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(LifeSiteNews) — LifeSiteNews co-founder Steve Jalsevac recently sat down with Father Joseph Devereaux of the Diocese of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, to discuss how he became a priest, the preternatural problems in society, the crises in the world, and what to make of them.
Jalsevac begins the conversation discussing how Devereaux got to Peterborough, where he once served as the chancellor for that diocese. Devereaux says that the bishop at the time, Nicola De Angelis, was looking for someone to work in the marriage tribunals. A priest told Devereaux about it and, coming to Peterborough, Devereaux was “providentially” received by the bishop.
“I never, ever thought I’d be here, because I had worked as an engineer in the diocese before I went to the seminary,” the priest says.
He worked in the marriage tribunal for a time before becoming judicial vicar and then chancellor while always having a parish, for De Angelis believed that curial officials should have parishes to be “connected with the people.” Describing De Angelis, Devereaux calls him “pastoral” and “fatherly.”
“He was a man of the Church,” Devereaux continues. “He knew that he was serving the Church.”
Vocation to the priesthood
Touching upon his personal history, Devereaux says that his was a “circuitous route,” something he supposes is not unusual for priests. To him, priests appreciate their priesthood more when they experience difficulty getting ordained.
He began as an engineer in the diocese when he became interested in the priesthood, having a twin brother who was “investigating.” Both went to different places; Devereaux approached the Augustinians, while his brother approached the Redemptorists. While Devereaux visited several communities, including the Legionaries of Christ and the Oblates of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he opted to join the Augustinians.
“They resonated with me, because they were active/contemplative,” he tells Jalsevac. “They were friars, they had a dairy farm, I came from a dairy farm, they had parishes.”
While he joined the Augustinians, Devereaux recalls the times being confusing, namely the late 1980s and early 1990s. The events of the preceding years, pertaining to “instability in religious communities” and stemming from liberalization and sexual issues, were such that he left the Augustinians and studied by himself for a time, and he still felt a call to the priesthood.
Experience with the Fraternity of St. Peter
Devereaux eventually approached the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a society he loves and which he has gratitude for, since he believes he would not have been ordained without them. The FSSP is a religious community established to say the Latin Mass, and it arose from the concern of several former members of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) over Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s consecration of four bishops without St. John Paul II’s permission.
Those who approached Rome, Devereaux recounts, desired to remain in communion with the Pope, asking for a new order to fulfill their charism, negotiating with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
“I think it was [Ratzinger] who suggested the name ‘The Fraternity of St. Peter,’” the priest says.
However, there were “family problems.” Devereaux recalls quoting to the 2000 General Chapter St. Augustine’s statement that in essentials there must be unity, in nonessentials flexibility, and in all things charity. Upon his ordination for the Fraternity, Devereaux eventually returned to Canada, arriving in London, Ontario. He eventually went to Peterborough, something he calls a “blessing.”
“The people were great here,” he recalls. “I’d have to say that people in Peterborough… a lot of them were faithful, they had seen their own problems in the Church, they were waiting for better days. And so, I just became connected with a lot of wonderful people in the parishes that I’ve been at.”
Why he left certain places
While he admits he does not give all details as to why he left certain places, Devereaux tells Jalsevac that “in many respects it was lack of charity.” Recalling why he left his parish in Ontario, Devereaux used a pun in his meeting with the bishop, saying that “there came a pharaoh who knew him not.” Recalling also his mother’s reaction to seeing him visit several communities, Devereaux says that she said they were letting young men in through the front door while kicking them out through the back. “St. Paul says charity is a predominant virtue,” he observes.
Whether his time at a steel mill helped him as a priest
Turning to his time as an engineer, Jalsevac asks Devereaux if it helped him as a priest, and Devereaux believes it did. Recalling that he was once a manufacturing engineer at a steel foundry, the priest notes that it was not the most Christian place, with the dirt and the men there being “rough and gruff.” While he would be looking at his projects, the others would take Our Lord’s name in vain, and he would say, “Pray for us.” It made them uncomfortable, but it did communicate the point.
“When I left, many of them, I’d become friends with them,” Devereaux recalls. “Has it helped me? Yeah, because a lot of them were good men, they weren’t Catholic, per se, but they recognized, because I was Catholic, I prayed before I ate meals.” He remembers that a Christian man once asked him if he prayed before he ate, supposing that he was not “brave enough” at the time to bless himself before eating. Devereaux responded in the affirmative. “There were things that we resonated with,” he says.
