The Undercover Paganism of Online Exorcists

Bloodline curses, blast-radius prayers, and the God who looks more like Zeus than Christ.​

“I contemplated suicide,” someone confided to me in an Instagram message.

“I dedicated my entire life to the Church, and now I was being told constantly that I should fear demons, that everything was a portal. I thought, why bother being Catholic if all my efforts were in vain? If God isn’t protecting me—why bother being here at all?”

Another parent shared the story of her normally happy teenage daughter who suddenly began crying and having panic attacks before Mass. Eventually, the truth came out. She had been watching the spiritual warfare videos that circulate endlessly online. She became obsessed with demonic ties, terrified she wasn’t “clean enough” to receive the Eucharist, convinced that one wrong step meant immediate affliction.

My inbox is filled with stories like these.
People told that Mary turns away from them when they sin, leaving them exposed to God’s wrath, as if she were a shield from an angry deity rather than a mother leading us to her Son. Others write of converting to Catholicism from evangelicalism to escape the constant demon talk, only to find it seeping into Catholic spaces too.

I return to these stories often. They haunt me. They force me to ask: what kind of God is being preached here? What vision of the Gospel leaves Catholics on the edge of despair, terrified of Mass, convinced they are one misstep away from damnation?

Scripture tells us to judge ministries by their fruits, and the fruit here is plain: fear, scrupulosity, despair. Many online celebrity exorcists are not strengthening faith. They are distorting it. Twisting the image of God until, frankly, He no longer even looks Catholic.

He looks pagan.

And this is why I write. Because what’s being passed off as Catholicism in these circles isn’t always doctrine. It’s opinion, speculation, and at times little more than spooky stories disguised as homilies.

And it is hurting people.

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