HOW MUCH POWER DOES THE CHURCH ACTUALLY HAVE OVER DEMONS?

QUESTION? / COMMENT!

How much power does the church actually have over demons?

ANSWER! / COMMENT!

Even the strongest demons cannot resist the authority of the Church when the Church acts in a formal way against them.  Exorcism is, in a certain sense, an irresistible power for expulsion when it is used properly and when the victim cooperates with it.  Exorcism cannot fail to have some salutary effect for the comfort or deliverance of the victim, even if in any given session the expulsion of the demon is not fully accomplished.

We must resist the false notions and Hollywood-generated perceptions that the Church is a beleaguered combatant against the devil in an exorcism.  It is the other way around!  Demons are bound by the Church's authority, and their only means of fighting back is to resist expulsion, if they can.  Rarely do demons overtly attack the priest in an exorcism, because they are generally too busy defending themselves!  Demons never trivialize the power of an exorcism; they flee it because they are always defeated by it.  They have a particular spiritual power which must be respected, but it is no match for the spiritual power of the Church.

By Fr. Thomas J Euteneuer " Exorcism and the Church Militant" page 45 question 31.