← The Isabel Brown Show
The Isabel Brown Show
Ask an Exorcist: How to Fight Satan, Protect Your Home & Celebrate Halloween Right
00:53:19
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- [00:01]
A
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B
Experian There is a massive debate currently ensuing on the Internet about whether or not it's appropriate for Christians to celebrate Halloween. Because haven't you heard, October 31st is very clearly the high holiday of Satan. And everything remotely associated with Halloween, from trick or treating to dressing your kids up as Spider man is participating in demonic activity. I think that's at least a bit of a stretch. And we're ready to unpack it all today on the Isabel Brown Show. Happy Halloween. Welcome back to the show guys. It is Friday, October 31, a day that I have been looking forward to on my calendar for a very long time. Not the least of which for all of my reasons, is because I am a mom this Halloween for the first time ever. So I get to dress up my daughter, which is an incredible blessing. But I have loved Halloween really for my whole life. My family takes Halloween very, very seriously when it comes to our fun costumes. The tradition of trick or treating. We used to help a friend, a family friend build a haunted house in their garage every year in like the it neighborhood for trick or treating in my hometown in Colorado. Truly some of my favorite memories are dressing up with my family growing up with all of our themed costumes. Our best. I'll try to find a picture of this and have it for you guys when we edit the episode. But our best family Halloween I think ever was when we did a themed pirate Halloween. My dad in particular went all out. He had an earring and like the best costume I've ever seen in my life. I look back on these experiences with my family and it's just such a cherished opportunity to remember how special childhood is and how quickly it all goes to preserve the magic and wonder and and imagination of make believe and dressing up in your favorite characters and I cannot wait to be sharing that with my daughter. If you guys follow me on Instagram, which you should if you're watching the show and you're not already. So please do because I post a whole lot more stuff beyond the show over there. You May have seen that. Last night we had White House Halloween here in Washington, D.C. and you probably saw clips of the President handing out candy to a bunch of trick or treaters on the South Lawn of the White House. The First Lady's office made an absolutely beautiful display of decorations. It probably, I would argue, is one of my favorite ways I've ever seen the White House all decked out. But I know Christmas is still around the corner, and Queen of Christmas, Melania Trump herself is going to do an amazing job at that. Last night, my husband and I went to the White House and took our daughter Isla for her first round of trick or treating ever. Naturally, because it's White House Halloween, we decided to wear the all important costume of sombreros. Between my husband and I, in the midst of the continued government shutdown, Yosoy Hakeem Jeffries, obviously, and petitioning for a speedy resolution to demanding health care for illegal immigrants, and my daughter, we handmade a costume for her to be a can of Diet Coke. So I don't know, somebody at the White House must have pressed the big red button on President Trump's desk in the Oval because the cutest can of Diet Coke in the history of humanity happened to show up at the White House last night. My husband and I have long loved Halloween, and we're so excited to be incorporating our daughter into our favorite traditions. If you guys have been following me for a couple years, you'll know that we've been very creative for the last several Halloweens in my relationship. Even when we were just dating through our engagement and now into our marriage as well. My very first Halloween with Brock ever. Actually, we created our costume out of complete necessity because we had nothing to wear. We were invited to a Halloween party at the very last minute. We had no plans of doing anything for Halloween. So on Halloween day, we went to Spirit Halloween, which Spirit Halloween already is like an empty warehouse of nothingness on any given day. But on Halloween itself, it was pretty slim picking. So we walked in and we're just hoping to be inspired by anything. The only thing that we could find that remotely seemed interesting was this toy syringe that was like, really scary and creepy looking. And just that week, the news had come out that Dr. Fauci was exposed for abusing beagles at animal testing laboratories across the country. It was a horrifying story, by the way, and I hope that some theoretical auto pen blanket pardons. I'm putting gigantic quotes around that for liability reasons. I hope all of that gets figured out very soon. So that we can hold this horrific person accountable for his crimes against doggies and humanity. But we decided at the last minute to put together a costume where my then boyfriend, now husband, was Dr. Fauci, and I was one of the abused beagles. That was a pretty clever one. You guys might remember a few years ago, two years ago, we dressed up as Chicken Joe and Cody Maverick from. From the legendary film Surf's Up. We made a fun TikTok about that one. Watch this. I don't understand why everybody has to be so judgmental.
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A
I understand my mom's judgmental. I think it's because she cares.
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B
Partially. I think it's also partially because everyone else is looking at her like, hey.
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A
Cody's just a bum. Cody's this, Cody's that. Cody's this. Cody's me, bro.
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B
Let me be me. When is that gonna start.
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A
Cody?
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B
I know he's out here.
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A
I can feel it in my nuggets, man. Aren't you nervous out here, Joe in.
