that their souls of the faithful departed whom God already has decided are saved. It's like one foot in paradise and trying to get the rest of the way there. This is, so you described kind of this beautiful cyclical nature of the suffering, the militant and the triumphant, but you said something that I wanted to zero in on that the Church suffering asks the Church militant to help them. Yes. What struck me in the conversation that you and I have had prior to even this was how necessary it is to really actually weigh very heavily on my heart how necessary it is to pray for the souls of purgatory, especially those who have no one to pray for them. So maybe someone who died, who didn't necessarily have family members, because it seems to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if God is permitting them to come to us in some way to ask for help, then we have this obligation in which we need to help them. There's a story of Padre Pio where a soul appeared to him and said, will you please pray for me? And Padre Pio said, yeah, I'm going to do mass between that so I'll pray for you then. And the soul cried out and said, you're so cruel because there is this timely manner to, if you would have prayed right then, if Padre Pio would have prayed then is what he wrote in his writings, that soul may have been freed. So could you kind of explain maybe in a far more eloquent way as you do the importance of this prayer and the service of the militants serving the suffering? Like what does that look like? Well, from what we can tell of the experience of the saints, when someone is in a purgatory state, they're not able to pray for themselves, they can't help themselves. They're utterly reliant on the mercy of God and on the support of their brothers and sisters in the church militant and the church triumphant. They need our help. And what they're in the process of doing is being purified of sin and past attachments, as Catherine of Genoa says, get rid of everything except your desire for God. The incident that you remark on with Padre Pio is an interesting one, because as I remember, Pio didn't say I won't pray for you immediately, but what I have found as a priest, dealing with souls of the dead and families of those who have departed, is that the offering of mass is the single most powerful prayer that the church militant can offer for a soul. Many times if I'm called to the home of a family where they sense the presence of a ghost, someone who has died in their family and is still there asking for help, the celebration of mass in the place where the ghost is, the place often where the person died, that is so freeing. There is nothing more perfect than the sacrifice that Christ offers the Father into which we place ourselves and into which we place this soul so in need of God's love. Many priests have told me that when they celebrate mass in the place where a person died, or in the home of where a ghost is present, almost immediately the situation is resolved. There is a great peace that descends upon the family and the ghost is no longer seen. What does that mean? It means that this soul, this beautiful soul looking for God alone who's asked their family for help, has achieved by God's mercy the ability to let go sin through the power of the mass. By the offering of Eucharist they are now fed and they drink of the body and blood of Christ mystically and they are able to move ahead. Some people say to me, Father, Father Dennis, you know, we had the priest over and we were so used to the ghost here and then all of a sudden the ghost is gone. We said, wow, what did we do wrong? You know, we chased him away. On the contrary, you did everything exactly right. No one who is asking the church militant for help wants to spend eternity asking the church militant for help. The whole idea is to get to heaven. So when Padre Pio says, I will offer a mass for you and I'm a soul, I say, thank you for this. And would you please pray for me immediately now? I need consolation. I need hope. I need the ability to let go. I would do both. Right, right. That's beautiful. Well, so the second question, determining I think it's and it's kind of an obvious question. So someone has, they're in a house, they're experiencing something going on. You know, what they have determined is what they would call a ghost, but they don't know what you're telling us now, which is there is a possibility that what you were experiencing is a soul in purgatory crying out for help. So can demons pretend to be ghosts? Absolutely. And when I'm called to a house where there's disturbance, there's a rule of thumb that as exorcists we use to judge whether what we're encountering is ghostly or demonic. I remember this being taught to me when I was a young monk and apprenticed to a very experienced, older exorcist. And he said, it's very simple. In a demonic setting, the disturbances are always destructive. They destroy property. They destroy faith. They destroy relationships. They destroy confidence and trust and love in the family. They destroy the peace of the house. They chase away that deep family love that should be present. Whereas when something is ghostly, it does not destroy. It looks for attention. It wants you to see it, listen to it, hear it, respond to it. And the only ways that certain ghosts know how to do this are by moving things around or making noise or appearing. And those things can be frightening to us. And when we get frightened, we're not sure in that ambiguous world of fright, am I looking at the demonic or am I looking at the ghostly? The great test that saints use is when we see something or something present in front of us, we can feel a presence or an object moves, is that we call out, blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man. In the name of Jesus Christ, are you a believer in him? And if the ghost is a ghost who's asking for help in Christ Jesus, they will respond in some way to let you know they believe in him. If not, and they're demonic, it takes off. Demons cannot stand the name of Jesus. It is a sting to their ears. It is the sound of judgment. It's everything they do not want, and it's the source of power the church has over demons. Whereas to a soul of the faithful departed, who is looking to love God and desire him alone. The name of Jesus is what Bernard of Clairvaux taught us, and it's a beauty. Bernard said, when I hear the name of Jesus, it is a song in the ear. It's the taste of honey in the mouth, and it's a pat on the back from my best friend. When a ghost hears that name of Jesus and you ask, do you profess Jesus? Give me some sign of that now. And they tell you they make noise. They move something back again. Then you know. This is a believer. This is someone who wants God and wants mercy, love, compassion, and forgiveness. So that rule of thumb, is it destructive or just attention-getting? That's the rule of thumb we use to determine. Now, and just for some clarification here, this is something that they taught you as a priest. For lay people, I know that there's imprecatory and deprecatory, and there's this authority aspect that all has to be taken into consideration. And it's generally taught, at least from the exercises that we've worked with here, for lay people, you never speak directly to a demon. So I know that there's