Catholic exorcist sues fellow Catholics, but what does Scripture say?
Hey guys. So, Catholic priest Father Carlos Martins has filed a defamation lawsuit against Catholic YouTuber Jesse Romero and Kyle Clement. Kyle Clement is Father Chad Ripperger’s personal assistant, right-hand man, close friend, and associate. The lawsuit alleges they lied about Carlos Martins being an exorcist priest and that it hurt his reputation.
Now, I’m no lawyer, but I was a Teamster for many years, and I think Father Carlos Martins has a good case. I’m going to show you the evidence, and then I’m going to show you what the Church says about brothers suing brothers and brothers slandering brothers. Hopefully, something good comes out of this.
Like I said, Kyle Clement is Father Chad Ripperger’s personal assistant, very close to Father Ripperger, who’s an exorcist priest. He went on Jesse Romero’s show and said Carlos Martins is not an exorcist priest. So that’s why Kyle Clement is being sued. Jesse Romero is being sued because he contacted Father Carlos Martins’ superior and asked him straight up, “Is he an exorcist priest?” And this is what he showed. He read it and showed it on his screen on his YouTube channel.
“In answer to your inquiry, Father Carlos has not been appointed as an exorcist by a particular diocese.”
So that’s what he read. And it was like, wow, slam dunk. But that wasn’t the whole letter. It went on to say:
“His full-time ministry is Treasures of the Church, however, due to his travels, he has been involved in exorcisms with the appropriate permission and or by request of the corresponding bishop.”
You can read the full wording of the letter in the federal court’s August 21, 2026, opinion.
Now, if I was Jesse, not knowing canon law and not knowing the ins and outs of exorcists, all the official things, I can see him thinking, okay, dude, that’s point blank. I don’t need to read the rest. It says it right here. In answer to your question, he’s not been appointed an exorcist. So I think Jesse may have made an honest mistake not reading the whole thing. And from what I understand, in a later video, he read the whole thing.
The difference between an appointed exorcist and an ad actum exorcist
There was an appointed exorcist in Tulsa, and his name is Monsignor Patrick Brankin, I believe. Monsignor Brankin said this, and I quote, “To say Father Carlos Martins isn’t an exorcist priest is delusional. He’s helped me with many exorcisms.” He goes on to explain what the misunderstanding is.
There can be a permanent exorcist assigned to a diocese by the bishop, and then there are exorcist priests who will perform exorcisms at the request of the bishop at certain times. They’re called ad actum. It’s Latin, ad actum, if you want to look it up. So he’s an exorcist priest, but he’s an ad actum exorcist priest rather than a permanent exorcist priest, according to the permanent exorcist priest. And that would explain the explanation of his superior, that he wasn’t assigned, yet he helps. The Code of Canon Law, Canon 1172, explains the Church’s requirement for special and express permission from the local ordinary to perform exorcisms.
So I think it’s just a big misunderstanding, but I can understand Father Carlos Martins being upset. I mean, in the past, he was joking with some girl about her hair because he’s going bald, or he’s bald, and he joked about having her hair. He said some silly jokes, and the family made a complaint against him. There was this big scandal, and everybody on YouTube was trash-talking this priest. Then it turns out it was just him joking about being bald and the girl having hair, and whatever the joke was. I don’t even know what it was, but it was no harm done.
And ultimately, prosecutors dropped the charges. So he was fully exonerated. The Diocese of Joliet confirmed that the case was dismissed, and the Companions of the Cross later confirmed that the allegations had been resolved in his favor.
So I can see his reaction. His reputation was smeared. I’m sure people were like, “Wow, what happened with him and a little girl?” I’m sure his reputation took a big hit. And so he’s like, “Okay, before this goes any further, I need to put a stop to this.” So I can see his point, and I can see Jesse Romero making that mistake. And I can see Kyle Clement, but I would think if you’re an assistant to Father Ripperger, maybe you could have found out. So that’s kind of weird.
Pope Francis Legacy →
But when I heard about this, I’m like, can you imagine Pope Francis if he sued everybody that lied about him on YouTube? There’d only be like two Catholic YouTubers and no Protestant YouTubers left on YouTube, and he’d be worth more than Elon Musk. But we all can’t be like Pope Francis.
Pope Francis was an exceptional Christian. In my view, he was the most Christlike Christian I’ve ever observed from afar. And people that knew him, both Protestant and Catholic, say yes, he was the best Christian they’ve ever met. He was the most Christlike man. You see, because when Jesus was accused, when Pontius Pilate said, “I have the power to let you go,” he didn’t try to defend himself. When Judas threw him under the bus, he didn’t defend himself.
He was meek, mild, and humble. Now, we all can’t be that Christlike. It’s hard. It takes the grace of God. It takes a lot of grace. And for some reason, Pope Francis had that grace. God gave him so much grace. I’ve never seen a man lied about, slandered so much as Pope Francis, and even worse, by his own children, by Catholics. It just blew my mind. And he never fought back.
They’re like, “Well, if he didn’t say that, why didn’t he defend himself?” Why didn’t Jesus? But we all can’t be like Pope Francis. And it’s really even harder to be like Jesus. None of us could be like Jesus, otherwise Jesus died in vain. But that’s the goal, to be Christlike.
