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Satan Is in the Vatican, Catholic Exorcist

David Knowles,Writer

AOL News (March 10) -- The Rev. Gabriele Amorth, the man who has served as the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years, says the signs are there: The devil has infiltrated St. Peter's.

Specifically, Amorth cites recent sexual abuse and pedophilia scandals as well as what he deems a cover-up in the shooting deaths of two of the Vatican's Swiss Guards and one of the guard's wives as proof that the Catholic Church's most famous site is less than pure.

"When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true -- including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia," Amorth was cited as saying by The Times of London. The smoke of Satan references a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI.


Giulio Napolitano, AFP / Getty Images
Rev. Gabriele Amorth, who served as the Catholic Church's chief exorcist for 25 years, claims the devil has infiltrated the Vatican.
The Vatican, according to Amorth, was also home to "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon."

Many of Amorth's claims are made in a new autobiography, titled "Memoirs of an Exorcist."

Amorth, who is the founder and president of honor of the Association of Exorcists, became an official exorcist in the Catholic Church in 1986, The Times reports. But Amorth's diagnosis may not mean that the church is preparing a Vatican exorcism any time soon.

Saying that Amorth had "gone well beyond the evidence" for Satanic possession of the Vatican, Rome-based exorcist the Rev. José Antonio Fortea Cucurull told The Times, "Cardinals might be better or worse, but all have upright intentions and seek the glory of God."

In an interview in 2002, Amorth was asked what defines an exorcism.

"Exorcism is a public prayer of the church done with the authority of the church," Amorth replied. "Because it is done by a priest name by the bishop; it is a prayer for the liberation from the demon, from the evil influence of the demon or of the evil provoked by the demon."

Popular conceptions of the practice are largely based on the 1973 film "The Exorcist," which Amorth called "exaggerated," but also praised for presenting an accurate picture of the possessed.

In the past, Amorth has attributed events ranging from fires in Sicily to the business woes of the airline Alitalia to the workings of Satan.

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Filed under: World, Weird News

Methinks the less said about exorcisms, the better. Fascination with and curiosity about such matters is perhaps spiritually unhealthy.

Seems to me most moral evil can be attributed to the weakness and fallen condition of human nature. I bet those fallen angels are happy to allow us to do their work for them.

I tend to think demonic activity may be involved in all types of organized, systematic and direct attacks on divine things (profanation of the Eucharist, for example) AND on the dignity and value of human persons (genocide, abortion, euthanasia etc.)

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

We must remember that the Church, apart from being a divine institution, is also a human institution. Will it always be perfect in every respect? No. Why? Because it is run by fallen human beings in need of repentance, metanoia, and redemption.

I once heard someone speaking about problems in their marriage. "Sure," he said, "my marriage has problems, because I'm in it!" I'd put a little twist on this and say that the Church has problems because I, a sinner, am a member. Still, "I love the Church, wrinkles and all."

Many saints and monastics in the Orthodox and Catholic Church point to such moral horrors as being people who are possessed by those particular demons. The phrase 'demonic' is not used lightly, but is used generously in Eastern theology.

People possessed to do unspeakable harm to others, more often than not, act normally and are normal except for that part of their soul, (their sinful passion allowed to run amok), which they have allowed to be taken over by a demon.

We are seeing much more possessions of persons such as those involved in senseless mass murders (most such crimes have uncovered a fascination with the occult in the perpetrator) and sexual horrors than ever before thanks to graphic visual and written powers of demonic suggestion at the fingertips of a computer.

Read Fr. Amorth's book, 'An Exorcist tells his story'...it is excellent and will explain.

Kyrie Eleison.

With all due respect to Fr. Gabriele, I'd like to point out that the Church, by her nature, cannot promulgate invalid or ineffectual rites.

It's not the RITE of exorcism that has the power, or the words of the prayers.

It's the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God--Who is Jesus--Who has the power to drive out demons and wound them.