a lot of nuance in that question. So Mike, what I would ask then for clarification, what as a lay person, if they're in this position, what is the thing that you would recommend for them to do? Would it be the same, or is there something else that might be a little bit safer, or maybe thinking things? Well, if it's a demon present, they're probably going to flee at the name of Jesus. So that's going to enter that. By and large, it takes off. The moment you say, blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man, blessed be the name of Jesus, demons are frightened and they leave. At least they go absolutely quiet and go hide because they know that name has power over them and they don't want it. The ghost will make more noise, will ask you. Now, in some cases, I remember one case with the priest I mentioned who had trained me, we had gone to a home where someone had died. And the home was filled with noises that the housekeeper could not understand and she didn't know where they were coming from. This very fearless priest immediately came in and started to sing in his deep Russian bass voice, Jesus Christ has risen and I bring him to this home, blessed be the name of Jesus. And then he said to whatever the presence was, if you wish the power of Christ, give me two knocks or sounds or bangs now to tell me yes. And this thing said one, two big bangs on the wall. In other words, the priest or the person addressing him can get the ghost to answer a profession of faith by noise making and saying, yes. Two knocks is yes, one knock is no, etc. And when a ghost is looking for God's love, believe me, they'll make the noise that lets you know they want Christ Jesus, absolutely. Okay, well that answers that. So you had mentioned that having a mass set in the place where somebody has passed is one of the most powerful and beautiful things that you can do to help these souls. The question then would be, are these souls then attached to these places or even objects, right? Because that's another cultural aspect. But are souls these ghosts attached to places or objects? Is that a common thing? How does that all work? Yeah, it's very common and there's a good reason why. They are attached to a place many times because their death occurred in that place or because they committed a crime in or around that place. And there's a way for them to make restitution for the crime in that place. So remember this one case of a haunting was in a house of religious brothers. And at night the brother who locked all the doors was always very dutiful. And he locked the door between the living room and the basement. And there's a stairway that went down into the basement. And every morning he'd find that door open every single morning. And of course he began to ask the other brothers one of you guys get up in the night and go downstairs and forget to lock the door. And they'd look at him like he had two heads who'd get up in the middle of the night and do that. So he and the the prior decided that they would sit there during the night and say the rosary and see what happened. And at 1am the door swung open. And what they heard was steps human steps coming up and down the staircase. They prayed loudly and it stopped. They contacted me and said well what do you make of this. And I said who died in that home. They said well we we bought I don't know it's an old find out turned out that the builder of the home 100 years before had killed someone and dragged the body down the staircase. And they found the account of it in the newspaper and they knew it was there. And they said this is very scary. And I said yes in a way but in a way the ghost possibly of the murderer is asking for help isn't he. And when you prayed the rosary you brought peace to that ghost. Let's have mass there and let's repeat that mass because murder is a terrible crime. Let's repeat that mass until we have no more doors opening no more noise on the staircase until there is great peace in your beautiful religious house. It didn't take long doing that before all the phenomenon stopped. But notice noises going up and down those those footsteps going up and down the stairs wasn't destructive of anything. The door opening at 1 a.m. which was the time of the murder apparently once again no destruction there. But a ghost asking for help look at me see me hear me pray for me help me that's the message. Hmm. Okay so attached to places and I had heard I had heard from one of the exercises that we have worked with that there's also this aspect of a divine I wouldn't say retribution at all because that's certainly not the correct word but demons being bound to certain places as sort of a punishment. And there was the way it was explained was you know one of the he basically said this when you are one of the most powerful things that you can do before you go to bed if you are worried about experiencing things and obviously this leads a little bit more towards a demonic occurrence is to go about your house praying the divine praises and spraying holy water everywhere and at the end have a your window cracked or your door cracked and say in the name of Jesus I command any and all spirits evil spirits to leave out this door leave out this window and close it and so we're looking at them and we said what open the the window the door what what do you mean this I don't I don't I'm not comprehending he said you know there's there are still bound by law this natural law this this maybe I'm explaining it poorly but so so I'm assuming here that there's also an aspect where the good is can be bound in order to seek help to clear whatever wrongdoing occurred on the other hand also there could be something bound just by the nature of punishment is that accurate or am I obviously well I I nuance it just a little bit and this is clearly now not a discussion about ghosts but about how demons are attached to play shirts and the most common way in fact I think it's the root causeway in which demons come to a place I call it you know when demons get their hand on real estate it's pretty hard to get it back right why is that it's because someone has invited a demonic colony into a place and dedicated the place to them and said you may live here you may dwell here you may make this your home you may use this as a place where others worship you so cults and covens soft and hard to call the dark world magic circles worship of the demonic takes place in a physical setting or you go to certain religions around the world and you see that various outdoor places have been used for human sacrifice animal sacrifice and that that outcropping of rock or this copes of trees or this bend in the river has been used repeatedly repeatedly as a place where demons are invoked demons are summoned and sacrifices made demons take that place they inhabit that place they control that place they see that as home so when you have the invitation of the demonic into a home of course demons are going to say this is mine this is my home when people who are unsuspecting move into a home which is belong to those who practice the occult many times the previous folks who who are moving out have experienced some disturbance there and in a lot of states I'm told now real estate laws demand that a real estate agent must list uh that there's trouble with the house