One man asked what the Catholic position on a moral question would be, saying that Devereaux knew the answer even if he said he did not. “They even looked up to the Catholic Church,” he observes. Devereaux says that friendships were maintained with people he knew before becoming a priest, and that some of the men attended his ordination even though they were not Catholic.
Why he is strong on traditional Catholic moral teaching and pro-life issues
When Jalsevac asks Devereaux why he is a staunch defender of pro-life issues and traditional Catholic morals, Devereaux says that if one is praying, and if one knows what is happening in the world, those are issues that one has to know about.
Noting that he recently read in a newspaper that younger priests are talking about sin, having children, going to confession, and abortion, Devereaux says that those are “Catholic things.” Also looking to his childhood, being one of eight children who lived on a farm, Catholicism was “lived.” While there was a time when the Rosary was neglected, Devereaux remembers that his parents were the example, saying they were “faithful,” “humble,” and “holy.”
“I said at my mother’s funeral… ‘Our parents,’ to my siblings… ‘That generation was better than us. They were faithful, they were holy, they were humble … but of all of them, I’m the most like them.’ And so they laughed.
Looking back at his childhood, Devereaux and Jalsevac recall everyone going to church on Sunday, and Devereaux recalls that the thanksgiving after Mass when he came back from college, which saw everyone kneel down upon receiving the Blessed Sacrament, began to “be diminished” because people started to leave once the priest gave the final blessing. “Even back then, there was a diminishment,” he notes. He also says he never lost his faith, and that all the priests he had known while growing up and at college were “solid, faithful” priests who “preached the truth.”
Both men agree that the most important influences for vocations are parents and priests, and Devereaux says he had both. “I always tell people, ‘What’s the three things you have to do to be saved as Catholics? Go to Mass, go to confession, pray the Rosary,’” Devereaux says considering his parents. “They were busy, they had a lot of work to do, and that’s what they were faithful to.”
When Jalsevac speaks to the general decline of Christianity in general, Devereaux notes that people have no conception of religion. While people will greet him in the United States if he is getting gas at a gas station, such a thing does not occur in Canada. Recalling something a foreign priest said a decade ago about Canada, Devereaux says this priest told him that it was hardest serving in Canada due to the country’s secularism.
Changes noticed with funerals
When Devereaux would invite people to pray the Our Father at funerals, a prayer shared by Catholics and non-Catholic Christians, he would notice that some would not pray, including the young. While the initial inclination is to say that they were “obstinate,” Devereaux realized that they don’t know the prayer.
When Jalsevac asks how funerals have changed, Devereaux speaks to the “total unfamiliarity” people have with ritual and the spiritual life, saying that such things are “foreign” to people. Jalsevac notes that many no longer have funerals and Devereaux agrees, adding that at the ones he does celebrate the people noticeably no longer have a “formal practice of any faith.”
“You see it with the roadside tragedies,” the priest remarks. “They hold onto the symbols of the faith, so there’ll be a cross, there’ll be something, but they don’t know where to go.”
In Devereaux’s experience, cremation is found in the majority of funerals now. “You see the body, you grieve, you cry,” says the priest. “When the cremains come, there’s really none of that. It’s been sanitized. It’s sterile. Plus, time-wise, there’s usually been a big lag, because they wait for a convenient time when they can get everyone together for a funeral and a burial.”
African priests, Devereaux tells Jalsevac, will say that pagans cremate while Christians do not. Furthermore, people in Canada view it as cheaper, while funeral directors tell Devereaux that the funeral home is being left out of the picture completely.
“They go straight to the crematorium and they get the ashes, and at some point they have some celebration,” the priest says. “It’s a disconnect with living and dying.”
The problem of the preternatural in society
Devereaux says that he is going on a sabbatical, something which he is looking forward to, though he notes that people are having preternatural problems. As a priest, Devereaux says, people will appear with problems or desire things to be blessed after never before coming to the parish and meeting Devereaux for the first time.
“I say to them, ‘This is a very interesting collection of religious articles, it’s all for fighting evil, what’s your problem?’” the priest tells Jalsevac. While they tell him their problem, Devereaux says that a good deal of the time they are bothered, perhaps by “manifestations of evil spirits.” As chancellor, he also says people would call the chancery and say that there is something in their house, which, upon examination, cannot be explained at times. Others will come and claim possession. Some are, Devereaux admits.
