EWTN News reports that José Trinidad Zapata Ortiz, a “bishop” of the post-conciliar Mexican episcopate, has been appointed to lead a newly established “Ministry of Exorcism” (DEPAC), lamenting that baptized Catholics fall into esotericism due to a “lack of mature faith.” The entire framework of this initiative — from its naturalistic diagnosis to its bureaucratic solution — is a textbook example of how the conciar sect addresses spiritual catastrophe with the very modernist principles that caused it, while remaining silent on the one true remedy: the restoration of integral Catholic doctrine, the true Mass, and the social reign of Christ the King.
The Diagnosis That Diagnoses Everything Except the Disease
Zapata Ortiz frames the problem in purely subjective, psychological terms: Catholics fall into spiritism, Santa Muerte devotion, and “satanic practices” because they lack a “mature, committed, and convinced faith.” The solution he proposes is equally subjective: “consolation — to be listened to, to receive guidance, and to have prayers offered on their behalf.”
This is the language of the therapist’s couch, not the pulpit of a Catholic bishop. The conciliar sect has spent seven decades reducing the faith to a matter of personal “experience” and “journey,” and now its functionaries are bewildered when the faithful, starved of supernatural truth, turn to the occult for answers. The bishop laments that baptized Catholics “do not live out their faith in an orthodox manner,” yet the very structures he serves — the post-conciliar “Mass,” the reformed sacraments, the ecumenical and interreligious dialogue — have systematically destroyed any possibility of living the faith in an orthodox manner.
What Zapata Ortiz cannot say, because his entire institutional existence depends on not saying it, is that the proliferation of esotericism, spiritism, and satanic practices in Mexico and throughout the world is a direct and foreseeable consequence of the conciliar revolution. When the “Second Vatican Council” proclaimed religious liberty — condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (proposition 77: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship”) — it opened the floodgates to indifferentism. When the new “Mass” was promulgated, stripping the rite of its propitiatory character and its explicit Catholic identity, it emptied the liturgy of its supernatural power. When the “reformed” catechisms removed or softened the Church’s teaching on the devil, hell, and the reality of demonic action, they left the faithful defenseless.
The diagnosis is not a “lack of mature faith.” The diagnosis is apostasy — the systematic destruction of the faith by the very men who claim to be its custodians.
The Bureaucratic Response to Spiritual Warfare
The response of the Mexican “bishops’ conference” is to create yet another committee: the Pastoral Care of Consolation and the Ministry of Exorcism (DEPAC). This is the conciliar method par excellence: when faced with a spiritual crisis, form a commission. When the faith is dying, issue a document. When the faithful are falling into satanic practices, appoint a coordinator.
Zapata Ortiz explains that DEPAC “will not focus solely on ministering to exorcists” but aims at a comprehensive “pastoral ministry of consolation.” He emphasizes that all “priests” must “listen to their faithful to see what difficulties or sorrows they are enduring or suffering.” This is the language of the social worker, not the exorcist. The true ministry of exorcism, as practiced by the Church for nearly two millennia, was not a “pastoral ministry of consolation” but a spiritual combat waged by a priest with the full authority of the Church, using the traditional rite of exorcism, grounded in an unshakeable faith in the reality of the devil, the power of the sacraments, and the absolute sovereignty of Christ over all creation.
The traditional Church understood that the primary defense against demonic influence is not a “listening session” but sound doctrine, the sacraments validly administered, and a life of grace. As Pope Leo XIII taught in the Exorcism Prayer embedded in his 1886 instruction: the Church arms herself with prayer, fasting, and the authority of Christ — not with “pastoral accompaniment” and “formation courses” featuring psychologists and lay experts.
The Devil’s “Ordinary Action” and the Evasion of Responsibility
Zapata Ortiz makes a distinction between the “extraordinary action” of the devil (possession) and his “ordinary action” (temptation), noting that “it is through his ordinary action that the devil causes so much evil in the world” and that possession “happens once in a million cases.” He further states: “The devil can’t do what God doesn’t permit him to do, and what we don’t permit him to do… if he wreaks havoc upon us, it is because we first allowed him to do so.”
While the theological principle — that God permits demonic action and that human sin opens the door — is correct, the framing is deeply revealing. By emphasizing personal responsibility and minimizing extraordinary demonic action, the bishop effectively naturalizes the problem of evil. The implication is clear: the primary issue is not the cosmic battle between Christ and Satan, not the apostasy of the hierarchy, not the destruction of the liturgy — but the individual’s failure to “assume responsibility.”
This is the conciar hermeneutic applied to demonology: demystify, psychologize, and individualize. The traditional Church taught that the devil’s power is real, that the Church possesses divinely instituted means to combat him, and that the gravest openings to demonic influence are heresy, apostasy, and the corruption of worship. The Council of Trent anathematized those who deny that the Church has the power of exorcism. The traditional rite of exorcism is a solemn, awe-inspiring act of spiritual warfare — not a “pastoral ministry of consolation.”