in a little box called psychologically impacted property okay if that gets checked I think it's code for trouble right some you're saying this house has other presences in it besides the human beings and the previous owners have told us about this the real estate agents and we're telling you some folks say that wouldn't bother me at all I don't believe in any of this it's just a lot of hooey others say well what would that be and if the house for example was used for uh witchcraft purposes in New England when I lived in Boston for seven years I ran into houses like that that were very old in the Boston area Salem area where witchcraft had been practiced from you know the 1700s on and houses were what I would call kind of propertyized by various demonic groups of course that's going to be a real struggle to expel those demons and take the property back and rededicate it to Christ Jesus but for the average family who has you know kids and a dog and and everything else going on if you have faith if you have prayer at all if you even live a moderately Catholic life if you have an image in your home of Christ Jesus and another of our lady you pray together you eat together you have family together demons are probably going to hold their nose if they come by your house they don't want families of faith they don't want to hear the name of Jesus they don't want the practice of prayer they don't want uh religious articles they don't want holy water they don't want a rosary they don't want a crucifix they don't want to see that on the other hand sometimes traditionally very Catholic families can have a member or two who brought witchcraft from the old country with them and they do the witchcraft in private now what does that do it invites the demonic into the home because you're saying as a practitioner witchcraft come I summon you I worship with you I need your strength I want your help against something and that is the start of trouble right well I appreciate that because I kind of wanted to give a broad spectrum of okay here's here's best case scenario souls and purgatory here's worst case scenario but what is more common and that's kind of what we're talking about so back towards the more common you know you'd mentioned the noises on the stairs which leads to another question of you know can and do ghosts affect the area that they're in is of course you said they they they do but more specifically combating some of what we see in the culture or maybe verifying I guess we'll find out in a second but you know these ghost shows where they show a temperature differential or you know some sort of some sort of electromagnetic or electromagnetic excuse me differences things like that can you go on ebay and get a ghost detector sensor and you know that that sort of a thing you know that's a whole part of this that I don't pay much attention to right and and I find that if there's a science to it it seems a little a little dubious to me I'm no scientist at all because when I've run into ghosts I'm able by my faith in my spiritual life and by what the church gives me as a priest I'm able to know they're there pray for them and see them into the next life and I think that's all you really need I am concerned sometimes when I see ghost shows that seem to exploit the misery of a lost soul of the faithful departed I see houses that are haunted and sometimes in the deep south I'm a priest immobile I'm putting down on the y'all so you can understand me right okay I'm sitting in Montgomery so I'm if you said y'all you I'd be right at home you're good sir I'm good in the deep south we have a fair number of what our culture would call haunted houses and I see the use of the haunted house not as an opportunity to assist any ghost that might be present make this transition to desire only God and to get to paradise with the help of the church instead I see it as let's exploit it let's make money off this let's keep it trapped here let's not help it or we simply mock the condition of the ghost and make a joke out of it actually every priest needs to develop a profound and tender love for the dead an affection for the dead because father if you have a cemetery in your parish if you have a columbarium if you have mausolea I have news for you those souls are still in your parish and you as pastor are going to pray for every one of those souls in every cemetery that you have here at the cathedral of christ the light in oakland we have a beautiful crypt with hundreds and hundreds of available spaces for burial it could be mausolea style it can be crematory style it could be anything and what I see are priests who have buried people there coming back on a regular basis it's very touching you see a priest put his hand against the the stone with the name of the person he buried there and he spends his hour saying the rosary for the repose of that soul that is priestly life I see families down their lighting candles and begging god for the forgiveness of sins of their own and also for the redemption of the souls of their family members we need to to develop in our culture a kind of bridge building with the souls of the dead hey everybody one day you and I are going to be on that side of things we're going to be dead won't it be something that our loving family members do not forget us that the priest in the parish remembers us that mass on a continual basis until we have entered paradise you bet it will one of the things that that's a little worrisome in our society is that when the US bishops allowed for cremation instead of whole body burial it was around the year 2000 maybe 90 98 99 there was a huge shift in the Catholic culture at first it was slow but now it's picked up and I was at an undertaker's convention no joke and one of the undertaker sitting next to me said father I have a real problem most of my business has been with Catholic families for a few decades I'd say 85 percent of my business is with Catholic parishes and now that cremation is allowed after I've cremated the remains Catholic families do not pick up the ashes and I can't send ashes in the mail in my state so I've had to build a warehouse with steel shelves with thousands of these little boxes with people's names on them and he said what's what's happened here and I said what's happened here is something important and we need us priests and bishops to work on it and that is this when you bury a full body in a grave we all see it the body retains its form and we pray that from this place the soul and body will rise to resurrection on the last day when you cremate remains there is no form to see and there seems to be very few burials of them comparatively right what does this do I'm afraid it puts us at risk of losing touch with our belief in the resurrection from the dead we we are no longer that resurrection people that has a place with a name and a date and a place to go and place flowers and pray for our grandparents our great grandparents our kids whomever we have lost that bond between us and the dead through the resurrection that's deeply Catholic and we don't want to lose that so I think in today with the shift in culture we need to try to recover that one way to do that is for priests and deacons to encourage people very much so if there's not going to be a funeral mass consider two things give