Fighting Satan and escaping the darkness of evil: An interview with Fr. Robert Spitzer

“God has given us,” says the author of a trilogy of books about the reality of evil and the challenge of spiritual warfare, “through our freedom, the ability to participate in this huge struggle, where it’s the mystical body of Christ vs. the kingdom of Satan, and we’re involved.”

Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., is the author of several books, most recently of a trilogy on spiritual battle and Catholic spirituality. (Images: Ignatius Press)

Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, President of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith and the Spitzer Center, is noted for his books and talks on science and spirituality. He has been writing a trilogy of books—two of them now published by Ignatius Press—that explore the daunting topics of sin, evil, Satan, and spiritual warfare. The struggle between good and evil, as Fr. Spitzer points out, is one that no one can escape, even if we are unaware of it. And so Fr. Spitzer aims to show how the Church helps us to understand this great challenge to shows us how to fight in this battle.

The trilogy is entitled Called Out of Darkness: Contending with Evil through the Church, Virtue, and Prayer. The first two volumes, Christ Versus Satan in Our Daily Lives: The Cosmic Struggle Between Good and Evil (Ignatius Press, 2020) and Escape from Evil’s Darkness: The Light of Christ in the Church, Spiritual Conversion, and Moral Conversion (Ignatius Press, 2021) are now out.

The third volume in the current trilogy, entitled The Moral Wisdom of the Catholic Church: Principles of Personal and Social Ethics, is due out from Ignatius Press early next year.

The series is a follow-up to a popular quartet of books published between 2015 and 2017. The quartet was titled Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence, and the volumes are Finding True Happiness: Satisfying Our Restless Hearts (2015), The Soul’s Upward Yearning: Clues to Our Transcendent Nature from Experience and Reason (2015), God So Loved the World: Clues to Our Transcendent Destiny from the Revelation of Jesus (2016), and The Light Shines on in the Darkness: Transforming Suffering through Faith (2017).

Fr. Spitzer spoke recently with Catholic World Report about his latest books, and how we can prepare ourselves to fight in this cosmic struggle.

Catholic World Report: How did the books come about? Was this always envisioned as a trilogy?

Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ: It was actually envisioned as a single book initially. When I was finishing the quartet [Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence] I realized I was never going to get to the problem of evil. I was trying to do transcendence, happiness, and suffering, and trying to get evil in there, but I just realized it couldn’t be done. So I told Ignatius Press that I had to do another book and detach it from the quartet. Then looking at it, I realized this book itself would have three parts.

We live in a culture that doesn’t even believe in the devil—and if they do, they’re worshiping him. We’ve got a problem! I mean, there are priests who don’t believe in the devil! So I realized I had to make the case that there is not only spiritual evil in us, but there is a real spiritual evil entity out there who is—in every imaginable way—stoking the fires, and masterfully taking over our culture.

So I really wanted not only to make the case that there really is such a thing as a spiritual evil force (a fallen angelic being), but here are the tactics he uses in our individual lives, here are the tactics that he and his minions use in the culture, and, frankly, he’s winning. He’s taking things over, and he is laughing all the way to the bank. And in order to do this right, and include the deadly sins (which are his favorite tools), I really had to spend a whole book on that. So then the next book has to cover the counteracting force—which, of course, is Jesus Christ and his Church.

But again, we live in a culture in which the Church is under attack. And there’s a lot of propaganda out there saying that the Catholic Church is not the Church of Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ certainly has not protected the Catholic Church throughout the ages. So the first thing I have to do is to make the intellectual case for the Catholic Church, then I have to make the spiritual case for the Catholic Church. I needed a book that starts off with “Why the Catholic Church?”

Then, on top of that, I need to lay out the benefits of being Catholic—what does the Catholic Church have that no other church has? Of course, I start off with the sacrament of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist. These two sacraments are the worst nightmares that a devil can encounter. After that, we really do need magisterial truth; it’s no accident that you have over 30,000 Protestant denominations in 500 years (or 2,000 to 3,000 even without counting country to country differences). It’s an enormous number, and just one Catholic Church.