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B
The jungle Last year, for Halloween, for our first married Halloween, we were on a kick of rewatching all of the Night at the Museum films. I was spending a lot of time on the couch because I was newly pregnant. None of you knew that yet. And I was struggling through my first trimester. So we rewatched all of the Night at the Museum movies. And I just had an itch to make sure that we could be the miniatures. Jedediah the Cowboy and Octavius the Roman Soldier. These tik toks went so hard last year.
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A
What is your problem, huh? Why can't you just get along? Look, we're men. We fight, okay? That's what we do. Kind of how we pass the time.
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B
You're like a.
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A
A giant, A freak, if you will. We can't expect you to understand that.
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B
And I guess you'll just have to stick around for Instagram and tick tock later tonight to see what we are being for Halloween 2025 with our sweet bab. Well, but in the midst of so many people celebrating some of their favorite memories, like mine and the great costumes that we've all gotten to create over the years together, and fun experiences, just laughing and creating timeless, precious memories with your family and your friends. I am seeing this heightened conversation this year on the fact that Halloween itself was intentionally created to be an evil holiday, that everything associated with Halloween is demonic, that Satan governs every single activity that happens on this day of the calendar. And I'm seeing a lot of videos, even funny satirical ones like this one. Trying to raise awareness about this concept.
- [07:42]
A
Hey, guys, I just want to remind you, if you're a Christian who celebrates Halloween, that's fine. It's. It's not about death. It's not about demons. It's fun and it's of kind, innocent, and it's cute. And if you think that it's evil, you're just taking things too far. Like, skeletons are chill and a few demons didn't hurt anybody. So anyway, go have fun. This is great. I'm gonna go carve a severed head pumpkin before my Bible study. Have a good day.
- [08:17]
B
Obviously this guy's being facetious, but even the jokes that he's making I find really, really fascinating. His entire premise of his worldview is that Halloween is entirely about death, which is a bad thing. I don't think it is a bad thing, and we'll come to that at the end of the episode or that everything associated with Halloween is demonic. I also don't think that that's true. But whether the day on the calendar is October 31st or any of the other 365 days a year, I do think it's important that we start recognizing, and we have in the last eight weeks more than ever before in my lifetime. And that we are constantly living in an era of spiritual warfare, that the world that we live in is not heaven. It is not perfect unity with God. And so there are dark and demonic and evil forces at work. Whatever the day on the calendar happens to be in our culture around us that certainly threaten to rip apart the fabric of humanity, to degrade the dignity of the human person, and to pull us away from our connection with God. And that's the part that I really want us to focus on for the meat of the episode today, One of the most highly requested topics that you guys have been asking for on the Isabel Brown show well before the Halloween season, and I know we'll continue talking about this well after the Halloween season, is this concept of spiritual warfare and the influence of Satan in our world. And this has become even more highly requested in the last few weeks, especially after Charlie's death and all of us having this conversation a lot more openly and honestly about the difference between good and evil and being seduced by darkness and sin. And the architect of evil being Satan, or following the light, pursuing holiness, and walking towards sainthood, in following Jesus Christ. So we organized a very special sit down to answer all of your burning questions this Halloween to ask an exorcist priest whatever you guys want. We are joined today on the Isabel Brown show by my friend Monsignor Rossetti who is one of the exorcist priests here in the diocese where I live in the Washington D.C. area but but a true expert nationally and internationally as well on this subject of spiritual warfare. He is so excited to answer all of your guys questions and I know that this will be just one of many conversations that we have with him on this subject and other leading experts in the field. Please join me in welcoming our amazing friend to the show. Our special Halloween episode of the Isabel Brown show is brought to you by Graza My Go to olive oil that has become my absolute favorite thing to cook with in our kitchen. My what I love about Graza is that it is delicious high quality extra virgin olive oil available at an everyday price and it is always incredibly fresh since they pick, press and bottle all of their olives in the same season. Plus they offer two different varieties, Sizzle for all of your cooking needs and the Drizzle, a punchy finishing oil that is perfect for everything from your favorite salad dressings to drizzling over ice cream. Don't knock it until you try it. It is so unbelievably good. You can even choose between their iconic squeeze bottles or traditional glass and every single bottle shows the harvest date so that you know exactly what you are getting. I have absolutely loved cooking with Graza in our kitchen, especially as we have entered a whole new season of life as new parents. And most of the time hanging out with our friends isn't going out to fancy restaurants anymore but hosting people over at our house for a home cooked family meal available to all of our extended family here in the beautiful D.C. area. You can get 10% off of your first order of any olive oil on their site, but I wholeheartedly recommend the Graza Duo plus package where you get two bottles of extra virgin olive oil. One is Sizzle for cooking and the other is Drizzle for finishing with an extra kick of bold flavor. Head to Graza Co and use Code Isabelle to get 10% off and to get cooking your next chef quality meal. Monsignor Rossetti, thank you so much for taking some time out of your very busy schedule and joining us here on the Isabel Brown show for All Hallows Eve. We have had a huge influx of requests in the last couple of weeks to talk about spiritual warfare on the show, so I think no better time than the height of spooky season. But I know this is something that you do day in and day out as an exorcist priest and we've solicited some questions from our audience that they are dying to ask you. But just to kick us off, can you walk us through a little bit about what your day to day life looks like and your job in protecting the faithful from the influences of Satan and in the heart of this spiritual warfare.
