Demons Are Real — and They're Coming for Your Kids by Jeff Callaway

Demons Are Real — and They're Coming for Your Kids

By Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

A Catholic Investigative & Catechetical Wake-Up Call for Parents

The greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing the world he doesn't exist. And brother, he's been wildly successful. Walk into any Catholic parish in America and you'll find believers who profess faith in God Almighty yet live like atheists when it comes to the spiritual war raging around them. They prepare their kids for college, for careers, for physical dangers and social pressures. But how many are preparing their children to face demons?

Not metaphorical demons. Not symbolic evil. Not the cartoon devil with a pitchfork. I'm talking about literal, intelligent, strategic fallen angels who prowl this earth seeking the ruin of souls, and who have set their sights squarely on your children.

This isn't paranoia. This is Catholic doctrine. This is biblical truth. And if you think I'm being dramatic, you haven't been paying attention.

THE CHURCH'S UNCOMPROMISING TEACHING: DEMONS ARE REAL BEINGS

Let's get something straight from the jump. The Catholic Church doesn't treat demons as medieval superstition or psychological projections. The Catechism states it plainly: demons are fallen angels, created good by God, who through their own free choice rejected Him irrevocably. They possess intelligence, will, and strategic intent. The power of Satan is real, though not infinite, and his action may cause grave injuries of a spiritual nature and indirectly even of a physical nature to each person and to society.

These aren't fairy tales. Satan was created by God as a good angel but became evil by his own doing. Scripture calls him a murderer from the beginning, a liar and the father of lies. The Book of Revelation identifies him as the ancient serpent who deceived the whole world and was cast down to earth along with his angels. This is the enemy we face. This is the force arrayed against your family.

Jesus Christ Himself treated demons as literal enemies. He commanded them, expelled them, conversed with them. Read the Gospels. Twenty-three percent of Christ's recorded ministry involved dealing with demons directly. He never once suggested they were symbolic. He never corrected anyone for believing in their existence. When the demons begged Him not to torment them, He didn't offer therapy. He cast them into a herd of swine.

And the Church continues this ministry today. Exorcism isn't a Hollywood invention. It's an official ministry with Vatican-approved rites updated as recently as 1999. Bishops worldwide appoint trained exorcists. Father Gabriele Amorth, the Chief Exorcist of Rome, claimed to have performed over sixty thousand exorcisms during his ministry. Father Chad Ripperger reports that approximately forty-one million people worldwide are possessed, though this represents only a fraction of demonic activity. Most demonic influence occurs through oppression and obsession rather than full possession.

These men aren't cranks. They're trained theologians and priests operating under the authority of the Church, documenting real encounters with real evil. Father Amorth emphasized one critical point throughout his writings: people have lost the Faith, and superstition, magic, and occult practices have taken its place, opening all the doors to demonic presence.

WHY SATAN TARGETS CHILDREN SPECIFICALLY

Here's what every parent needs to understand: Satan doesn't play fair, and he doesn't target adults exclusively. In fact, children are his preferred victims because they're easier to form and deform.

This strategy has biblical precedent. Pharaoh slaughtered Hebrew infants. Herod massacred the Innocents trying to kill the Christ child. Throughout Scripture, the pattern holds: destroy them young, before they can grow strong in faith. Jesus Himself issued a terrifying warning about those who cause little ones to sin, declaring it would be better for such a person to have a millstone tied around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Children are spiritually vulnerable in ways adults aren't. Their consciences are still developing. Their imaginations aren't yet disciplined. They naturally trust authority figures. They're exposed to influences without the discernment to evaluate them. This makes them perfect targets for demonic strategy, which operates on a simple principle: early normalization.

If evil feels normal, it no longer feels dangerous. If sin feels playful, it no longer feels sinful. Get them young enough, and you don't have to force anything. You just have to make darkness look like light, and they'll walk into it willingly.