When asked when the problems began and if they were involved in the occult, Devereaux, to his surprise, will find that they were, commonly through psychics, Ouija boards. Devereaux keven nows a case that came about through the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game and consulting fortune tellers. Another thing Devereaux sees is generational preternatural problems over some “wound” in the past. Now the priest sees people cite Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
“One lady came to see me – out of the blue – she happens to be in the area, not coming to church, but a Catholic, and says strange things are happening in her house,” he says. “After a few meetings, then you find out, well, her husband was sick, and she consented and condoned him having the medical assistance in death.”
Telling about how a Presbyterian approached him in front of his parish, the Presbyterian said he was with his friend when she accessed MAiD, asking what the Church says about such things. When told that the Church neither agrees with nor allows it, the man, aged 70, began weeping. Devereaux simply told him to pray for the friend and that she was now in God’s hands
“This is it now,” he says. “People are being led astray, they’re being deceived.” When Jalsevac asks if it is true that most priests do not get the proper training to deal with such situations, Devereaux says yes. Priests know in their personal lives about the battle between good and evil, Satan and his minions, and that Christ is “fundamentally an exorcist,” and seminaries may have courses on angelology, but they are not giving seminarians “practical tools” or “prayers to pray.”
Responding to Jalsevac’s presumption that there is an increase in people visiting priests over preternatural issues, Devereaux says there is, and it is now happening because people are “free to do everything,” including public devil worship. Meanwhile, some priests turn people away because they do not know how to deal with the situation.
Giving an example, Devereaux says that a woman came to see him believing herself possessed. She called him from a church when having a difficult day, and when Devereaux told her to go to the priest and have him hear her confession, the priest later left Devereaux a voicemail saying that the incident disturbed him, to which Devereaux said to him, “Good. Did you hear her confession?”
“He didn’t do her very much good because he was afraid of it himself,” he says. “This is life. This is God, and good, and evil, and this is our human condition. And so priests don’t have the practical skills that they need.”
Upon researching, Devereaux thought to himself that he needed more “skill and tools,” and got permission from his bishop to go to the Pope Leo XIII Institute in Chicago to undergo a four-module course on deliverance ministry and demonology.
Speaking to how the topic of the preternatural performs well online, Devereaux agrees with Jalsevac in part that it is indeed because of a need for such content. But in his own view, another trap people fall into is curiosity. “A lot of people are curious and they watch all these things, and it might be better for them just to live a good Christian life, to pray,” he says. “You don’t need all these stories.”
While people can listen to some to know what it is, they should then pray and let God use them as an instrument, the priest maintains.
Jalsevac says that there are more people in his life who used to be reasoned with but cannot now, because they react with hatred, fear, or obstinacy. Devereaux tells him that human beings are inherently religious, and that even the pagans believed there was something more powerful than them. Now, however, religion is not practiced and will eventually not even be thought of.
“If you’re not thinking about God, eventually you’re not going to be thinking about Him at all,” the priest observes.
Abortion and its effect on the spirit
Turning his attention to abortion, Devereaux agrees with Jalsevac that it has a negative effect on the soul, since one is taking the most vulnerable and innocent life one could, adding that abortion is the “number one crime… that’s not spoken of.” Meanwhile, the practice is promoted, with Devereaux looking to its protection under the French constitution.
“This is diabolical,” Devereaux says. “To enshrine something, that this is a right, whether it’s the United States or Canada… you’re killing the unborn, you’re killing the innocent.” This being the “most diabolical of all,” Devereaux maintains, any society that performs abortions will not be blessed. Meanwhile, the spiritual effect of abortion on people is a “great darkness” in them.
“Until you come before God and say, ‘I’m sorry for this,’ you have to confess and be repentant,” Devereaux tells Jalsevac. Referring to earlier comments about pride, humility, his parents, and charity, he says “we have to give the message” but in a way that is charitable.
Meanwhile, the priest says society must stop killing, period. The issue has “progressed” from abortion to killing the elderly, something Devereaux also says is diabolical.
“Life is sacred, and it is a diabolical deception, that we throw the gift back in God’s face,” the priest tells Jalsevac.