Secondly, there is so much internal infighting about what Jesus meant, what true doctrine is, what Jesus had as his intent, how to reconcile seemingly contradictory Scripture passages, and so forth. We’ve got that tension alleviated for us, because of the Catholic Church’s magisterium. A lot of people might see that as an encumbrance, a sacrifice of freedom. In reality it’s the protection of our unity, and the protection of the Truth that will save us. The more confusion there is, the more the devil likes it. For all intents and purposes, the Catholic Church is the alleviator of confusion, and the definitive and ultimate resolves of disputes.

So from that point of view: why do you want to be a Catholic? Well, because you get the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of Reconciliation, the magisterial teaching of the Church, the unity of the Church, and a whole lot of other things, like the best-articulated moral teaching applied not only to the individual life but social ethics as well. Don’t you want to belong to a church that is, by far, the largest charitable institution in the entire world? The largest healthcare institution in the world, by far? The largest educational institution at the primary level, the secondary level, and the collegiate level in the world, by far?

CWR: How is the Catholic Tradition distinctive in its spirituality and approach to morality? How does that fit into your books?

Fr. Spitzer: We have a rich spiritual tradition. I talk about this in the book. Protestants certainly have a good relationship with Scripture, an emphasis on personal prayer, but they don’t have these rich, deep networks of spiritual tradition, lectio divina, Ignatian meditation. So there’s a chapter looking at what every person should be gleaning from our spiritual traditions.

We’re not the prosperity Church; we’re the School of the Cross Church, and we do it better than anybody, because that’s the reality that Jesus came to give: “Take up your cross and follow me”.

Who does virtue better than the Catholic Church? Nobody. Nobody touches it! Nobody holds a candle to the Catholic Church! But how do you become the “new man”, as St. Paul would put it, and abandon the old self? Nobody will be perfectly converted when they leave this world, but I’ll tell you what, you can make a lot of progress! So the last two chapters are about some of the things that can help us do this, to help us facilitate moral conversion.

Then, of course, I knew I’d need a third volume, because you need to talk about the commandments. The Church gets a bad rap, and gets pummeled for being “against” everything. For example, the homosexual lifestyle—but then when you look at the statistics, you see shocking things. Forty percent of people who live a homosexual lifestyle contemplate suicide, when for the overall population it’s only 5.5%. Wait a minute, something’s wrong here. Triple the amount of substance abuse, triple the amount of familial tensions, triple the amount of depression, triple the amount of major psychiatric incidents.

I look at secular studies—not bloviating, “Spitzerian” studies, but what’s really going on in secular, university studies. What are they saying? They’re saying this is an insane lifestyle. So I thought: I’m going to take the twelve big controversial issues (cohabitation, premarital sex, homosexual lifestyle, gender change, artificial birth control, abortion, physician assisted suicide, etc.) where the Catholic Church is getting pummeled, and I’m going to go right through and examine how it helps or hinders love, how does this in some sense (in terms of a secular ethic that is based on principles of justice that everyone can appreciate) how does it square up. And then I’m going to take every secular study about what happens to the part of the population who like gender change, with all the people who are cohabiting—does it result in better marriages? Absolutely not.

How about premarital sex, the number of partners you have before marriage, any correlation between that and divorce rates? Absolutely, a direct correlation. Zero premarital sexual partners and your divorce rate is about 4.5%; one premarital partner and it jumps up to 22%; 2-4 premarital partners and it jumps to 36%. Something’s amiss here! Something’s wrong, and it’s not just that but also depression rates, sexual violence.

The “great sexual revolution”, what has that given us? A six-times increase in rapes. You start going through these statistics and you begin to see how insane it is. The attack on the Church’s teachings—every single one of them leads to these incredible increases in depression, anxiety, substance abuse, familial tensions, suicidal ideation, suicides themselves, homicides. And not only that, but it’s also leading to a tremendous destabilizing of marriage, the undermining of marital satisfaction.

This is why we’re getting pummeled? For speaking the truth? Secular studies prove that every one of these issues is causing, not just a rupture within the culture, but the destabilization of our families and marriages, of emotional intimacy, plus huge increases in emotional disorders. So, I thought, I’m just going to make the case for common sense here. Whether or not someone is a Catholic, they can take a look at what they’re promoting and look at these statistics from secular studies. If I’m right about my natural law interpretation, what’s so good about the secular plan?

CWR: And the result of that is the third book in the trilogy?