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A
Well, Isabelle, it's a joy to be with you and all your followers. Yeah, I know it's. Spiritual warfare is very real. I think in the past it was more hidden, but for some reason I think it's more out front today. The fight between Satan and his minions is very real today and we see some horrible examples of it. So it's something that people are tuned into. And I think the young people especially, I mean, they see Satan's attempt to destroy the family, destroy our values, to pervert all that's good and call it bad and vice versa. And of course, what we do every day is we exercise people who are possessed or have some demonic affliction, as well as bless the capital and the nation's capital, where we're the exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington. So we do some deliverance prayers over DC as well.
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B
So important, and as you mentioned, maybe now more important today than ever before because we've been saying that it feels like demons are getting a whole lot louder in our society. And for whatever reason, I think Christians in America have forgotten, maybe because we're so comfortable with our faith and because it's been relatively normal to live our lives as Christians, that we are constantly living in a spiritual warfare that is raging on in something that we can't see, even though it's not visible to our own naked eye. It is still happening and has been since the dawn of, of humanity really, but will continue to be something that we need to fight back against. So I have a lot of people who maybe aren't necessarily Catholic or who are practicing Catholics, but they're not wildly familiar with the role of exorcists in the priest as it pertains to the modern life that we live as Catholics in America. I think people are shocked to hear that there is so much necessity for Exorcists in Washington D.C. or anywhere else around our society. Why do you think we've lapsed that part of the conversation of our faith and being diligent in guarding our hearts and our souls.
- [15:06]
A
Yeah. Well, Isabel, let me give you something I often speak about. I'll give you three quick steps on getting possessed. And when you. When I don't suggest you take it, but, but the reason why I do this is because you can see how this affects our country and our people today. One, you want to get possessed? Stop practicing the faith. The faith is your shield. Ephesians 6, number two, commit serious sins. That opens a vulnerability to Satan. And then three, start practicing the occult. Here we are on Halloween or All Hallows Eve. Practice the occult, do witchcraft, do tarot cards, Ouija boards, medium, seances, all that stuff. It gives a ticket to Satan. Now think about this now. How many, sadly, young people are not practicing the faith, committing serious sins, and then dabbling in the occult? Witch talk, for example. It's a subset of TikTok for witches has. They boast over 40 billion views. 40 billion.
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B
Wow.
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A
You know, so, yeah. So you can see that. Why. Why do we get more and more requests for exorcism today? People are doing those three things. They're not practicing the faith, they're committing serious sins, and they're dabbling the occult. Dangerous.
- [16:24]
B
It absolutely is dangerous and requires a pretty serious response in an exorcism. Most of us have never seen an exorcism be performed. We associate it, I think, with horror movies and the occasional dark conversation that you might have heard about a few times in your life. I understand every exorcism is different and every situation has a particularly nuanced approach that you have to bring to it. But can you walk our audience through what a general exorcism looks like and if there's any specific tactics that you regularly employ to silence demons?
- [16:58]
A
Right. You want to silence demons. Mention the name of Jesus. They start, you know, I just say name of Jesus. That shuts their mouth. Now, an exorcism, first of all, an exorcism is for someone who's fully possessed. Most people who have some demonic stuff have lesser forms and some good deliverance. Praying and good sacramental living can take care of that. But if you're fully possessed, then in comes the exorcist and our team. I don't do it by myself. I'm also a licensed psychologist, by the way, Isabel. I'm also a licensed psychologist. So we screen out those who really have mental illnesses. So they don't. They need to see a psychologist. So if they don't have a mental illness per se and they are fully possessed, then we'll start praying over them. And then you'll find out fairly quickly if they're possessed, because the demons will begin to manifest. They can't stand anything holy. We'll use the right of the church. The church's Right. And basically the demons start screaming. I mean, they start screaming and they'll say things. They'll. One of the first things they'll say to us is, you, you stupid priests. They hate. They hate the Church and they hate priests. And the second thing they'll say is, she or he is mine. I'm not leaving mine. They claim ownership, but what we tell them, of course, is then we have them renew their baptismal vows. Do you renounce Satan? The person says, yes. And all his works, all his empty promises? Do you believe in God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Holy Catholic Church? They say, yes, I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his cross. And so Christ reclaims that person. And it's a fight, though I'd say someone who's fully possessed, frankly, it'll take two to five years before of good, virtuous living. Yeah. It's not once and done. It's two to five years of slugging it out. That's spiritual warfare. But the good news is most people are not fully possessed. Handful of sessions are fine, but if someone's been doing witchcraft for 20 years, you know it's going to be five years of praying and living a holy life before we get rid of them.
