Catholics And Demons

[emilier98]

I know, as Catholics, we believe in demons, but what is the official Church teaching and how are we to deal with demons?  How are we to fight their attacks?

Edited May 1, 2013 by emilier98

[Theoketos]

Be in a state of grace, then call on Jesus. If an exorcism is needed contact your bishop's office. 

[Theologian in Training]

Fallen angel 

“It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels’ sin unforgivable.There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as their is no repentance for men after death” (CCC 393)

Unlike the archangels and guardian angels, they do not work for us, but against us. 

Their purpose is to separate us from God, to cause us to fall by pride, like them, and to join them in Hell
Chief among the demons, and the most powerful is Satan

They can scare us and inspire fear within us (just as any angel does, but them, more so)

They can appear “as an angel of light,” meaning they can masquerade as someone good (Padre Pio)

They can tempt us in our thoughts, our imagination or our feelings, sometimes, they can move material objects and they can possess us, if we allow it

Satan can give gifts that appear supernatural or as divine gifts, but are not (healing, reading minds, etc.) (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13)

Good and bad angels have arisen, not from a difference in their nature and origin...but from a difference in their wills and desires...While some steadfastly continued in that which was the common good of all, namely, in God Himself, and in His eternity, truth and love; others...became proud, deceived, envious.” --St. Augustine

“They are instantaneously mobile...immensely powerful in their intelligence...minds without bodies...they have an angelic will whose strength far surpasses flesh-bound weakness of the human will” Exorcism and the Church Militant, 27

“But in God’s design, neither angels nor men were to have the Beatific Vision without a previous testing. Consider the angels first. God created them in perfection of their nature as pure spirits. Further, He endowed them with supernatural life...But they were not yet admitted to the Beatific Vision. They must first be tested. What the testing was, we do not know; but we know some of them failed in the test, and we know they failed through some form of self-assertion, assertion of self against God” (Frank Sheed Theology and Sanity) 

..Some angels obeyed the divine test, others did not. Those who disobeyed were irreversibly transformed into demons and cast out of heaven." (Fr. Antonio Fortea Interview With an Exorcist)