What St. Paul tells Christians about suing one another
And St. Paul gives us clear instructions on how to handle situations like this. I forgot to grab my Bible. Jesus himself also gives us instructions. So we’re going to dive into the Scriptures here, and we’re going to see what St. Paul told the Corinthian church.
Now, this wasn’t a Christlike church. If you read First Corinthians, he’s correcting them on everything. Liturgical abuse, spiritual gift abuse, women talking in church. I mean, he was correcting them on everything, and he talks specifically about lawsuits.
And these verses I’m going to read you were always clear to me since I started following Christ. I’m going to read them to you, and you can get what you get out of them. But when I was a young evangelical, I knew Christians don’t sue Christians. And I would see these megachurch pastors suing each other, and I was like, this is when evangelicalism started cracking for me.
I was like, what’s their justification? The Bible clearly tells us not to sue. And they were like, “Well, I’m like the CEO of the church, and I’m responsible for the money of this business.” I was like, well, maybe we shouldn’t make church a business.
But then when I came to the Catholic Church, I actually saw a Catholic YouTuber who’s devout. He loves the Church, but he’s suing his brother. Like, literally two Catholics, two Catholic brothers. So never mind suing your brother in Christ. This guy was actually suing his brother.
So it’s not just Protestants that are doing it. And here’s a priest. And again, this priest has every right. He believes he’s been slandered and has every right.
But Paul shows us a better way. First Corinthians 6:1-8.
“When one of you has a grievance against a brother, does he dare go to the law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?”
So in other words, you’re going to go to the civil law. These guys are pagans. You’re going to sue your brother?
“Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?”
We’re going to be judges over these people. They may be high status, and you may be a poor Christian barely making ends meet, but one day you’re going to judge him in heaven. You’re going to be the judge according to the Scriptures.
“And if the world is to be judged by you, are you so incompetent?”
Like, he’s getting mad. You’re going to try trivial cases, earthly things? We’re going to be deciding people’s judgment in heaven or hell.
“Do you not know that we are to judge angels?”
Not only are we going to be judging people who didn’t accept the Lord, we’re going to be judging demons, fallen angels.
“How much more matters pertaining to this life? If then you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who are least esteemed by the church?”
Why do you bring them before people the Church doesn’t even recognize as Christian?
“I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no man among you wise enough to decide between members of the brotherhood, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?”
To have lawsuits at all with one another is a defeat to you. You’ve already lost. Even if you win the lawsuit, you’ve been defeated.
“Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren.”
So again, look at Christ. He did nothing wrong, yet he allowed himself to be wronged for the benefit of us. And he’s saying for Christians, it’s better to just take the hit. Like Pope Francis, people smeared him every day, and he never went back at them. How horrible would that look to the world if Pope Francis was attacking all of us? He never did. He never defended himself.
Jesus tells us how to confront a brother who sins
And how does Paul know this is from Christ? Because Christ tells us himself. Matthew 18:15-22.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”
If Kyle Clement called Father Martins and said, “Hey, I looked this up, and the appointed exorcist in your diocese is Monsignor Brankin. Why are you telling everybody you’re an exorcist priest?”
“Oh, I’m ad actum.”
Boom. That would have been it right there.
But if he does not listen, if he wasn’t ad actum and he kept telling people he was an exorcist priest when he wasn’t, it says take one or two. Okay, take Jesse Romero and Father Ripperger with you, so that every word he says can be confirmed.
And if he refuses to listen to you three, tell it to the Church. That’s when you bring it to his bishop. Hey, bishop, I forget his bishop’s name, whatever bishop he’s under. Hey, bishop, you have a priest telling everybody he’s an exorcist. Boom. That’s how you handle it.
“And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Excommunicate him.
“Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst.”
And then Peter said, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother? Seven?”
Because I think the Jewish tradition was three. So he was like, I’m going to be generous and say seven. And Jesus says, “No, seventy times seven.” He says that right after that.
So even though someone’s sinning against you, every time he repents, you forgive him. Now, if he doesn’t repent, then you excommunicate. That’s the context of that.
Why would Catholics make the Church look bad in public?
But what I don’t understand is why anybody would even bring this up in the public sphere. If you’re Catholic, why do you want to make the Catholic Church look bad? That’s what I don’t get. If you really didn’t think he was an exorcist priest, why are you putting that over YouTube to make a Catholic look bad? I mean, we’ve got to have each other’s backs, man.
Like I told my kids growing up, I don’t care what your brothers do out there, you always have their back. Family. Never go against family. Now, when he comes home, you tell me if he needs to be disciplined, I’ll discipline him. But in the streets, you have your brother’s back.
And my four boys and my daughter are extremely loyal to one another to this day, and they have children and are teaching them the same thing. But how much more for the Church? Family, don’t go against family, especially out in public. This is horrible.
So my prayer is that Father Carlos, although I think he’s in the right, lets it go, and he learns from Pope Francis and even more so from Jesus. Just let it go. It’s better to be wronged than to bring shame on the Church, our family.
And I pray that Jesse Romero apologizes publicly. I pray Kyle Clement apologizes publicly. That’s my prayer.
Closing announcements
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God bless and stay Catholic.