Fr. Spitzer: Yes, I decided to write a book called The Moral Wisdom of the Catholic Church: A Defense of Her Controversial Moral Teachings, because I think a very, very sound, good defense can be made for any Catholic, and then for any non-Catholic. If the Catholic Church’s interpretation of Jesus is just a mere anachronism, just a prudish church that’s gone wild with rules, then we shouldn’t expect to find any of what we’re finding.

Indeed, the secular world’s interpretation of morality and freedom and justice is destroying us, and it will destroy us. They’ll destroy our culture. They’ll destroy individual lives. They’ll destroy our marriages. They’ll destroy our children. It’s just a big bogus bag of tricks—from whom? Well, from us, but a lot of it inspired by the devil.

All of which is to say: it had to be a trilogy!

CWR: The subtitle of the first book is “The Cosmic Struggle Between Good and Evil”. So why is it important that we be prepared for this struggle?

Fr. Spitzer: A lot of people will say “Yeah, I believe in evil. That’s when I do something that harms somebody, and that has real effects.” Yes, that’s right. But it’s not just that you’re harming somebody and you’re having some kind of here-and-now concrete bad effect. But it’s also harming your spiritual life—not to mention, by the way, everything that St. Paul is saying about how we live in the mystical Body of Christ and we affect everybody and everybody affects us.

What’s on the line here is a huge struggle. It’s not just a struggle for me doing the right thing in this concrete situation—it also has huge implications. The reason I use J.R.R. Tolkien is because people get the sense that Frodo Baggins is an everyman. He’s not a particularly smart hobbit, he’s not a wizard—yet he represents every one of us. When we are putting the ring into the volcano, even if it’s just our personal ring, we are having an effect on the whole. Whether we like it or not, our lives have this huge cosmic significance in this huge struggle that goes way beyond us.

It’s a cosmic struggle that is touching every life, but if we through our efforts, if we through our teaching of our children, are participating and throwing the ring of power into Mount Doom, we are going to make a difference to the whole cosmic struggle.

Alternatively, if we submit, if we go into the darkness, if God can’t depend on our efforts—of course we will fall along the way and will sin and will need the sacrament of reconciliation. But the more we resist God, it’s not just affecting that individual, but also simultaneously it’s affecting the entire Mystical Body. Jesus has already won the victory (I make that very clear in volume 1), but it is up to us, because we are still free agents, what is going to happen as we move along that road. We can either lead people to the road of perdition or we can lead people right up to the road to heaven. We are involved. We have cosmic influence in our lives, every last one of us is a Frodo-everyman.

We don’t just live in the here and now. God has given us, through our freedom, the ability to participate in this huge struggle, where it’s the mystical body of Christ vs. the kingdom of Satan, and we’re involved. And either we’re on the side of light or the side of darkness. And that’s why I put it in those terms. It’s about the whole cosmos. We’re involved.

Editor’s note: In Part 2 of this interview Fr. Spitzer further discusses the nature of the struggle against evil and the role of the saints and sacraments in combatting sin.


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About Paul Senz 146 Articles
Paul Senz has an undergraduate degree from the University of Portland in music and theology and earned a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry from the same university. He has contributed to Catholic World Report, Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly, The Priest Magazine, National Catholic Register, Catholic Herald, and other outlets. Paul lives in Elk City, OK, with his wife and their four children.

11 Comments

  1. “The Cosmic struggle”

    Our Father has life in Himself and He is Timeless.
    Jesus tells us that he came (was sent) “To save that which was lost” this statement implies a former state. My understanding of lost is that we are lost in time and place; we all carry a divine timeless spark within us, we are more than a physical being.

    Some who read this post will have experienced one or more “Timeless Moments” during their lifetime of different intensity, these Timeless Moments vary in context as they pertain to each individual, but their essence is the same for all of us, often commencing with a glimpse of beauty (including insights pertaining to the beauty of Truth) that catch our senses (Consciousness), we lose the perception of our physical self as if instantaneously we are drawn into the harmony (Singularity) of our Fathers creation.

    Our senses are now liberated and appear to no longer be tied to our earthly (bodily) needs, the beauty of our Fathers Creation intensifies as our senses (Consciousness) perceive reality on a different level, we feel that we are no longer separate but in harmony within our Fathers (Consciousness, Spirit). I believe that this harmony
    (Oneness/ Timelessness) was lost at The Fall (Commencement of time within man’s Psyche), been symbolized by breaking trust with Our Father in eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.