TECHNOLOGY: THE DIGITAL GATEWAY TO HELL

Satan has never had a delivery system as powerful as the smartphone. Think about what screens have done to the human condition. Constant stimulation has weakened our capacity for attention, silence, prayer, and discernment. Silence is where God speaks, as He spoke to Elijah not in earthquake or fire but in the still, small voice. But our children live in a cacophony that never stops, and in that noise, God's voice is drowned out.

It's not just about corrupt content, though God knows there's plenty of that. It's about content saturation. Your child consumes thousands of images daily. Moral frameworks aren't being taught anymore, they're being formed passively through an endless scroll of algorithmic poison. And those algorithms? They're designed to reward narcissism, rage, despair, and sexualization, because that's what keeps people engaged, and engagement drives profit.

The Catechism warns us about this in its teaching on modesty and guarding the imagination. We are called to deliver ourselves from the Evil One through constant vigilance. But how can parents maintain vigilance when the enemy has a portal directly into their child's pocket, operating twenty-four hours a day?

Technology isn't neutral. The medium shapes the message, and the message our kids are receiving is this: truth is relative, your feelings define reality, pleasure is the highest good, and anyone who tells you otherwise is hateful. That's not education. That's indoctrination. And it's happening in real-time while parents sleep.

THE OCCULT DISGUISED AS ENTERTAINMENT

The occult no longer looks dark and dangerous. It looks cute. It looks empowering. It looks fun.

Walk through any bookstore's young adult section and count how many covers feature witchcraft as empowerment. Magic detached from moral consequence. Crystals, astrology, and manifesting rebranded as wellness and self-care. It's everywhere, normalized and celebrated, sold to children as innocent exploration.

But the Church's teaching is crystal clear. The Catechism condemns all forms of divination, including horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens, clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums. These practices conceal a desire for power over time, history, and other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers, and they contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear we owe to God alone.

All practices of magic or sorcery which attempt to tame occult powers are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion, and are even more condemned when they have recourse to the intervention of demons.

Parents need to understand something crucial: demons exploit invitation, not force. They can't kick down the door. But they can slip through cracks. And those cracks are opened through curiosity, consent, and repetition. When your child watches a show that treats witchcraft as harmless fun, when they play with a ouija board at a sleepover, when they start checking their horoscope daily, they're extending invitations. And demons are very patient about answering.

"But it's just pretend," parents say. "It's just entertainment."

Friend, spiritual doors don't care about your intentions. They care about actions. You can't flirt with darkness and expect to stay in the light. The pretend becomes practice, and practice opens pathways.

GENDER IDEOLOGY: SPIRITUAL CONFUSION AS WEAPON

If you want to see Satan's oldest tactic on full display, look at gender ideology. It's the same strategy he used in Eden: "Did God really say?" Cast doubt on what God has clearly revealed, then offer an alternative that promises godlike power.

God created humanity male and female in His image. This isn't cultural conditioning. This isn't arbitrary social construct. Sexual difference is willed by God, and given that we are a unity of body and soul, our human bodies and sexuality are an integral part of being made in the image of God. The body isn't a costume you wear. The body reveals the person.

Gender ideology severs this unity. The Church teaches we are inescapably a unity of body and soul, and our bodies express the reality of who we are as persons. When the connection between body and soul is broken, gender ideology reduces biological sex to an outside imposition and treats the mind alone as determinative. This is body-soul dualism, and it's heresy masquerading as compassion.

The goal isn't just confusion. The goal is self-hatred. Satan wants your child to hate the body God gave them, to see their created nature as a mistake, to believe that their very existence needs correction. When an individual mutilates the body in an attempt to become the opposite sex, they mutilate an essential part of who God created them to be. They don't become themselves. They destroy themselves.

And make no mistake, this ideology is being taught to children as young as kindergarten in public schools across this nation. They're being told their bodies lie, that biology is oppressive, that choosing your gender is like choosing your clothes. It's poison, and it's everywhere.

The Church's response is clear and uncompromising. The Church does not believe that bodies are screens on which to perform identity, nor that identity can be changed at will like a social media profile. Biological sex and gender can be distinguished but not separated, and it is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality.