- [19:10]
B
That's so fascinating because I think you just blindly assume it's an immediate deliverance from all of this, rather than a constant decision every day to recommit yourself to the faith, to put your will towards what is good and true and beautiful. Have you had any of those cases that have taken a very long time in your career?
- [19:29]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. Typically that's why I warn people, young people especially, about the whole occult stuff and the witchcraft stuff and all the divination. They don't realize what an entrenched evil is there. And, I mean, we get a lot of those cases where they've been doing this for decades and it's ugly and it takes a lot of holy water, a lot of praying. But the word we use, the Church understands, is purification. Yes, you initially stop this evil stuff, you turn to Jesus and say, I believe in the Lord, Fine, that the Lord saves you. But then there's a process of purification when the evil is slowly expunged. The example I give people might be helpful is that imagine someone's been an alcoholic for 20 years now. I've been a psychologist, you know, so. So if you stop drinking right away, fine, you're. You're no longer drinking, but you're still a dry drunk. I mean, it takes years of purification of getting rid of all that stinking thinking they call it, and to, to. To be purified and sanctified. So it's a fight. But that's why it takes so long. I think, you know, maybe five years of a converted person.
- [20:48]
B
Yeah, I, I appreciate that you differentiate between someone who's fully been taken over by demonic possession versus someone who is struggling with aspects of spiritual warfare. And in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination and so many conversations happening related to spiritual warfare in our country, I'm seeing a lot of people weigh in on whether or not it's even possible for Christians, once we've committed our lives to Christ, to be demonically possessed. How do we deal with influences of Satan and how do we protect ourselves and guard ourselves to never get to that point? Can you walk us through the. The specific dangers and pinpoints that Christians might find themselves in to be tempted by Satan? Is it true that he ties to tempt us more when we become more holy and we become closer to God? And how do we prevent that full demonic possession on those little steps along the way?
- [21:44]
A
The answer is yes. When someone really follows the Lord, you can expect more demonic temptation. Now, all of us are demonically tempted. All of us. But those who particularly follow the Lord are targets of Satan. Now the good news is Jesus has got your back. Isabel, your show. I can't. I. You know that Satan doesn't like it and you know he's targeting you. I know he does. He's probably messing with your technology all the time, by the way. Throw holy water. All this stuff, all that technology stuff is nuts. They go nuts. They mess with our technology all the time. So you're going to be a target. But know this. Jesus got your back. And, and the demons know that. Jesus, Lord. Well, I'll. I'll command them sometimes to say, tell the truth in Jesus name, who is Lord Jesus or Satan? And they'll grit their teeth and they'll say, jesus. I said, that's right. In Jesus name, I cast you out. So Jesus got your back, Isabella. So, yeah, the demons are going to target you. And I have done that with the great saints down through the centuries. But we're still here. We're still kicking. The witches are cursing us, but Jesus is protecting us.
- [22:57]
B
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- [24:48]
A
Well, first thing, as I said, practice the faith. And by the way, go to confession. What's the first thing we tell someone before they come to us for an exorcism? Go to confession. Father Gabriel Morris, the famous exorcist, said that every confession is worth about 50 exorcisms. So that powerful sacrament of confession and then go to mass, go to communion, and of course say the rosary. Say the rosary and all those sacramentals. Do you have a crucifix over your bed in your house? I have a little holy water font that I bless myself when I come in the house. You know, pictures of the saints. So use those, what we call sacramentals. It's, it's a beautiful thing. And, and, and you see the power of them in, in an exorcism, when we hold up the cross, we say, ecce crucem Dominique. Behold the cross of the Lord. The demons go nuts. They can't stand it. I did an exorcism last week over a woman and I was throwing holy water on her and did a little bit, you know, I didn't drown her, but I throw the holy water on her and she says, burning. I said, where is it burning? Says all over. Well, the water was just, you know, normal temperature water, but the demons felt the burning of this holy water, you know, because anything holy torments the demons. Anything from God torments the demons. So use those sacramentals that we use in an exorcism. Use them in your home.
- [26:24]
B
Oh, that is powerful stuff. And now I feel even more motivated to hang up some more pictures of saints in our house. We have some fun rapid fire questions that we've solicited from our audience for you because people are dying to get your take on a few of their deepest, darkest questions about exorcisms. But I'll start us out with one. You mentioned the rosary as a powerful tool to guard our souls and to constantly be tying us back to God. Can you share with us the role that Mary has had in any exorcisms that you have performed and why she is so, so important to our faith journey?