The duty of clerics and laymen for the crises we face
Devereaux maintains that people need to “speak out” and say that things are wrong when they are wrong, especially priests. “If you’re not gonna hear in the 55 minutes that you’re in church on Sunday, who are you gonna hear from?” he asks. While someone would object that only the old are going to church now and are no longer having children, Devereaux points out that they have grandchildren and children. “We all have to speak about it,” the priest maintains.
“Even Catholics are reticent,” he notes. “It’s almost like, and this is what the government has gone towards, your faith is a private affair, it’s not to impinge upon the civil arena. And so we don’t.”
Recalling something that he said at the cathedral in London, Ontario, during an election, Devereaux said “Vote the issues: pro-life, life.” “Don’t vote with your wallet,” he told people. “I got a lot of criticism, and the rector, he was upset because I wasn’t politically correct,” he recalls.
When people are experiencing relative comfort, Devereaux says, people think all will be well and get better. But things inevitably change, and people’s money, comfort, and security could disappear. “I’m a firm believer something big has to happen before people return to God,” he says. “God has to bring us to our knees, because right now we don’t need God.”
While Devereaux has hope for young people with strong foundations, pointing to good parents and grandparents, most people, he maintains, have nothing to return to and must rediscover what was lost, something he says is “much harder.”
“God doesn’t give up on people,” the priest adds. Looking to The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher, the priest says that Dreher was contacted by an Orthodox Jew who told him that they were “dying out” a century ago. The decision facing the Jews, he told Dreher, was to return to their roots, living together, worshiping together, having as many children as they could, and now they are growing. “We have to do the same,” the priest says. “We have to return to our roots.”
Where things are going now
Responding to Jalsevac’s question on where he sees things going, Devereaux says he is a “joyful pessimist.”
Recalling a woman who once came to the chancery to complain about Devereaux’s thoughts on the matter, he told her, “I’m joyful because I’m Christian and I know the end of the story. I’m a pessimist because the way things are now; there’s no easy solution now to the problems of the world.”
“I’m a firm believer it has to be the intervention of God,” he adds. According to Devereaux, man will harm himself more and will reach a point whereby God will have to intervene, with a manifestation by which God will show men that He is God.
“I think things are going to get much worse,” he says. “How do we come back now? Our leaders are the worst leaders we’ve ever had, they don’t have faith, what guides them? And the people vote for them! So what’s guiding the people?”
To Devereaux, we can see that brother is divided against brother, a tactic of the devil. To look at what is happening in the world, one can see that what is happening is a battle between good and evil. “The pull towards the world is stronger than the pull towards God,” the priest observes, noting that God gave men free will, something He will not take away.
Devereaux likes listening to people, saying that whether clerics or laymen, and some in a theological way, they discuss the truth, and that he can absorb it. Fundamentally, however, people react “one on one.”
“You meet somebody, they do something, they plant a seed, they say a word, they help you, they feed you a meal, you make a relationship,” he says.
Considering a potential solution to the crises in the world, Devereaux looks to large families after Jalsevac touched on the help he and his wife received and the size of their family.
“There are those that are hostile to them, but then there are those that admire them,” Devereaux says of large families. “They see you in a restaurant, they see the love, and the babies, and the kids with the babies, and mom and dad. That’s a powerful witness.”
Guidance for the average person in the world
When asked what advice he has for average people facing the crises in the world, Devereaux first notes that people should never live alone. Being alone, he says, does not work and is a “great burden” both psychologically and materially. “You need to find other people that are like minded,” he says. “You need good friends.” Looking to a group of couples he knows who share a meal and support each other, the priest says that we need to look for people that will “build us up.
At the same time, Devereaux says that people may need to make “drastic decisions” like relocate to places where the “wholesome culture” is. While people get attached to where they are, sometimes it is better to leave, Devereaux says.
In addition to friendships, marriages are important. Discussing the choice of a spouse, he suggests that one chooses wisely. Noting that he spoke with his sister shortly before sitting with Jalsevac, Devereaux says that the family he and his sister talked about sees all its children divorced from their spouses. Young people, he says, need “that foundation.” “What do they tick off the box that ‘my spouse must have these qualities?’” he explains
“For me, if I was a young man getting married, she must be beautiful, she must be religious, faithful, preferably of my own faith, she must be open to life, she must be a good worker,” Devereaux lists. “Those are the ones.” While beauty leads a man to a woman, he adds that the other qualities listed are the “most important,” though Devereaux agrees with Jalsevac that “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
“All those values make for a happy life,” says Devereaux. “Otherwise, and I just know because I was in charge of the marriage tribunal for many years, people can be very high functioning, they can be atop of their game in their business, professionals, making money, and their personal life is a mess.”
