(LifeSiteNews) — The worst chastisement God can inflict on his people is bad clergy, Exorcist Father Chad Ripperger pointed out during a Q&A session at the 2025 Call to Holiness Conference in Michigan.
Asked his thoughts on whether the world is undergoing a prophesied chastisement, Ripperger said, “Before there’s any physical chastisement, there’s usually a spiritual chastisement.”
He highlighted the declaration of St. John Eudes that bad priests are “the worst chastisement that God can mete out on a people,” adding that he thinks we are already undergoing this spiritual chastisement.
In his book The Priest, His Dignity and Obligations, St. John Eudes writes:
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clergy who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than charity and affection of devoted shepherds …
When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people, and is visiting His most dreadful anger upon them.
Ripperger then cited the prophecy of Our Lady of La Salette, who said there would be a chastisement before “25 years of good harvest” – which may have already occurred – then a falling away from spiritual discipline before the arrival of the Antichrist.
Incidentally, after Ripperger shared this, Cardinal Gerhard Müller spoke about how it is “problematic” and “not pastoral” for bishops to place restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).
“(We cannot say) ‘We only have this newer form (of the Mass) and the rest of the Catholics who are not content, they can leave … and go where they want.’ That is not pastoral; a good pastor is first interested in the salvation of souls,” Müller said.
The severe restrictions on the TLM by Pope Francis through Traditionis Custodes, and the cooperation of many bishops in this crackdown has been decried as cruel and illicit by many Catholics, including theologians, and even as the work of “wolves in sheep’s clothing” by journalist Stephen Kokx and others.
The crisis of heterodox teaching being promoted by Vatican prelates has caused faithful Catholics and even prelates such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider to also denounce high-ranking clergy as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
The crisis of clerical sex abuse and cover-up has prompted similar reproaches.
The laity can respond to the clerical crisis with acts of prayer and reparation of all different kinds, including more frequent Mass attendance, more Eucharistic adoration, and more rosaries or other prayers.