- [26:59]
A
I want you to know that every exorcist loves the Virgin Mary. She is. She stomps on Satan's head. Now this is very interesting. You know, if. Have you ever heard of. Of Jesus personally showing up in an exorcism? No, Never happens. His grace shows up, but he doesn't personally show up. Who shows up in his stead? The Virgin Mary. Why? Satan's. Because Satan likes to think of himself as equal to Jesus. So I'm. No, no, no. So he wouldn't. It is humiliating, frankly, for Satan to be cast out by this woman from Palestine, the Middle east, you know, but she. But she was never under the sway of Satan. She's never tainted by sin. So when she shows up, it's a game changer. I mean, so she is like the ultimate presence in an exorcism, of course, next to Jesus. But when she shows up, and I've had it happen when she shows up and those demons can't get out of the room fast enough. We love the Virgin Mary, you betcha.
- [28:09]
B
Wow. Oh, that's so powerful. All right, we've got one from James Small. He wants to know, does a victim of a possession demonically show the stereotypical signs like from the Exorcist movie or not?
- [28:23]
A
Well, you know, obviously Hollywood does its thing with these and. But there is a lot of truth to that. I mean I'll have people vomit all sorts of things. They'll cough up all sorts of things. People do tend to levitate sometimes. They do tend to whatever but not too much. Things will fly across the room. I've never seen anyone's head turn around. No. So it can get wild. It can get wild and does. But it tends to be a little bit less intense than say the movie the Exorcist. But you know the movie the Exorcist was actually based on a real case. It was based on a real case. It was a 12 year old guy, young lad and they took him to actually St. Louis and they, and the Jesuits did a nice job by the way. I read the notes of the Exorcist and they did a great job and he was liberated. So yeah, these things do happen. But Hollywood does sort of kind of jazz it up a little bit.
- [29:21]
B
Yeah, they tend to sensationalize pretty much everything. So there you go. All right. Grace wants to know, can a Christian have demonic dreams or be oppressed through demons while we are sleeping?
- [29:33]
A
Yes. Now here's one thing I'd like to tell everybody. I want everybody to listen now for a second. The demons, even if you're not possessed, they. They'll stick ideas in your brain. Where are all these lone wolf terrorists coming from? The demons are sticking ideas in their brain. People don't realize that that's Satan. What's. Now let me tell you what the six or seven things that Satan will put into your brain. Number one, you're a horrible person. Number two, you can't be redeemed, you're beyond redemption. Number three, God doesn't care about you. Number four, we're never going to leave. Number five, you might as well kill yourself because you're going to go to hell. That's. And when you hear these and every possessed person gets them and they all get them, Satan sticks these ideas in your brain. What an awful, terrible person you are. God doesn't care about you. That's from Satan. So what what we do, we disappropriate. We say to ourselves, ah, that's not me, that's from the evil one. And then we do what we call the three R's. I reject it. I rebuke you. I renounce you, Satan and I cast you out. And then we read the Bible, we read Jesus word, we put Jesus, Jesus loves me. Repeat often, Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. So Satan will use your brain as a little battleground.
- [30:56]
B
That rolls in perfectly to this question from Sam on whether or not you think there is an element of demonic possession with some of these school shootings and the lone terrorist attacks that you just mentioned.
- [31:08]
A
No question about it. No question about it. When you look at what, what could be more demonic than going into a school, shooting innocent children and killing yourself? I mean, it's obviously so demonic. Now, are those people necessarily possessed? Maybe, maybe not. Is Satan speaking into the brain? He certainly is. And so I think it's just a symptom of a society which, which, which is giving Satan too much sway.
- [31:40]
B
We sure do tend to give him a whole lot of sway, especially in our very moral relativist culture. That's powerful to think about. Catherine wants to know if you have to go through specialist training as a priest to become ready to perform exorcisms.
- [31:56]
A
Yes, and of course, when I started 18 years ago, there were no programs, but I was fortunate that I was connected to a very senior exorcist and he walked me through it. So. But now we do have programs. So you are selected by your bishop. You go through specialized training. We train exorcists too. And so because it's complicated and you want actually to be older people because Satan kind of manipulates younger people getting a little bit older, you get used to his machination. So we suggest actually just be older priests.
- [32:37]
B
That's interesting to think about. Just because they have the spiritual maturity in their walk as a priest.
- [32:43]
A
Yeah, and also Satan does a lot of the trickery around, frankly, about celibacy and sexuality and all that kind of stuff. And so that's also more. So you're. Yeah, you're. You're a little bit more wizened in the ways of Satan and you know yourself a little bit better. And your priesthood's a little bit more firmer at that point. Now we do have younger priests help us, but we supervise them and we've got a couple that are really gifted. So we're, we're grateful.