    Adam in self-awareness (Separation from the divine, The Tree of Life) now sees the full reality of his wretchedness, the apex of which is death. Now barred from the (Wondrous) Tree of Life which previously he had not been, while the residue of this understanding remains within all of mankind, as he has a yearning for eternal life (To eat once more from the Tree of Life).

    The fruit of the Tree of Life is now no longer barred from mankind, for he can now see that the deadwood of the Cross has been transformed into the Tree of Life, its fruit Jesus Christ (Who has been given Life within himself by our Father) hangs there and cries out

    “Take and eat”

    “Father”
    I wondered out from no not where
    My spirit as the clear morn air
    With glint of morning light I was your delight
    I danced with the morning breeze, played the leaves upon the trees
    The grass was my pleasured bed the flowers feathered for my head
    The clouds were but my cloak, my face shone with the Sun
    I was your lover I was your son
    I was Adam before the deed
    I was the tree the sky the breeze
    I was the garden I was Eve you the Sower and I the seed
    The blackbird entered the wondrous tree in dry branch entwined he
    With yellow eye and crack of wing all was lost nothing still
    I had become as separate thing
    Your seed polluted by that black squawking, squealing, squeaky thing
    I heard you weeping for your son Oh! loving Father what I done
    On broken branch, I entered time in downward spin
    Tumbling bush fly and weed, polluted seed and sprouting horn into spike and thorn I was born
    “Father”, You the Breeze followed with the morning dew, promising to make all anew
    Before the day was done you would again embrace your son
    You nailed your own heart to a dry piece of wood
    Bleeding profusely droplets of precious love
    Tenderly watering your seeds of love
    Blessing the heart that willingly receives that heart too shall surely bleed, scattering fly and weed
    Father, I am the new watered seed, lifting me gently with your breeze
    The husk shall fall and I shall run with squint of light gleam of morning delight
    Tossing feathered flowers from my head
    Lifting my cloak from my dewy pleasured bed
    Skipping and dancing with the breeze
    Frolicking the leaves, hovering above the trees
    Again I am Adam also Eve
    In the garden with the breeze, with the bright glance of the morning sun
    “Father” your song is sung.

    We have now what could be described as an opportunity of a timeless moment, that is one of a new spiritual awakening within the Church as Our Lord Himself has given the laity the means (Spiritual Power) to confront the ongoing manifestations of evil within the church, by calling the elite to account, for collusion with the breaking of the Second Commandment.

    So why do they not do so?

    Is it because they are entangled with the evil Prince of this world ..V..? See the link

    https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/03/12/new-book-emphasizes-reality-of-spiritual-warfare-need-for-vigilance-and-forgiveness/#comment-250643

    kevin your brother
    In Christ

  2. Thank you for this very perceptive view on the matter of evil. I am 83, an Australian. We were raised on concept of “the devil” who hunts for victims among the good – and the bad of course. The devil was real to us then. Then as our worldview changed and grew out of new social, religious and political realities, the concept of a ‘real devil’ faded – until life`s challenges and upsets once again brought out the issue of the devil and the matter of d`evil. It is still difficult to understand and explain in words, that evil (as personified in ‘the devil’) exists all right. Right here in our lives. A force, perhaps a bit like the force of gravity, invisible yet real. Powerful. Still a vexed – but now a very real presence, the devil exists a force in our lives, in our decision-making, in our understanding of, our concept of “God” and the reality of this extra-dimension in our lives, and in our world. Yes, evil and d`evil are real, but so are goodness and all the attributes that go with that. A bit like the air we breathe. Scientists will analyse what that air consists of, and while ordinary folk think of the air as just a sort of empty space in our universe, it is real and full of all manner of substances, like scientific matter. Evil. D`evil. – and then there`s God above and beyond it all, entering our lives through our Christian belief in Jesus Christ. Not just our belief, which is of the mind and thus not visible neutrons etc., but also beyond those elements that can be examined scientifically, that area that is where God exists. Where God is. And God IS! Thank you. – Patricia Kelly. (Brisbane, Australia)

