Fr. Chad Ripperger

Fr. Chad Ripperger is an American Catholic priest, theologian and exorcist. He was ordained in 1997 for the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a society that celebrates the traditional Latin liturgy, and later founded the Society of the Most Sorrowful Mother, known as the Doloran Fathers (Wikipedia). According to his Wikipedia biography, he served as an exorcist for the Diocese of Tulsa from 2012 to 2016 under Bishop Edward Slattery and then moved to the Archdiocese of Denver, where Archbishop Samuel Aquila instituted the society as a public association of the faithful; it is based in Keenesburg, Colorado (Wikipedia). The society's website says the archbishop of Denver has allowed the Doloran Fathers to work within the archdiocese (Society of the Most Sorrowful Mother).

His homilies, conferences and books are distributed through Sensus Traditionis, described as his official media outlet (Wikipedia). He has reached mainstream podcast audiences too, appearing on The Shawn Ryan Show, including an episode on "The Signs of Diabolical Influence in America" (Shawn Ryan Show); The Remnant Radio podcast reviewed one appearance, finding some of his teaching consonant with Scripture and some of it questionable (The Remnant Radio).

In a 2015 interview he said that of about 150 people his team had interviewed the previous year, only three were cases of genuine possession (Wikipedia). His teaching on "generational spirits" — which a retailer of his Deliverance Prayers book summarises as demons attaching to family lines after grave sins such as joining Freemasonry — has been controversial; the same listing says the book carries an imprimatur from the Archdiocese of Denver (Tumblar House). See Freemasonry and conspiracy claims.

Critics include Where Peter Is, which published "The bizarre and dangerous views of a celebrity exorcist" (Where Peter Is), and Mike Lewis, who in a Substack reply to a critic named Hichborn stood by his original article and listed disputed points including generational demons and curses and a claim that Catholics are prohibited from praying with Protestants (Mike Lewis, Substack). Ripperger has also criticised traditionalists: a 2019 lecture lists ten problems he sees in the traditional Catholic movement (Tumblar House), which blogger Dave Armstrong cited in defence of Traditionis Custodes (Patheos). From the other side, the traditionalist site AKA Catholic asked whether he was a "defender of tradition or company man" (AKA Catholic).