- [33:16]
B
Very cool. Christina K. Wants to ask if demons are able to hear your thoughts.
- [33:24]
A
No. Unless you direct them to them. They can't. They don't. They don't read your mind. They don't know the future. Only God knows the future. But I would say this. Demons are very intuitive. They're good psychologists. They have a good idea what you're thinking. They've been around long enough. So, yeah, it might seem like they're reading your minds, but. But no, they don't.
- [33:48]
B
Oh, that's powerful. I never had thought about that before. But what a powerful way for us to keep connecting in prayer to Christ and reorient our life to him every day through our thoughts. John Michael's question is an interesting one. With some of these mainstream anti human policies that we're seeing in the political conversation today, think abortion or euthanasia and some of these conversations we're seeing politically destroy the dignity of the human person. Do you think that's coming from demonic possession or is it just really bad evil ideas or mental illness?
- [34:22]
A
Yes, if I live at all that stuff. In other words. Yeah. I would say that sometimes Satan is directly behind something as example in a possessed person. And I think some of these terrorism things and sometimes it's just his influence. Now the whole thing about euthanasia, I'm very concerned about that, that people basically taking their own lives and abortions too. We've seen that Satan is the purveyor of death. And so, yeah, no, he's clearly promoting all these things which promote the degradation of the human person and death.
- [35:08]
B
Yeah. Last rapid fire question for you before I'll bring it home. Anna wants to know, and I've hearing a lot about this from across the religious and political spectrum on social media this week, is it appropriate for Christians to celebrate Halloween? And I'm wondering if you can tap into the history of Halloween as All Hallows Eve and what the greater hollow tide weekend means for us.
- [35:30]
A
Well, we like All Hallows Eve, as you say, Isabel, because it's the eve of the great feast of All Saints. Now Satan distorts anything holy and wants to make it into this witchy thing, whatever, but we don't do that. But what we're doing tonight, we're having a holy hour. We'll expect to have a few hundred people praying with us tonight and then having a little celebration of some sort, bobbing for apples or some people dress up as saints. We'll have their kids dress up as saints. So having a party is a good thing and celebrating this great feast, doing some prayer but not going over into the end the dark world.
- [36:12]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Perfectly said in our last couple of minutes together. Monsignor, do you have a message for our culture and in particular America right now as we're navigating this very divisive, dark, often seemingly evil time, how can we learn to reorient our society back toward Christ and learn to see the common humanity in one another?
- [36:35]
A
Right. Well, one of the things that I'm very much connected to is of course the Virgin Mary, as you mentioned earlier, Isabel and That her role in bringing peace and a lot of her apparitions, she talks about. Pray for peace. Pray for peace. So say the rosary. Pray for peace. You betcha. So we pray for peace. Very important. But also, as we read the Scriptures, to really take on the mind of Christ, to love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you. We don't respond to violence and evil with more evil and to protect ourselves. I want everyone to remember one important thing. Jesus loves you and he saved you. Never forget that. I don't care what you do. Jesus loves you and it saves you. Hang on to Him. He's going to bring you home.
- [37:34]
B
Beautifully said, Monsignor Rossetti. Thank you so much again for taking the time out of this very busy All Hallows Eve and for the work that you do in protecting the faithful. You are in our prayers every single day and we'll have you back on the show very soon, I hope.
- [37:48]
A
I look forward to it, Isabel, and God bless you and all the great work that you're doing. So God bless all of you there.