the name to father so that he can offer a mass for the repose of the soul and let's take the cremated remains and bury them in a Catholic place where the name of the person they are remembered they are loved and the priest comes by and prays for them by name it unites us in the resurrection and boy does it give the rest of us hope for the next life right and what a stunning comparison to having the priests who are down in the crypt putting their hands on the plaque and praying for the person or even going to a cemetery and lighting a candle and praying the rosary for your loved one the benefit there versus being stuck in potentially in a warehouse somewhere I mean it's it's it's heartbreaking honestly it's yeah as I said a lot of this is the more that I've studied in this field and the more that I learned these things in the conversation that you and I have had over and over this it's it's really weighed heavily on my heart how important it is to pray for the souls of purgatory those all of them not just for family members so let me ask you this then so so you know suffering militant triumphant the suffering is asking the militant for help so they can they can fulfill what is necessary to fulfill in purgatory so they can reach internal reach the eternal unity with with with jesus and god can these ghosts be our intercessors I guess the obvious answer would be yes right if they have made it through but in this state of purgation is that something that is possible well that's a debated question with some theologians I think probably the answer is yes on some basis and I point to I point to a few examples of this one of which was a very stunning conversation that cardinal hickey who was the archbishop of washington dc uh in the uh the 80s and 90s when I was stationed there uh relayed to me it was his personal experience he he called me up he had been to Auschwitz and to the gas chamber and he had been reluctant to walk in on the tour he was with a vip tour and he said boy this looked father denis it looked like everything I did not want to do but out of respect for those who had died there and the group I was with I walked in and he said I I must talk to you may I speak with you and I said of course I'm coming come on and he said this is what happened to me in the crematorium at Auschwitz I'd gone through the gas chamber itself and in the Auschwitz crematorium there's no divider between the crematorium and the and the gas chamber itself it was an open space and he said we went in and it was horrifying for our awareness of what had happened there and when I walked into the crematorium which had three large ovens in it they still had a gurney present that had bone fragments and ashes of the departed now they don't have that anymore they see this differently and their different sensibilities but he when he was there that was in front so people could see the evidence okay there could be no denial of this and he said it was overwhelming for most of us but he said I am a priest first and last and when the tour guide took the group forward and out the far door I waited for them to leave and I stayed behind and they did not see me and while I was there I said I must pray for those who have died here I must and he took his hand like any priest would do to bless an object a person a thing and he placed it into the bone fragments and the ashes on the gurney and he covered his eyes and he said I prayed deeply and with great passion that God would have mercy on all who had died here and in this way he said I was praying this way for some time and I heard another group come in behind me and I said wow it's another tour group I got to get out of their way but before I could he said I realized they were standing around me in the crematorium and I looked up and it was a group of survivors who Jews who had been in that camp and they were wearing those striped prison uniforms that the Nazis designed and he said they were extremely friendly and very gracious but all speaking in different languages and he said I didn't know Czech or Polish or Yiddish I didn't know Russian there were all these Jewish people and it was as if they were trying to tell me something and I apologized I said I am so sorry I've interrupted your group I am just a priest I am leaving now please excuse me I did not mean to offend and he said as he's explaining himself to them he pulled his hand from the gurney and as he did so all of the Jews in front of him disappeared and I'm looking at his eminence to be sure that he's still okay and that this wasn't you know mental illness or super fried or something and I say eminence what tell me what you saw again he said Father Dennis I'm standing there and I'm talking to them like I'm talking to you and when I apologize and pull my hand away from contact with with the ashes they disappear wow then what happened eminence he said I stood there and I sobbed I was so frightened and so so surprised and I had no way to sort out my feelings and then I heard footsteps running because the security people realized they'd lost a cardinal in a death camp and this is not a good thing and they came running and they thought someone had struck me in the face I said no no no no I'm okay I'm okay I'm just overwhelmed so he said I went back to the hotel and I could not sleep and I did not know what to do with this I'd never had an experience of seeing the dead like this and I said I know what I will do I will not fly home to Washington DC I will go see John Paul I absolutely trust John Paul he understands these things of the spirit I've seen him say mass that was quite interesting when John Paul said mass there were points in the in the Roman canon the Eucharistic prayer where he simply went away to paradise he was gone in his prayer so the cardinal gets to Rome he asked to see the pope and he said the moment John Paul saw me he said eminence what's wrong come sit down sit down come have some coffee sit tell me what's wrong and I told him what had happened to me and he said the pope took his measure of me for a long time in silence and then he said this you know eminence you are not the first priest to tell me of this experience in the camps many priests have found this where the souls of the dead very tenderly come to those who pray for them and make themselves known and the cardinal said well holiness that's what I was doing I was praying for them asking God's mercy but I couldn't understand they seem to want me to know something and I didn't know their languages what is it they wanted me to know and he said something they want you to do for them and for Jews who are still alive what holiness what do something that makes sure that this never happens again it's a kind of reparation for the sins of those who did this to them make sure that in the church no Catholics no sons and daughters of the church ever participate in this kind of thing ever again and the cardinal said holiness what do I do John Paul laughed and he said I don't know ask God okay God is the one who knows the answer to these things so all right so he came home and he said when the plane landed I was inspired I knew what I had to do I had to have a program in all my Catholic schools that fought against genocide the killing of Jews that under that that instructed our own Catholics about Jews Judaism