“We have to put the emphasis on the personal life,” he asserts. “All those other things can disappear. The stock market can crash, digitalization of money, you might not have all the money you think you’re going to have, those things can be taken away from you. But human relationships, God, the relationship between us and Jesus? No, no. Who’s going to take that? Nobody can take that away from us.”
Meanwhile, if there is no God or life after this one, then one can do as he pleases in the present life, since there is no accountability for action and one will simply cease to exist. If, however, one knows that this life is a “short journey” and one will stand before God, one will live life differently.
Time-wasting
Time is a “treasure,” Devereaux says, and that people waste much of it. Technology also causes people to waste a good deal of time. “I waste time,” he admits.
“I’ll read things, there’s so much information,” the priest continues. “I can get the gist of it. I don’t have to read all of it. But you sit down, and you’re on your computer, and before long you say, ‘Wow, I’ve wasted a lot of time when I could have been using it to be productive.’ I could have been praying, I could have been working. As a priest I could have been doing priestly things.”
What priests should do outside of parish life
When asked what priests should do beyond duties to their parishes, Devereaux says that since priests are human, they need to do something that personally interests them.
Considering an old saying that what one’s hobby is is what one should have done for a living, Devereaux says that one needs “activities.” Speaking for himself, Devereaux says he likes to garden. He also likes to make wine and give it away.
“One priest, his father was a master carpenter, and so he’s a very good carpenter,” says Devereaux of a priest he knows. Priests, furthermore, need to be “renewed,” with Devereaux considering a boy who learned and enjoyed himself by watching a group of septuagenarians build a bench, maintaining that priests can be that to others. “You need friends.”
“Nobody’s forgotten faster than an old priest, that’s the old saying, because we don’t have our own families,” Devereaux tells Jalsevac. “Even the extended family, they start making their own clans, and I just know my own experience and other priests’. So hopefully, for me, my siblings that I’ve been close to have been a blessing.”
Saying that it is easy for him in this regard, Devereaux says that he can call his twin brother and speak to him, he feeling his brother is an “extension” of himself and someone he can “bear” his soul to. Priests need, however, other priests.
“One priest, he’s dead now, gave me an old missal when I was ordained,” begins Devereaux. “He said, ‘Even though you share this with your brother, your twin… now we have something in common that not even you and your brother share, that we share it.’”
“Priests need to befriend priests,” Devereaux holds.
Recalling that De Angelis said that priests’ days off are not “sacrosanct,” that if they have to do something they should do it and take another time. “First of all, your priesthood, that’s your identity,” says Devereaux. “It’s like you as a parent. You didn’t get a day off from being a parent. And so priests, we really have to step up. We have to become holy. We have to think about becoming holy, because whatever affects society, affects priests.”
Noting that he got rid of the rectory television when he arrived at his parish, Devereaux tells Jalsevac that people became happy as a result. He doesn’t need to be like the rest of society, he asserts, nor does he believe he should be.
The highlight of the priesthood
Devereaux, responding to a question from Jalsevac, says that the Eucharist is the highlight of his priesthood, though he admits that he grew into that. “For priests, the intimacy, which we don’t have with a spouse… God wants us to have it with Him and His Church,” Devereaux explains.
He also notes that people “invite” priests into their lives. “I’ve buried their loved ones, I’ve married them,” he says. “Some you lose track of, some you keep in touch with.” He also mentions he recently put a poem on his card, explaining that the priest is part of everyone’s life and yet part of no one’s.
Considering what God wants from us, Devereaux looks to the description of the early Christians in the Acts of the Apostles, noting they “pulled together,” “shared what they had,” and “helped each other.”
“Maybe that time will come again,” he says. “We’ve become very independent, and even in families, we’re broken. Broken relationships, broken relationship with God, broken relationship with each other.”
“We have to refine who we are.”
The most difficult time of his priesthood
In emotional terms, Devereaux recalls one incident in which a little girl was hit by a truck. The girl came to the parish, and she was in the classroom when Devereaux went to the school.