HOMOSEXUALITY: THE CHURCH'S TEACHING WITHOUT APOLOGY

Let me be absolutely clear about what the Church teaches, because cultural pressure has made many Catholics weak-kneed on this issue.

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law, close the sexual act to the gift of life, and do not proceed from genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

This isn't hate. This is truth spoken in love. The Church acknowledges that people with deep-seated homosexual tendencies face a real trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity, and every sign of unjust discrimination should be avoided. But compassion doesn't mean affirming sin. Homosexual persons are called to chastity, just as all Christians are called to chastity according to their state in life.

Our culture celebrates Pride parades while calling Catholic teaching hateful. But which is more loving: telling someone the truth that might save their soul, or affirming them in choices that lead to spiritual death? Real love doesn't pat you on the back as you walk toward a cliff. Real love grabs you by the shoulders and turns you around.

Parents must understand the propaganda war being waged for their children's minds. Schools, media, and even some churches are teaching that same-sex attraction makes homosexual acts morally acceptable. That sexual orientation trumps moral law. That love justifies any expression. These are lies, and they're being sold to children who lack the formation to resist them.

PORNOGRAPHY: THE PLAGUE DESTROYING SOULS

If there's a demonic masterpiece in our age, it's pornography. It's everywhere. It's free. It's designed to be addictive. And it's destroying souls at an industrial scale.

The Catechism doesn't mince words. Pornography consists of removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of partners to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, does grave injury to the dignity of its participants, and immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense.

Grave offense means mortal sin. Mortal sin means spiritual death. Mortal sin means separation from God's grace. And this mortal sin is being committed by children, often before they hit puberty, because smartphones give them access to hell's entire library.

Pornography promotes a harmful and destructive view of the human person, treating bodies as objects of base pleasure rather than temples of the Holy Spirit. It trains the brain to associate arousal with pixels instead of persons, pleasure with consumption instead of communion. It makes real intimacy impossible because it replaces love with lust, and lust is a disordered desire for sexual pleasure isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

Parents, if you haven't had the conversation about pornography with your children, you're already behind. The average age of first exposure is eleven. Eleven. Your child will encounter pornography before they're ready to understand it, and if you don't equip them to recognize it as spiritual poison, they'll drink deep and wonder why their soul feels sick.

CHRISTIANS AS FUNCTIONAL ATHEISTS

Here's the hard truth most Catholics don't want to hear: we believe in God but live like atheists when it comes to spiritual warfare.

Prayer gets replaced by platitudes. Sacraments are treated as optional extras. Confession gets abandoned because we're too busy or too embarrassed. We've stopped believing that supernatural grace operates through supernatural means. We act like Christianity is just a philosophy to improve our lives, not a battle for eternity.

And when someone does talk about demons, about spiritual warfare, about the reality of evil, we get uncomfortable. "That's too extreme," we say. "You're being dramatic." "God wouldn't allow that."

But Scripture is unambiguous. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. This isn't metaphor. This is the apostle Paul describing reality.

The problem is that denying the battle doesn't exempt you from it. It just means you show up unarmed. Your kids don't get a pass because you're skeptical. The demons don't take weekends off because you're busy. The war continues whether you acknowledge it or not. And right now, parents are sending their children into combat zones with no armor, no weapons, and no understanding that they're even in danger.

BECOMING SPIRITUAL WARRIORS: PRACTICAL STEPS FOR PARENTS

So what do we do? How do parents move from functional atheism to active spiritual warfare?

First, understand that the domestic church is your responsibility. You are the primary spiritual authority in your child's life. We must put on the whole armor of God to stand against the schemes of the devil. That armor includes truth, righteousness, readiness to spread the gospel, faith, salvation, and the word of God. But it only works if you actually put it on.

Make the sacraments non-negotiable in your home. Regular confession cleanses the soul and closes demonic entry points. The Eucharist is Christ's literal Body and Blood, the most powerful spiritual weapon we possess. Don't just receive it, teach your children to reverence it. Holy water isn't superstition, it's a sacramental that drives back evil. Bless your home. Bless your children's rooms. Bless their devices.