- [37:56]
B
Thank you very much. We'll see you soon. We're talking a lot about some really scary stuff on the episode today. But you know what's actually terrifying is how strongly we have been told that vegetable oils like canola and soybean oil are the healthy choice for people, when actually they are highly processed in industrial products. For thousands of years, people have cooked with natural fats like beef tallow, lard and butter. But somewhere along the way, we were convinced, indoctrinated, programmed, scary stuff that they were suddenly dangerous. And what really bothers me is learning that many of the seed oils that we cook with every single day are in almost every single packaged food in our country and have been marketed to us as healthy. Were actually originally developed for industrial uses. Canola oil, in case you didn't know, this literally started as machine lubricant during World War II. Now that I have a baby, it has become even more important and I am even more intentional about what I bring into our kitchen. We have switched to cooking with grass fed beef tallow almost 100% of the time. It's what our great grandmothers would have used and honestly, it makes everything taste just that much more incredible. It feels so much better knowing that I am nourishing my family with something that has actually been a part of human nutrition for generations. And instead of just repurposed industrial byproducts, plus your beef tallow could be packed with fat soluble vitamins, minerals and healthy fatty acids. Unlike seed oils that really aren't contributing to your overall health. Golden Age Beef Tallow also has a very high smoke point, which makes it great for cooking as well as deep frying fried chicken, searing steaks, making eggs and roasting vegetables. And when you eat food that's fried in Golden Age Beef Tallow, you will feel satisfied, light and energetic with no crash, no bloat, no gross sluggish feeling afterwards like you might feel after eating something that has been fried in seed oils. It has been a total game changer for my family and I could not recommend it for your family enough. If you are ready to ditch the crazy indoctrination and the spooky, scary seed oils and get back to the basics, give Golden Age Beef Tallow a try. Try goldenagefats.com Isabelle next time you head to your web browser and use code isabelle for 25% off your first order. That's golden age fats.com isabelle and code isabelle for 25 off your first order so many important aspects to this conversation right there. And again, I really want to keep continuing this conversation down the line. Since we had a pretty short time today for the episode, we didn't really get get to get into the weeds of really the substance and the meat of spiritual warfare that I know you guys are dying to talk about. So I promise we are organizing a long form sit down interview probably with Monsignor Rossetti or somebody else very, very soon on this subject so that we can keep unpacking it and talking about the steps that we can take to guard our souls and to guard our lives and families from the influences of the demonic and evil that is coming. Have no fear. But I do want to talk about this origin of Halloween costume and this Halloween question. Wow, costume. Clearly my brain is so excited to dress up later this afternoon this origin of Halloween question because it's the last one I asked, but I think it's the one that I'm seeing most commonly repeated on social media and in our culture today. Is it appropriate for Christians to celebrate Halloween? A if you're a if you're having to ask yourself that question and you genuinely think celebrating Halloween today is going to put me in harm's way, it's going to open me up to the influences of Satan who Please, by all means make your own decision. My follow up question to that is what the heck are you guys doing on Halloween? Like, is everybody out there just holding seances and contacting mediums and playing with Ouija boards or tarot cards? If that's what you guys are doing. Please stop, Like, I'm begging of you. I don't know that that's isolated to one day on the calendar, though, and that speaks much more largely to Monsignor Rossetti's advice there that playing with the occult and legitimate witchcraft and trying to contact demons, it's very dark, but it is not just localized to Halloween. So make the judgment call for yourself if celebrating this particular day is going to open you up to particular elements of influence or making yourself vulnerable to demonic possession. But the real history of Halloween, I think, has gotten completely, completely swept under the rug in the last two, three years while this debate has been ensuing and getting more prevalent with every passing day, whether it's been hijacked by then or not. How Satan has tried to create something evil out of something holy, or rather transformed, because he can't create anything but transform something holy into something evil. Halloween itself is a Christian holiday, and this is what I would love to remind everyone of as we go into our celebrations this evening, because there's a beautiful opportunity for us to connect with our Christian heritage and connect with what this day was really intended to be. Halloween is a new age, different language translation of a term for All Hallows Eve. And let's back up even further. The word hallow literally just means someone who has passed away from this lifetime and is now in the next phase of their spiritual journey in eternal life, hopefully. So when we talk about a Hallow, we're talking about a person, a real human being. And All Hallows Eve is a part of a larger three day event on the church liturgical calendar called Hallow Tide. In the midst of Hallow Tide, you probably will hear terms that you might be familiar with, like All Saints Day, which is tomorrow in which we celebrate the saints, people who have died and are now in heaven with God, in perfect unity with the Trinity, those who exemplified a holy life and did everything they could to be as close to Christ and the whole Trinity as possible throughout their lifetime here on earth and then after. All Saints Day is a day called All Souls Day. It's a day in which we pray for people that we love and that we care about who have already passed away and for the repose of their soul to be ultimately united with God in heaven forever. As part of Hallow Tide, the eve of both of those two days is All Hallows Eve, which is today. It's Halloween, and we just call it something a little bit different in the English language that we speak today than All Hallows Eve. But Regarding this Halloween is all about death thing and that that is such an evil concept in and of itself. I actually think it's wildly important for Christians to celebrate All Hallows Eve or Halloween and for this day to be focused. Don't come at me on death. We have separated death from the Christian journey in this rainbow washed, cultural half in, half out, feel good Christianity that's really been sold to our culture for the last several decades, taking death out of the conversation entirely and essentially just saying, oh well, Jesus is going to make your life so much better. So everything's going to be great