#12489 Can Demons Possess Parasites? Marriage and Sacraments - Jimmy Akin

Catholic Answers Live

Catholic Answers

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Can demons possess parasites?” This intriguing question opens a discussion on the nature of possession and its implications for smaller creatures. The conversation also touches on the validity of a civil marriage conducted under extreme circumstances, and the complexities of the law of attraction in relation to Catholic theology. Join us as we navigate these thought-provoking topics.

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Questions Covered:

01:54 – If I were stranded on a desert island with a woman and we wanted to be married, could we exchange vows and consider ourselves married until we are rescued and finally have access to a priest?
05:38 – From the perspective of Catholic theology and canon law, how would the church view Adolf Hitler’s marriage to Eva Braun—conducted in a civil ceremony in the Führerbunker shortly before suicide? Specifically, how would factors like lack of sacramental intent, possible impediments (e.g., public notoriety, consent, coercion, psychological state, lack of openness to children), and the lack of Catholic form (or emergency situation) affect its validity or liceity?
21:26 – How true is the law of attraction, and how much do we create our reality with our thoughts and feelings?
34:47 – Here’s a weird one. We know that demons can possess people and animals, but can demons possess creatures smaller than this? Say, Parasites, bacteria and viruses? Given the overwhelming role that the gut microbiome plays in mood, emotions, cravings etc., it would seem advantageous for a demon to possess these smaller creatures and manipulate man via biochemical means if they couldn’t possess him directly. If this is possible, would this be a case of possession or oppression? Additionally, might this be the reason that some demons can only be cast out by fasting? I.e fasting radically changes the gut microbiome and perhaps the creature they are possessing are killed off by the process of fasting.
45:42 – Is bilocation cloning, time travel, or doppelgängering (like something that’s not the bilocated person taking the form of the person, like an angel or something)? In the first and second example, what’s going on with the soul there? Is it two of the same soul in two places? Or two bodies one soul? Is that two different people? What happened when one of them goes away? What is going on?!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent.
0:05.2	When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers.
0:11.5	Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Welcome to Catholic Answers Live. My name is Edgar Lujano. It is a pleasure to join you on this Friday. As you hear the music, it's a little different. It's a little weird, which means we have weird questions for you. I'm filling in for Cy Keller today. He's over in Oklahoma giving a few talks with I think Carlo and Joe. So I'm sure he's out there having a great time. But while he's having fun out there,
0:54.6	we're going to have a great time here. So no calls today. We have all the questions we need on
0:59.1	weird questions here with Jimmy Aiken. I love doing these shows. These are just so much fun. It
1:05.5	just kind of gives you a step away, step away from the normal routine. Yeah, there are a lot of fun, and the weird question shows in particular are fun because you get to use,
1:16.6	you get to look at an unusual situation and extract the relevant principles and apply them in new ways.
1:23.6	Yeah.
1:24.1	Great.
1:25.0	You know, when I used to be a teacher, I would always tell my students to listen to Mysterious World because they would always ask them some weird questions.
1:34.2	Good teaching advice. Thank you. And also these episodes, because some of these questions, some of the questions they would ask me, I think would be very fitting for a show like this. So I told them, listen to that. I think a lot of the kids would really
1:47.7	enjoy it. So I don't know if they ever took me up on the offer, but I put it out there. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, sure thing. Well, I guess we can just jump right in since there's plenty of questions. All right. Let's start with a Catholic electrician asks, if I were stranded
2:03.7	on a desert island with a woman and wanted to be married, could we exchange vows and consider
2:08.4	ourselves married until we are rescued and finally have access to a priest? As long as you've got
2:14.6	witnesses, the answer is a clear yes. So hopefully it's not just you and the woman, but hopefully a couple of other people who could witness the marriage.
2:25.1	Canon law, if that's the case, canon law expressly provides for this situation.
2:31.2	It's in canon 1116. Section 1 of the canon says, if a person competent to
2:39.0	assist according to the norm of law, meaning assisted a marriage, if a person competent to assist
2:45.0	according to the norm of law cannot be present, that would be like your pastor or someone delegated by your pastor, like another
2:52.9	priest or a deacon. Or they can't be approached without grave inconvenience. Those who intend to
3:01.9	enter into a true marriage, that would be the Catholic electrician and the woman he's talking about, can contract it validly
3:10.8	and licently before witnesses only, one, in danger of death, and two, outside of danger of death,
	...

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