the Judaism of Jesus it's important its beauty and its necessity for the revelation that comes in Christ Jesus and that's what he did from seeing the ghosts at Auschwitz to changing the hearts and minds of Catholics about Jews you see a relationship there that's productive and filled with grace you see also the prayers of a very devout priest asking God to save all who have died beautifully right wow so that's a that's a very you know on a scale of experiences that's pretty that's on a pretty far end of that scale so but the what it leads me to think about there's I have a lot of questions but many of them that I wouldn't be able we wouldn't have the time to go through all of them but I think bringing it to kind of the common experience and why we're sitting down to do this bring understanding and combat a lot of the lies on that wide massive end of that scale of that experience what is the question being what is more normative so navigating these tv shows these ghost shows what's real and what's not because we know as you just explained in that story a lot of these things are possible there's not just visibly seeing them but hearing them speak you know you've spoken before about things being moved off the table and I know that there's so much that goes on and you and I both don't watch those shows but is there maybe there's a rule of thumb to kind of discern what's just total bunk that they're putting on to to you know for whatever whatever reason that maybe I wouldn't be able to guess to what might be actually real because it would seem to me that as serious as this is if one was to watch one of those shows and see something that they thought may be real then I would think my opinion that they would have an obligation to pray for whatever they saw so how do how do we help them determine whether or not what they're seeing is real or may not be real well it's possible that for the average person they may not be able to do that the average person in a family notices that something is not right and they see that but they may not know why it isn't or what's causing it or what to do about it and I think that's why you'd want to talk to a priest you know priests are to be trained in this and if the local priest says you know I'm not so sure this myself the diocese always has at least one priest who is able to help and we share a lot between dioceses I know I get called from bishops all over the US Father Dennis can you help me understand I have a parish priest in this town or that town and something's happened would you sit with him and walk him through this and give me a feel for what's happening here especially if it's a soul the faithful departed tell me what we can do to help that soul reach paradise and there's always a way to work that out there is no sin so big that God cannot forgive it his mercy is bigger and more enduring than any of our stubborn sinfulness and provided that we want his forgiveness and love every case of every ghost and every sin can be resolved but we have to ask God for that mercy and there are priests who are trained to help in every diocese with this so what I'd say Jordan is there might not be a way for the average person to make this distinction but I think I wouldn't as a believer in Jesus Christ I wouldn't rely on modern technology to be telling me about this right you know various devices that try to track the presence of things and one of the reasons is that the evil one knows how to fool us and maybe even with those devices mm-hmm St. Paul warns us he says you know forget just dealing with the dead heck the devil can come and appear like an angel of light he can fool us and we need we need to be on our guard against this so when people tell me oh listen it's just a haunted house or this or that I always say inside my head well that's to be seen that needs to be tested one of the great things that Pope Francis encourages us is to follow Ignatius of Loyola who in turn follows St. Paul and testing or the discernment of spirits good and evil and when spirits show up whether it's soul of the faithful departed or a demon I think we need a spiritual way of figuring it out and not a technological way right I couldn't agree more and as a general rule and this is my opinion I'm speaking just for myself here but it's when I was younger I was really into those shows and what I found was it only had a negative effect it had a negative impact you know you did a wonderful talk we when you and I first met actually a couple years ago at the summit on demonic doorways on several different demonic doorways and there's just there are things that we can get into that may be interesting or seem interesting right I was a kid I didn't know any better that could have negative impact it's it's the same story as the the teenager who doesn't know what Ouija board is but his buddies are doing it so he hops in next thing you know hey guess what you want a prize it's possession you know and there's this whole issue there so with that being said you know at what point can one develop an unhealthy fascination with such things is you know I talk a lot about curiosity toss it's there's one thing to put out this information which is necessary you know I all I'm I'm sure the people who came from my audience are sick of me saying it page 521 catechism of the council of Trent the audacity of demons right you need to know the war that we're in but there's a line there's a line where there's some things that some people just don't need to know so what does that look like how do we how do we determine whether or not I mean besides the obvious of like a spiritual director but how do we determine whether or not we're developing an unhealthy fascination hmm it's a good question I divide this into what I call fascination was soft to cult and with hard to cult soft to cult I refer to as the practices that you as an individual might experiment in in order to see whether there's any power or truth or reality behind something that has a reputation for contact with the supernatural for example the Ouija board pretty commonly sold around the US and it's got that little plastic triangle with the eye in the middle and you put your fingers that's called the planchette and you ask the spirit of the Ouija board a question and magically the planchette goes to the answer yes or no or it spells something out now when people do this as a joke and then throw it out I say good for you you've got rid of it okay lots of people are very serious about Ouija board stuff and the the line they cross that tells me that this has become a problem is when they can't say no to using the board because to them the board and the spirit of the board is revealing otherwise secret knowledge that they could not get by reason or inquiry or by science in some way you know who's going to take me to the prom how am I going to marry a rich person will I be fat and so forth and what's going to happen here and there into the future when Ouija board becomes a kind of addiction I think you got a problem right you're saying I want what the board gives me I want what I learn in seances I want the dead to be there and I always say caution how do you know who's present at a seance when they're summoned you have some kind of mystic person saying the room is now filled with spirits excuse me what