  3. One Catholic Church is questionable with the parting of the waters, distancing new paradigm Catholicism from Apostolic tradition. An aged wise priest told me, not only do priests [some perhaps many] no longer believe there is a devil, there is no Eucharistic real presence. Perhaps the path to safety is the open middle ground? Perhaps, that is if we judge issues with divinely informed judicial prudence. Fr Spitzer gives us much to ponder, and assimilate if we fall into the skeptical category. Satan is a “force”, Spitzer reminding me of Star Wars and cosmic battle. Evil exists personified in Satan. Although Satan is not Evil itself, an object exemplified in his person as its definition and source. Evil is found in works of evil. Evil is in the will, meaning as intended by Aquinas that evil is willed, it is not a being. Even if Satan seems so coming in as a close second. That is because Satan wills evil, once the virtuous Lucifer who rejected God the source of all good, who alone is good. That rejection is essentially what evil is. Satan’s kingdom as Spitzer rightly describes is spread by lies, by deceit, the Devil [or devils there are many besides their chieftain Satan] tempting us to do evil. We can’t say like Flip Wilson’s Geraldine, The Devil made me do it! Really important is Spitzer’s Cosmic Dimension of Evil [it deserves a prominent title]. That teaches us, not simply opines that evil spreads throughout our universe affecting everyone, through each individual who chooses to sin. He ends with our gold standard to defeat Satan’s wiles and evil the Eucharist and Confession of sins [exclusively per Trent to a Catholic priest invested with the power to absolve sins even those sins of which we lack adequate contrition].

  4. I read the four books in the first series. Fr. Spitzer is terribly and unnecessarily verbose and repetitive. I hope this trilogy was condensed by a skilled editor.

    • From Repetition, Repetition, Repetition, by Eric Immel, S.J.

      Excerpt:

      Repetition is a hallmark of Jesuit education and Ignatian spirituality. In the early Society, the repetitio was a common strategy used to ensure that information was ingrained in the minds of pupils. Even today, practitioners of Jesuit education will engage this strategy, both because of its historical roots in Jesuit schools and because, well, it works. In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius asks us to make repetitions of various contemplations and meditations for the purpose of greater depth and detail in God’s active presence.

      The Bible is repetitive, too. Two creation stories, two versions of the 10 commandments. I’m told that ‘do not be afraid’ is the most common exhortation in scripture, repeated in some form 350-ish times. There are other messages that get repeated: be in awe of God, rejoice, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, be brave. I read all of these messages repeatedly, and I wonder–if Taylor Swift can say the same thing 36 times in three minutes, perhaps I need to up my game in sharing the message of Gospel love. If WBC can protest in favor of hatred 54,972 times, maybe I can hit the streets and proclaim what I believe.

  5. I appreciate very much Fr. Spitzer’s desire to illuminate the Catholic understanding and teaching about contraception for example. More importantly, and related I believe, is why there is no such thing as same-sex marriage. In RCIA, and in marriage preparation, I’ve been able to explain the problem with contraception, though I know many hearers still cannot get (or refuse to accept) the significance of refraining from fertile coitus vs. changing the body or the act. One is exercising dominion of fertility, the latter domination and a contradiction of covenant promises.

    I never had to defend marriage until the last several years. A priest colleague recommended Alexander Pruss’ One Body (University of Notre Dame Press). It supposedly explains why the coupling of husband and wife in conjugal intercourse is so different from same sex “coupling.” Robt. George and John Finnis highly recommend it. I started it and put it down temporarily. I have a deficient intellectual background. What I invite Fr. Spitzer to do is to use and explain teleology. Start simple – what is the purpose of and why the pleasure of eating, and how can eating become perverted? Or, what is the purpose of speech? And then move to the teleology of fertility, and of coitus.

    A most recent mantra of the ongoing sexual devolution is “Love is love is love is love…” I think I’m smart enough to know that there’s a heresy there, just as there is in “a woman has a right to control her own body.” The culture equates love with desire and feelings, at best the dopamine fueled thrill of infatuation, at worst, the darkness of lust. Both are counterfeits. Since love includes the human body, can Fr. Spitzer adequately explain why both contraception and same-sex “love is love” marriage are both counterfeit in a way that is accessible to people?

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