The Qualities of an “Exorcist” in the Conciliar Sect
When asked about the qualities required of an exorcist, Zapata Ortiz responds: “We simply need a priest grounded in doctrine, a good priest, generally speaking… a Eucharistic priest, a Marian priest, a priest who enjoys caring for those in need, especially the sick… a priest who is, let us say, upright, transparent, and honest.”
This description is so vague as to be meaningless. Every “priest” in the conciar sect could theoretically meet these criteria — and yet the spiritual devastation continues unabated. The traditional Church required of an exorcist not merely moral uprightness but proven holiness of life, deep knowledge of theology, unshakeable faith, and explicit delegation from the bishop — not as a bureaucratic formality but as an act of the Church’s jurisdiction, which itself depends on the bishop’s own valid authority and orthodoxy.
Moreover, the very notion of a “Eucharistic priest” in the conciar context is hollow. The post-conciliar “Eucharist” is not the true Sacrifice of the Mass but a memorial meal stripped of its propitiatory character. A “priest” who celebrates the new “Mass” is not offering the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary but participating in a Protestantized rite that the Church’s own theologians before 1958 would have recognized as defective in its expression of Catholic doctrine. How can a “priest” whose very “Eucharist” is compromised be a credible instrument of exorcism?
The Silence That Condemns
What is entirely absent from this article — and what constitutes the gravest omission — is any mention of the true causes of the spiritual crisis in Mexico and the world:
No mention of the destruction of the Traditional Latin Mass — the true and valid Sacrifice that is the Church’s most powerful weapon against the forces of darkness. The traditional Mass, with its prayers of exorcism, its orientation toward God, its explicit Catholic doctrine, and its propitiatory character, is the antithesis of the conciliar “Mass,” which is oriented toward the community, stripped of exorcistic prayers, and ambiguous in its theological expression.
No mention of the apostasy of the conciliar hierarchy. The “bishops” of Mexico, like their counterparts worldwide, have embraced the errors of the “Second Vatican Council” — religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality — all of which were condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium. Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (proposition 55). Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas, taught that “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men” and that rulers have the duty to “publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The Mexican “bishops” have done the opposite: they have embraced the separation of Church and State, promoted religious indifferentism, and remained silent on the social reign of Christ the King.
No mention of the invalidity of post-conciliar sacraments. The reformed rites of ordination, confirmation, and extreme unction introduced after 1968 are at best doubtful in their validity. If the “priests” ordained under the new rite lack valid orders, then they cannot validly administer any sacrament — including exorcism. The entire DEPAC initiative rests on a foundation of sand.
No mention of the need for conversion to the true faith. The article speaks of “consolation” and “accompaniment” but never of the necessity of repentance, conversion, and submission to the integral Catholic faith. The Church has always taught that the primary remedy against demonic influence is the state of grace, obtained through true confession (with a validly ordained priest), true communion (with the true Eucharist), and a life lived in obedience to God’s commandments.
The Real Exorcism the Church Needs
The spiritual crisis in Mexico — and throughout the world — is not a problem that can be solved by committees, courses, or “pastoral ministries of consolation.” It is the fruit of apostasy — the systematic destruction of the faith by the conciliar revolution.
The true exorcism that the Church needs is not the expulsion of demons from individuals but the expulsion of modernism from the Church. This requires:
– The condemnation and reversal of the errors of the “Second Vatican Council” — religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, and the new “Mass.”
– The restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass as the normative liturgy of the Church.
– The reassertion of the social reign of Christ the King over all nations, as taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.”
– The recognition that a manifest heretic cannot be Pope — as taught by St. Robert Bellarmine, Wernz and Vidal, and John of St. Thomas — and that the line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII has no authority to teach, govern, or sanctify.
– The return to sound doctrine — the doctrine of the Fathers, the Councils, and the pre-conciliar Magisterium — as the only foundation for true spiritual combat.
Until this exorcism takes place, no amount of “pastoral care” or “ministry of consolation” will stem the tide of apostasy. The faithful will continue to fall into esotericism, spiritism, and satanic practices — not because they lack “mature faith,” but because the conciliar sect has destroyed the only means by which mature faith can be obtained and sustained.
Quas Primas teaches us: “If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society.” The opposite is also true: when Christ’s royal authority is denied — as it has been by the conciliar sect for seven decades — unheard-of curses flow upon the whole society. The rise of esotericism, the proliferation of satanic practices, and the spiritual devastation of the faithful are not mysteries. They are the logical and inevitable consequences of apostasy.
The remedy is not DEPAC. The remedy is Tradition.
Source:
Mexican bishop: Lack of mature faith leads Catholics to fall into esotericism (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 04.06.2026