“You enter into the grief of other people,” the priest explains.
Recalling another instance, Devereaux speaks of a young woman with brain cancer. The family, he recalls, was “totally opposed” to Devereaux seeing her in hospital. “The mother was hard on me, because she wasn’t Catholic. I made her Catholic,” he says.
“Yet at the funeral, the mother apologized. She said, ‘I was too hard,’” he continues. “Well, she was grieving. I took it in stride.” Devereaux notes that he asked hospital staff if he could come after hours, explaining that the situation was “conflictive” between his visits, which were desired by the woman, and her family. The hospital, he tells Jalsevac, allowed him to do so.
“You’ll remember those certain things,” he says. “There’s just so many, right? You forget so many, and then they come back. That’s how it is. So many people that I should pray for that I forget.”
When God “prompts” the memory, Devereaux says, one prays for them individually.
Saying that no one leaves life without crosses, Devereaux tells Jalsevac that he was two when his sister was killed getting off the school bus. “Crosses mature us, and nowadays people are running away from the crosses,” he observes. “They’re not running to God, they’re running to whatever they think’s gonna help them, and God bless them, but they’re running in the wrong place.”
Considering Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven, that “fondest, blindest, weakest / I am He Whom thou seekest,” God is the one that alone will make us happy, even if we can be occupied by other things. Returning to the idea of time, however, the priest says that it is a “real treasure” and speaks to a “trap” he has seen, namely that the devil will trick us into wasting our time.
“We don’t have much time,” he says. “We’re passing through. It says in Psalm 90 our lifespan is 70 years and 80 for those who are strong. That goes by.”
Stories from the spiritual combat courses
Prompted by Jalsevac to tell stories from his spiritual combat courses in Chicago, Devereaux says that while they are not his, there is a spiritual world about us, and that we “tend to take it for granted how real it is.”
Long before he began the course, Devereaux says that he encouraged people to have a relationship with their guardian angels. “We have this companion that God gives us, that’s with us for life,” he says. Since our guardians are with us from our birth to the judgment seat, we should be friends with them, Devereaux maintains.
Meanwhile, the course itself makes one more “aware” of one’s surroundings. The exorcists in the course, he adds, explain how the demonic entered people’s lives, and how in many cases those that are suffering have a potential for the good.
Declining to tell any particular story from the course, Devereaux says that someone once came to his parish with many religious articles. The priest found them interesting, and he asked what was going on in the person’s life, to which the response was that “apparitions” and “scary things” were going on in the house.
Devereaux went with another priest to bless the house, asking each other upon leaving if they thought something was there. Both held that there was, though it did not manifest. When the person returned to see Devereaux, he knew that there was something “clinging to her,” and he invited her to pray with him. He asked her if she was in the occult, to which she said no. Eventually, however, she admitted to visiting a psychic and the like, and that she would see an “entity” that was always present.
The people visiting Devereaux eventually started visiting his parish; he would invite them to come by after Mass. When he said that he would “get rid of this problem” and that it was not “welcome,” the woman said that she was fine with it and made a deal with it. “It gets what it wants, I get what I want,” Devereaux says of the woman’s mindset. When asked where the entity was, she explained that it always sat next to her, and she never came to see Devereaux again.
“Now she acted out too, because she had the boyfriend who she was living with,” the priest recounts. “She had strength beyond what a small woman would have, and she manifested, to him. But I had told them, they’re living together, ‘I can bless your house and stuff, but if you don’t break with sin, the evil isn’t going to leave.’”
Recalling another story, Devereaux tells of another woman that was experiencing issues who told him she “condoned and assisted” with euthanizing her husband. When grieving, she was given advice to go on the internet and find grief counselling, though it being New Age and allowing one to choose a spiritual guide. Meanwhile, she was not practicing her faith. She visited Devereaux a few times before no longer seeing him
Devereaux strongly recommends that all priests take a course like the one he is taking. “I’ve only done one of four, and it’s been so good so far,” he tells Jalsevac. “I would recommend, and they recommend, that bishops send priests to take the course.”
Speaking to the times we live in, Devereaux says that he once read that ordinary Christians will not survive our times, but extraordinary ones will.
“We really now have to be fully seeking God, because there’s so much stuff that has come, and that is coming,” he says.