kind of spirits would that be I'd like a name check at the door you know who are these evil spirit you don't know right and I might add that the seance coordinator doesn't know either you know they they're already in that ambiguous world and I find that seances palm reading serious palm reading where gypsies and and and others will will tell you your future and your death date and all that I say caution caution caution here how is that kind of knowledge known at all except by contact with the darkness right so when I want secret knowledge that is not obtainable by reason by science and by inquiry and I become hooked on it you're crossing the line there be very very very careful pull back let go of this it's also the same with the way Halloween is now celebrated in the US turned into an adult celebration it used to be for little kids with a bag of candy and you throw a sheet over your head and say boo to mrs. Simpson next door well that's that's minor I have adults come to me and say father Halloween is the time when you can cross over barriers and boundaries just to experiment that you wouldn't ordinarily do just to see what the dark world is like like maybe just be present at a coven meeting for a little bit maybe meet some real witches which is not hard to do especially in the northeast and Salem let's go to something and then you get a little scared and he say okay it was just for the night and then you come back over into safety and I say well that's a naive view of things when you engage in the occult you attend a magic circle you allow yourself to drink of anything food or drink inside of a coven you experiment with evil do you really think it does not follow you home right you really think the evil one respects your boundaries you're the one who came over into his front yard he takes that as permission to follow you back to yours right right when why even open the door to begin with right exactly it's very hard to get that door closed I mean you you you look at even some of the reports now that exorcisms are taking significantly longer than they have in the past it's like this is serious stuff no matter what yeah point it I can go I can rant about this for a long time but point is don't open don't open the door keep it closed don't open the door and that's the best advice ever but when we watch what Hollywood produces the movies about this and I count you know in a lot of the streaming services probably 30 different movies regarding the occult the demonic witchcraft the dark world at any one time there's quite a range of them right is that they're not just spooky stories they are also um enchanting there's a kind of enticement that draws you in with the characters and they're very convincing the characters are simple you get sympathica with them and the problem is that the more you watch the more you enter into the imaginative dark world being presented to you and the more you think this can't be all that bad come on maybe maybe like a lot of kids who that you know I spent 25 years as a professor at Georgetown and uh seven years in dormitories you know that will take a lot of time off purgatory right there okay and Christ knows that when I was a dorm chaplain that will make up for sin but lots of kids would say to me father you're the only one we know who says that alternative religions like wicca and demonic worship and um you know seancing and and all the rest of that is dangerous to us everybody else sees it as an equal experiment it's an alternative in our society you go find out if it's a good match for you and it works for you if it works for you and you get out of it what you want it must be safe that's the great lie it is not safe and it will follow you home and keeping that door shut becomes more and more difficult the more widespread and acceptable these practices are as well as the more attractive movies video games and um how do you call that new affair I'm sorry I keep forgetting you put on the goggles it's virtual reality oh yeah yeah virtual reality okay virtual reality the things coming over the horizon on virtual reality that make a sensual a sensate kind of presence to you of what's being enacted visually will be a pretty hard thing to beat if they combine that with uh the demonic you could see for example um when um what was it Game of Thrones was running uh consecutive for years on the front page of the New York Times there'd always be a little summary of what this week's episode was I think it was the most widely watched tv show every week while it was running it was just hugely popular and one of the things that would concern me as a priest an exorcist would be that uh there were many scenes in which three things were brought together one was witchcraft one was sexual expression and one was violence or blood and when you have that nexus constantly constantly constantly you see people being drawn into it they think in those terms imagine in those terms talk in those terms and I think it's uh for Christian there's a danger there right right well and for anyone who's been paying attention you know you taught you spoke on how things become more widely accepted anyone who's been paying attention can go to any bar's novel any bookstore and see the tables with tarot tables with energy rocks tables with palm reading they're now they're not in the back like they used to be they're front and center they're right there and often what's most disturbing is they're usually paired somewhere close to either one of two things the bibles which I always find quite comical or kid stuff which is just diabolical so it's this is this is a trend that's becoming more and more common that we have to be aware of whether it's tv shows whether it's movies or just things that you see out around and not to mention folks the fact that the enemy is not just going to cut out I think I think personally CS Lewis screw tape letters beautifully described you know the when when screw tape was talking to the younger demon and said no no you don't outright scare him because if you outright scare him it kind of defeats the purpose we we subvert that's what we do you know so you think he's not going to outright come out and say yeah this is bad no he's going to say no yeah let's let's go into that narcissism that you're you're so attached to right now you're wondering about something let's yeah come on we'll do it this seems okay this new agey thing it's just new age it's okay come on give you what you want and then the yeah the young persons reply to me most often was father if magic works for me or an alternative kind of expression works for me then there's no harm in it and and that's always that's always a dangerous thing is what does it mean it works for you and do you have a second look at what works for you do you are you suspicious a little bit do you stand back from it and ask some critical questions and the absence of that critical ability to to ask about all these alternatives that's the danger point right wow wow okay last question and then we'll go into a q&a and uh this is a fun one i i i had to do some googling on this myself so i'm curious your your answer your ectoplasm real or fake you know i'm sorry you're asking the wrong guy you know i actually like that answer i wish i could help you but yeah no i think that's the proper response