St. Athanasius' Byzantine Catholic Church in Indianapolis has healing services monthly where we pray for deliverance from evil spirits. Fr. Sid has many members of other churches come to him for personal spiritual direction and they often request deliverance from evil spirits. He refers them to the local Roman Catholic exorcist for discernment as to whether exorcism is needed. He agrees that the power of the Word of God is essential in any deliverance ministry. He has observed strange behaviors in some of the people that he has counseled that might indicate obsession by evil spirits.

What Pope Paul really said in his homily.
I thought this to ad a bit and be interesting...

Referring to the situation of the Church today, the Holy Father affirms that he has a sense that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.” There is doubt, incertitude, problematic, disquiet, dissatisfaction, confrontation. There is no longer trust of the Church; they trust the first profane prophet who speaks in some journal or some social movement, and they run after him and ask him if he has the formula of true life. And we are not alert to the fact that we are already the owners and masters of the formula of true life. Doubt has entered our consciences, and it entered by windows that should have been open to the light. Science exists to give us truths that do not separate from God, but make us seek him all the more and celebrate him with greater intensity; instead, science gives us criticism and doubt. Scientists are those who more thoughtfully and more painfully exert their minds. But they end up teaching us: “I don’t know, we don’t know, we cannot know.” The school becomes the gymnasium of confusion and sometimes of absurd contradictions. Progress is celebrated, only so that it can then be demolished with revolutions that are more radical and more strange, so as to negate everything that has been achieved, and to come away as primitives after having so exalted the advances of the modern world.

This state of uncertainty even holds sway in the Church. There was the belief that after the Council there would be a day of sunshine for the history of the Church. Instead, it is the arrival of a day of clouds, of tempest, of darkness, of research, of uncertainty. We preach ecumenism but we constantly separate ourselves from others. We seek to dig abysses instead of filling them in.

FOR A LIFEGIVING AND REDEEMING “CREDO”

How has this come about? The Pope entrusts one of his thoughts to those who are present: that there has been an intervention of an adverse power. Its name is the devil, this mysterious being that the Letter of St. Peter also alludes to. So many times, furthermore, in the Gospel, on the lips of Christ himself, the mention of this enemy of men returns. The Holy Father observes, “We believe in something that is preternatural that has come into the world precisely to disturb, to suffocate the fruits of the Ecumenical Council, and to impede the Church from breaking into the hymn of joy at having renewed in fullness its awareness of itself. Precisely for this reason, we should wish to be able, in this moment more than ever, to exercise the function God assigned to Peter, to strengthen the Faith of the brothers. We should wish to communicate to you this charism of certitude that the Lord gives to him who represents him though unworthily on this earth.” Faith gives us certitude, security, when it is based upon the Word of God accepted and consented to with our very own reason and with our very own human spirit. Whoever believes with simplicity, with humility, sense that he is on the good road, that he has an interior testimony that strengthens him in the difficult conquest of the truth.

The Pope concludes: The Lord shows himself to be light and truth for him who accepts him in his Word, and his Word becomes no longer an obstacle to the truth and the path to well-being, but rather a stair-step upon which we can climb and truly be conquerors in the Lord who reveals himself through the path of faith— this faith that is the anticipation and guarantee of the definitive vision.

By underlining another aspect of contemporary humanity, Paul VI recalls the existence of a great number of humble, simple, pure, upright, strong souls who follow the invitation of St. Peter to be “strong in faith.” And we should wish, so Paul VI says, that this strength of faith, this sureness, this peace should triumph over all obstacles. Finally, the Pope invites the faithful to an act of faith that is humble and sincere, to a psychological effort to find in their own hearts the impetus towards a conscious act of adherence: “Lord, I believe in Your word, I believe in Your revelation, I believe in the one You have given me as witness and guarantor of Your revelation to sense and to prove, with the strength of faith, the anticipation of the blessedness of the life that is promised us with faith.”

I very much wish that we had the actual words spoken by the Pope on this occasion rather than a summary. What was the Pope attempting to convey when he said this? Pope Paul VI [the-american-catholic.com]