Pray the Rosary as a family. Mary crushes the serpent's head. Demons flee from her intercession. The Saint Michael Prayer should be memorized and prayed daily. Here it is if you don't know it: "Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."

Teach your children discernment. Evil doesn't always look evil. Satan appears as an angel of light. Teach them to recognize lies cloaked in compassion, poison wrapped in tolerance, death disguised as liberation. Name evil without obsessing over it. Teach them that Christ has authority over all demons, all powers, all forces. Teach them that prayer isn't ritual, it's relationship, and that relationship is their greatest defense.

Control the technology in your home. I don't care if it's unpopular. I don't care if other parents let their kids have unrestricted access. Smartphones and tablets are portals. Treat them accordingly. Use filters. Check histories. Know what your children are consuming. The argument "but I want to trust them" is foolish when the stakes are their immortal souls. Trust isn't the issue. Protection is.

Get brutal about the media your family consumes. If a show normalizes witchcraft, turn it off. If a book treats magic as morally neutral, throw it out. If a game glorifies violence for its own sake, destroy it. Yes, destroy it. Your child's entertainment is forming their conscience. Make sure it's forming virtue, not vice.

Have the hard conversations. Talk about sexuality from a Catholic perspective before the world does. Talk about gender ideology and why it's false. Talk about pornography and why it destroys love. Talk about the occult and why God forbids it. Don't wait until they're older. The enemy isn't waiting. Get ahead of him.

And finally, go to confession yourself. Frequently. You cannot fight this battle in a state of mortal sin. You cannot protect your children if you're not protecting your own soul. Clean house spiritually. Get right with God. Then lead your family from a position of spiritual strength, not compromise.

THIS IS NOT FEAR—THIS IS FORMATION

Some will read this article and accuse me of fearmongering. They'll say I'm traumatizing children by talking about demons. They'll insist that focusing on the demonic is unhealthy, negative, medieval thinking.

To them I say this: Ignoring the enemy doesn't protect anyone. Ignorance isn't innocence. And refusing to prepare your children for spiritual warfare isn't love, it's negligence.

Fear would be obsessing over demons to the exclusion of Christ. That's not what I'm advocating. Formation is different. Formation means teaching your children the truth about the battle they're in and equipping them to fight it victoriously. Formation means grounding them so deeply in Christ that when darkness comes, they recognize it immediately and reject it completely.

Christ has already won. The victory is secured. The Cross defeated Satan, the Resurrection destroyed death, and the Ascension established Christ's eternal reign. But parents must enforce that victory in their homes. We must claim the authority Christ gives us and exercise it boldly.

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. That destruction continues through His Body, the Church, and through families who refuse to surrender ground to evil. Your family is a battleground. Choose which side wins.

CONCLUSION: FIGHT OR FALL

Demons are real. They're intelligent, patient, strategic, and utterly committed to your destruction and your children's damnation. They've been at this game for millennia. They know your weaknesses better than you do. They watch for openings, exploit vulnerabilities, and never stop working.

But greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. The Spirit of God dwelling within you is infinitely more powerful than any demon hell can deploy. The name of Jesus makes demons tremble. The Blood of Christ washes souls white as snow. The grace dispensed through the sacraments builds spiritual fortresses that evil cannot breach.

The question isn't whether the battle is real. The question is whether you'll fight.

So parent, warrior, guardian of souls: Will you wake up? Will you recognize the enemy? Will you put on the armor of God and defend your household? Will you teach your children to be saints, or will you hand them over to hell through neglect?

The choice is yours. But make no mistake—you are choosing. Inaction is a choice. Indifference is a choice. Comfort is a choice. And every choice you make either fortifies your children against evil or leaves them exposed to it.

Choose wisely. Eternity hangs in the balance.

"Be sober and vigilant. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith." — 1 Peter 5:8-9

~ Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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