to that one so our producers here have been compiling questions going through moderating the comments and they're going to start throwing them uh on the in the chat or up on the screen i'm not entirely sure which so producers there if you have one to send here we go what happens if the infested house is demolished and a new one is built on top but on the same piece of land it's a good question it's a good question and it's something that i have faced in a few cases in the u.s it it depends whether what caused the infestation of demons was related to the land or it was related to the structure built on the land for example i recall one case where and it was in california as a matter of fact a new housing set of units was built over a place where the developers did not realize a lot of people had been murdered it was a mass murder of native americans in a certain place and it had been left by the indian nation left fallow and then i guess over the centuries it got sold and and all the rest of that but never been built on never and was always associated as a place of the dead so a new house was built nearby on this land and a family that had been so excited about their beautiful new home one night uh getting all the kids to bed uh the mom goes out into the kitchen and she sees three people all dressed as native americans just standing there looking at her they didn't harm her they didn't make any aggressive moves toward her but they just looked at her this is very typical of a ghost look at me see me help me she was deeply frightened and these apparitions appeared over and over and over in the house so they contacted the local priest and the bishop himself became involved and said what what are we looking at and my opinion was what you're looking at is first of all a need for the church to help these souls gain eternal life in some mysterious way god has allowed them to present themselves to you and it's not a hostile presentation at all at all it's a presentation that looks like an invitation for help and asking for help so the bishop had uh the local priests blessed these houses that had gone up but also talked to the developer and said stop okay stop i don't care whose cemetery it is and what religion or background or who's involved the catholic church always respects and loves the dead and we do not disturb the the burial places of others whether they're in our religion or not if anything as a way of preaching the gospel and bringing the message of christ even to the dead as augustin tells us is that he would be approached by souls of the dead would say father augustin we were catechumans when we died or wanted to be can you help us profess the name of jesus christ so that we may enter paradise augustin would have this catechumenate of the dead he'd help anybody on any terms get to paradise that's what we should do but we should not be defiling places of burial we should not have our hand in the disruption of cemeteries or our sacred human remains ever ever so you know when when a structure is built on top of a place where the dead are occasionally god allows the dead to present themselves and it's part of their mysterious process of redemption but very often what i have found is that an infestation of demons has to do with the structure it's about inviting demons into a place and dedicating the place to demonic acts satanic worship and the occult now if that structure is destroyed most of the time you know that's the end of it most of the time if the land however was dedicated to demons by some kind of blood sacrifice then you have a more profound problem sure okay that's a different case yeah interesting okay all right next question please producer will saint michael helped in a ghostly setting yes of course he's part of the church triumphant but i think michael would do is come to the help of the soul like all of us michael isn't going to chase the ghost away because the ghost is a soul looking for redemption if anything michael will give that soul courage to keep asking michael will assist that soul with his prayers and protection and it raises a kind of rare case where a priest can be called to a place that seems to have both phenomenon present there were demonic things done in the place at one point and also there's a soul or two of the faithful departed from somebody who died there and it's interesting to see that these two do not mix these two do not mix and when a priest goes into what we call a mixed field he is there for a specific purpose he is there to help the soul the faithful departed go off to eternal life and he is not there unless the bishop has asked him to be he's not there to exercise the place and deal with demons that's a different request demons and ghosts do not mix they do not mix why because the ghost as a soul the faithful departed is in the state of purgatory already on their way to redemption free and safe from hell and damnation no longer subject to the power of the evil one no more no more uh-huh whereas demons are basically looking for other humans to bring into their circle of association that's a different matter okay so if i'm sent into a mixed field like the good shepherd i'm coming for just one little lamb okay and i'm going to pull this lamb out of the thicket put him around my neck and leave and if the bishop says father dentist there's more there i want you to deal with this or that's what i do but i'm careful that the spiritual needs i'm dealing with here don't get tangled huh they don't get mixed up there's not ambiguity we keep clarity with the way the church addresses these things addressing demons is entirely different from addressing the souls of the faithful departed and moving them toward eternal life fantastic i would i would have never thought to ask that question that's a great question all right next question well we gotta we gotta we gotta a little bit of time left Sharon asks can we look for communication with our loved ones some people feel the presence of a lost loved one is that real or are wishful thinking well in in a particular case i wouldn't know but in general what i find in the experience of the saints is that god permits those who have died and are in a state of grace to console us and communicate to us that all will be well all will be well do you remember uh don bosco had a buddy in the seminary and as i recall he he belonged to a seminary that was kind of in a mountainous diocese in in italy and he and this guy were good buddies and quite suddenly at dinner one night his good buddy fell over i think it was an aneurysm as young people have these tragic tragic health conditions and he died you know at the table very very overwhelming sadness when a young person dies so bosco decides he was his best buddy he's going to stay up at night rather than everybody going to bed they lived in a dorm so he had all these rows of beds bosco is at the bed of this buddy who died and he sang the okay intensely night after night about the seventh night there's a big earthquake and the dorm and everybody's woken up because italy has terrible earthquakes as you know but at the far end of the room there is a light and a voice a booming voice comes out of it and it says bosco bosco i am your friend bosco i am saved i am saved and it went away god allows the souls of the dead to come to us to