I am Protestant, baptized and raised, but I do not ever hear about Protestant pastors driving out demons in exorcisms. We know the spiritual world is real, so exorcisms have to be real by default. Demons can call out our sins to accuse us and drag us down with them, so that is also universal between Catholics and Protestants.
So what is the defining difference that gives Catholics the power to do the exorcisms and not Protestants?
Do they teach in a way that gives more divine authority? Are we doing something wrong? Or is it withholding information within the Catholic church?
Maybe the Catholics are "brainwashed " to accept the priest is the only one who can drive out demons. By an early age the Cathilics have been taught only an all powerful person is the only one who can cast away the evil one. Whereas most Protestants are taught that the individual is able to pray to God for intercession and by having that communication is all that is necessary for the demons to be tossed away.
As a Catholic, I do believe there is an element of gatekeeping, but it is not stuff to be messed with.
Similar to tarot an ouija boards.
You’re not wrong. Not just anybody should go around trying to run exorcisms. It takes a level of preparation. Demon encounters are quite … significant.
There are also elements of gatekeeping involved in things, yes.
To be fair, the vast majority of people in any church are just looking for basic instructions to live their lives and get through the day. The Catholic church, in particular, has formalized this to a meticulous degree as you would expect from any centralized body with a long history. You can choose how much you want to know and the resources are there at whatever level you want to pursue.
It's really just a small minority who want to dive into the "why" and an even smaller who want to deep dive into the weeds in philosophy, history and theology needed to truly understand what gets distilled into the simple "instruction manual" that most people are happy to just follow.
I think that part of the reason that the Catholic church maintains vows for priests, particularly celibacy, is that to do the job right, you don't have time to maintain personal relationships (and certainly not children) or attachments to worldly things. I have a heckuva time trying to be a good husband and keeping a roof over our heads - can't imagine how I'd also lead a congregation and/or advise others well in spiritual matters without compromising that.