all the time and there's never going to be any persecution and there's never going to be any suffering and, and you're always going to have someone to sit with you in the pew on Sunday morning and everything's great, everything's great. Just love everyone, just accept everyone. A that version of Christianity isn't resonating with people at all. And I think that's why you're watching this massive resurgence of traditional liturgy and traditional faith in our country led by young people right now, because we've seen the horrific downstream effects of a half in, half out cultural Christianity that's trying to become more like our culture and our world rather than transform our world to be more like the next one. I think that era is over in and of itself. But B, death is an incredibly important part of the Christian journey because we believe as followers of Christ and as children of God that our existence doesn't cease upon the moment that we pass away. Rather, you don't really ever stop existing, right? I mean, we really do believe that the moment that you die, you blink and your existence continues into eternal life outside of the confines of time and space in this lifetime. And if we really, really believe that, then death, focusing on death, contemplating death, making sure we talk to our kids about death, is not just something that's okay. I think it's actually wildly needed because as our society is constantly trying to find fear monger and push terrifying narratives about the end of your life and easily, I think it is the thing that we fear the most today, far more than any other difficult subject to work through. Mainly because we're so comfortable and that we rarely interact with death in our day to day lives. As I think people throughout different eras of human history had more access to and had to think about more often out of necessity. Now death has become a connotation with something evil, with something negative, which is why you're seeing people say, oh, skeletons are horrible to decorate with. And don't dress up in skeleton T shirts for Halloween because that's so demonic, because we're thinking about death. I want you to reframe this conversation entirely for yourself and just to challenge this narrative a little bit, because I think it's an important debate and conversation for us to keep having, not just this year, but into the future. There is a timeless Christian principle from the last several thousand years back, when the world mostly was speaking Latin, that we have largely forgotten about in postmodern Christianity from across all denominations, by the way. And this concept is called memento mori, which essentially means remember your death. It's what we repeat in Lent season when we go in for Ash Wednesday to start the Lenten journey towards Easter, when we receive ashes on our foreheads as Christians and we are told, remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return. It's a grounding principle that this lifetime is temporary, that your actions here do matter, that the decisions you make have a ripple effect that impact other people, and that God has called you to a specific vocation and a specific calling in this lifetime. And. And we have no time to waste, memento mori, to remember your death, to contemplate death, to in some ways fixate on the concept of death every once in a while. Not all the time, because life is meant to be lived right? But every once in a while to remember that our lives are finite here on Earth, that our existence in time and space now is temporary, and that the impact of our actions creates more good or more evil in the world. That challenges other people's lives and deaths is a wildly important Christian principle. And that's what we talk about on All Hallows Eve. It's certainly what we focus on throughout the entirety of Hallow Tide, and I think can provide a depth of our faith that is so deeply challenging to the half in, half out surface level facade of Christianity that American Christianity largely has become in the last several decades, certainly in our lifetime. Now, please don't hear me say, go out and celebrate Halloween tonight by playing with Ouija boards and channeling mediums and doing seances. No, no, no, no, no. Nothing would be more horrifying than that. And if that is indeed how you're spending Halloween, we'll be praying for your soul. But if your kid wants to dress up as Spider man and go door to door knocking on doors for trick or treating candy, which, by the way, side note, is also a Christian practice, I'll get back to that in a second. By all means, go celebrate Halloween. Go enjoy this day with your family, Talk to your kids about the concept of death in a constructive, beautiful religious component that is so missing from this conversation. And pray. Pray for our country. Pray for the souls of those who have gone before us, especially for Charlie in the last couple of weeks, as we've been doing here on the show and in all of our conversations with our friends and family. And let's try to bring some traditional resurgence of humility back to our culture. Because ultimately, Memento Mori is about grounding yourself in humility. It's understanding that my life is a gift and it's only given to me by God. So what can I do today and tomorrow? To empty of myself, to make less of me and more of him, to have less evil in my life and more goodness, to run away from sin and to pursue sainthood and to pursue what is good and true and beautiful? I said I would talk about trick or treating really quick and I promise I will. I actually didn't know this until this week when I started researching for this episode. Trick or treating actually started as a Christian practice. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, people would go door to door to door. The poor in particular and the marginalized would go door to door and knock on people's doors offering to prison pray for their departed family members, for the repose of the soul of that home's departed family members in exchange for food. And now we go door to door and we go get candy and we say trick or treat. Which is so fun. But I, I think it's so important for us to be studying these moments of history, to be studying these practices and these traditions because it's so easy for us to point at something and say bad, bad, bad, evil, evil, evil. But what was it intended to be? What were we supposed to be grounded in? And how can we bring those actually Christian traditions forward for our kids and every generation to come afterwards? Dying to see your guys's Halloween costumes if you are dressing up tonight. So leave us a picture in the comments. Send me a DM on Instagram. We cannot wait to see how you and your family celebrate a beautiful, joyous, faith driven journey of hallow tide over the next couple of days. Please join me in praying for the repose of Charlie's soul, for my grandmother who died earlier this year, and for all of our friends and loved ones who have gone before us and passed away as we walk through the next couple of days in the church calendar and Happy All Saints Day tomorrow as well. Have fun, go trick or treating. Send me some pictures, and I hope you guys have a great holiday. We'll see you Monday.