console us to strengthen our faith in eternal life and even to help us to get rid of sin and the wrong habits and to encourage us more deeply in a life of prayer and sacrifice and love of neighbor and god souls of the dead are allowed to come to us in dreams and in sleep and to show us that all is well god i think understands that since the resurrection of the dead all of us who are catholic and want to make it into eternal life we need to know don't we we need to know that those we love have made it to the next life or we can help them do so many many people have told me of stories and these are saintly people themselves where folks have come to them in a dream or suddenly there it's two months after the funeral and they're back at work you know busy about many things and quite suddenly and this is why it's so believable they had no expectation no thought on their mind no thinking about it quite suddenly in the middle of sorting the mail okay they can feel the presence of their mom and dad who had just died two months earlier and it's so strong that they turn around and they say mom mom is not there but the presence of their mom is there so lovingly and so reassuringly that they cannot really deny it there's a spiritual gift there and a gift that thank you very much doesn't need proof on a tv show you know with some kind of a gizmo okay Catholics know things in the heart and in faith in their mind and heart we know these things and we know them to be true so I think the answer is yes God allows these revelations to us sometimes quite dramatically like Bosco and his buddy other times in dreams and sleep and other times deep consolation with us deep consolation right wow what a beautiful what a beautiful answer I mean it I have no doubt I was listening as you're telling explaining that I'm thinking man I guarantee you there are so many people who are hearing that who are experiencing a lot of consolation just hearing that that's a possibility because as you stated I also have very many friends who have had similar experiences and it was some family members that hey I'm okay and for them to be able to know that yes that is what that is there's no more doubt and I think it goes to show something else you mentioned or way back at the beginning a determinist spirits whether it draws you to consolation and desolation this is an easy way to tell whether or not it's good or bad faith open love or doubt despair and narcissism that's pretty clear indicator but with that we were at time if you would like to continue we have more questions if not I want to be respectful of your time you've already given so much to us not just here but at the both summits the last two summits we've had that you've spoken at which by the way for those who are not aware were easily one of the most popular talks if not the most popular talk at both for summits amazing informative and the storytelling is always great so it's your choice if you'd like to do a few more we can or like one or two more or we can close it out with a prayer I'd be happy to continue for a while so yeah that'd be great okay how can an increase in our understanding of ghosts help us towards greater holiness well if by understanding of ghosts you mean understanding of why a soul of the faithful departed would ask the church militant for help then I think a couple things a couple goods come out of that number one is faith in the resurrection of the dead okay and this has been eroded as I mentioned before by some of our new practices where catholic simply don't bury their dead they don't think of them anymore they let it go they don't pray for them they don't have a funeral mass in it it wears down you know it just wears down your confidence in your own resurrection and the beauty of your own death and the meaning of your death I think that's that's the first thing this this helps us to get but bucks us up for gives us some strength to understand that this life is not permanent but that death opens the door to eternal life however to get through that door to eternal life we need to live in this life as if to want the next life to come Catherine of Sienna how a Catherine of Genoa how if I started living now to want only God that is to say to want love of God and love of neighbor then my death becomes instead of heartbreak and sorrow and separation and despair it becomes for the Catholic what we always want to pray for a happy death I remember talking to some of my mom's card playing friends about Catholic belief and a happy death and they laughed they said excuse me but there's no such thing as a happy death that's a contradiction in terms and I said well not for us who believe in the resurrection of the dead and just real boldly if Christ is risen we too can rise if we are one with him death is not the eternal sting and defeat on the contrary it's where we enter into the resurrection and if we begin to see it that way and we begin to see that when ghosts come to us and ask for help with our sins we become much more conscious of how to avoid sin and how to love the dead and how to take care of our relatives who've gone before us who may be still suffering while they get rid of sin and look to desire only God so I can see that I also see this compassion is a virtue that we lack in our society in a cancel culture you're only as good as your last mistake because brother you are your last mistake right and that's all you are in cancel culture what about forgiveness what about compassion isn't forgiveness what the soul the soul the faithful departed asking us for help isn't that the center of the whole thing how do I get forgiveness and reparation for what I've done compassion for the dead compassion for ourselves as sinners would be a terrific terrific virtue to develop in understanding ghosts perfect you know it's perfect well on that note I don't think we can end on a better note than that do you mind closing us out in prayer great heavenly father we bless and thank you for all that you give us both calling us into life from nothing and by our baptism setting us into the arms of our mother the church look upon us your sons and servants strengthen our faith broaden our hope and deepen our love that we may come to know your most holy will and do it very well through Christ our Lord amen may the blessing of Almighty God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you and remain with you forever amen and then thank you so much father and thank you for your time thank you for all this information I have no doubt people are more enlightened and hopefully they are encouraged as I am encouraged the more I learned about this the more I am just in awe of what A has been established in the church thanks to God and in all of his teachings and but B you know the hope the eternal hope that we have as you said with a happy death and even afterwards if we are in purgatory the hope that remains there as well that those church militant those who are still here would go out of their way hopefully to help us out so with that thank you everyone for tuning in and there will be a replay of this sent to the to your emails so if you miss some of it don't worry you'll be getting a copy and make sure to sign up at spiritualdirection.com for any updates on any upcoming webinars and that's it y'all have a fantastic evening