An Exorcist Explains the Demonic

by Gabriele Amorth

  Regarding this topic, I would like to remind each bishop that it is his obligation to nominate an exorcist or, as an alternative, to practice the prayers himself, of which he is the primary titular. If the bishop does not perform these duties, indeed, no one else can fill the void, and the result — which my exorcist colleagues and I witness each day — is that the persons who suffer from spiritual evils are forced to experience difficulties and disappointments in their search for an exorcist. What’s more, the exorcists, not being numerous, are charged with a workload that is much higher than normal, seeing that they take on persons outside their dioceses. I suffer to think that there are entire nations in which there is not a hint of an exorcist.

  Diocesan offices often give evasive responses. In this case, we must resort to the phone tree and check off the names of the exorcists and the places where they receive their patients. With so many braggarts and self-styled liberators in circulation, I sincerely advise that one be certain that the exorcist is a priest appointed by the bishop. It often happens that by exploiting the lack of exorcists, people without scruples and with a great thirst to enrich themselves, promise — obviously behind a high fee — to take away the spell or the evil eye with counter rites. And it concludes with heaping magic on magic, which does nothing but worsen the situation.

  And if no exorcist is found? Then one should resort to a Catholic Charismatic Renewal group in his area. Although all may not be equally reliable — this depends principally on who leads them — there remain some that generally, through prayer, can help obtain immediate and concrete benefits.

  The International Association of Exorcists

  On June 14, 2014, the Congregation for the Clergy (a Vatican committee) approved the statutes for the International Association of Exorcists, which recognized me as the founder and president from 1994 to 2000. I was very content to have assisted from earth, and not from heaven, at the ceremony approving this association, which I had wished for with all my being, together with all the other exorcists, my confreres in the ministry. I was aware during the 1980s that, parallel to the decline of the Faith in our country and in all of Europe, the number of persons going to wizards and getting involved in occultism was increasing exponentially. On the other hand, the exorcists risked acting on their own, without sharing their experiences. I believed that sharing experiences and keeping pace together with theological updates were indispensable.

  So, at the beginning of the ’90s, I gathered the first group and thus initiated the Italian Association of Exorcists, which has continued to grow. Later, together with the French exorcist René Chenessau and the theologian René Laurentin, we organized the first international convention at Ariccia. We decided then to schedule a similar gathering biennially, and I outlined a statute.

  The goal of the association is the formation of a permanent group of exorcists who will meet and share experiences with one another and make known the significance of their ministry within the Church.

  I hope that the Church’s recognition of this organization will lead to an awareness and an increased sensitivity toward those who are living the drama of an evil spell in solitude and abandonment. I also hope, thanks to this adoption, that more bishops will nominate exorcists in their dioceses, a reality that is still a long way from being accomplished.

  Today about 250 members from thirty countries make up the International Association of Exorcists. The majority of these are Italian.

  Three Requests for Pope Francis

  How do we overcome an endemic lack of exorcists? A bishop once said to me that he did not nominate exorcists because he was afraid of the devil. His confreres could not believe it. It also happens that bishops would like to nominate someone, but they cannot find priests available for this ministry, or, if they are available, they do not carry it out seriously. They counsel those who turn to them to see a psychiatrist, or at best they give them a rapid blessing in order to liberate themselves from the bother. As a result, there are few exorcists, all of them overloaded with work.

  How did this happen? I believe that the principal reason is a lack of faith. There are exorcists nominated by their bishops who perhaps do not believe in the existence of the devil, or they are afraid: they believe, but they delude themselves, thinking seriously that if they leave the devil alone, he will not pay any attention to them. Instead, as I have said above, it is precisely the contrary: the more you combat the devil, the more he keeps clear of you!

  How does one get around this complex situation, for which the faithful, affected by evil spells, pay the price. If Providence would give me the opportunity, I would go to Pope Francis and share with him three things. First, I would insist that each diocese be obliged to have an exorcist. Second, [I would insist] that seminaries restore the courses in angelology and demonology, and that candidates to the priesthood, in the proximity of their ordination, assist at least one exorcism. Many priests carry out their pastoral ministry without ever having any idea of these spiritual realities, and, as such, they are contributing to the neglect of those who suffer from spiritual evils, especially the young, who have a right to have their needs met. Third, [I would insist] that the ministry of exorcism be extended to all priests without any particular authorization, leaving to each one the liberty to exercise it or not. It seems to me that reserving the exorcistate to the bishops is excessive. What sense is there in preventing priests from carrying out a sacramental when, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, they have the power to do so much more, such as remitting sins and celebrating the Eucharist, the sacrifice that is the “fount and apex of the whole Christian life”?27 Why not, instead, leave the liberty of practicing exorcism to each priest if he truly wishes it?

  23 The official document, the editio typica (De exorcismis et supplicationibus, quibusdam), was published by decree by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, November 22, 1998.

  24 SC 60; cf. CIC, can. 1166; CCEO, can. 867. The Catechism’s definition of sacramentals is taken from Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 60. No. 61 adds further clarification: “Thus, for well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event in their lives; they are given access to the stream of divine grace which flows from the paschal mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, the fountain from which all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is hardly any proper use of material things which cannot thus be directed towards the sanctification of men and the praise of God.”

  25 See, for example, my Esorcisti e psichiatri (Bologna: EDB, 2000), 10.

  26 “Father Candido and another Passionist priest, both authorized by the bishop, were exorcising a girl. While he was questioning the demon, they discovered that the girl was under a malefice. They asked for its form, and they were told that it was a wooden box, the size of a hand. They asked for the precise location and were told that it was buried three yards deep, near a certain tree. Full of zeal and armed with a spade and a hoe, they went digging on the spot. They found the box, just as they had been told, opened it, and found an obscene figurine among a lot of junk. They sprinkled everything with alcohol and immediately burned everything carefully, until only a pile of ashes remained. But they did not bless the objects before burning them, and they forgot to pray throughout the process, invoking the protection of the blood of Christ. They had repeatedly touched those objects without immediately washing their hands with holy water. The end of the story is this: Father Candido was in bed for three months with a severe stomachache; these pains continued for ten years with less intensity, and they recurred periodically afterward. This was a tough lesson, but it was useful to me and to anyone who may be in the same situation.” Amorth, Esorcisti e psichiatri, 139.

  27 Lumen Gentium, no. 11.

  Other Means of Struggling with the Devil

  Prayers of Deliverance and Healing

  After exorcism, the most effective means in the struggle a
gainst the demon are prayers of deliverance and healing. Initially one can say that these prayers share a similarity with exorcism. Both are pronounced in order to weaken the satanic influence, but with two differences. The first is that exorcism, as the official and public prayer of the Church, directly involves episcopal authority; the prayer of deliverance and healing is a private prayer pronounced on the person by a priest, often the person’s pastor, or a layman. It does not involve the official authority of the Church. The second distinction is that the prayer of deliverance is, by nature, a ministry exercised publicly.

  Do not be surprised if I speak of laymen. In the Gospel of Mark, before ascending to heaven, Jesus says: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons” (Mark 16:17). Jesus gave this power first to the twelve apostles and then to the seventy-two disciples. This fact indicates that He intended to extend it to those who believe in Him. This is the scriptural foundation for carrying out prayers of deliverance and healing. Whoever it is, a man, a woman or, with limits, a child, matters little. What matters is faith. The power to drive out demons comes directly from Jesus. No one can deny it or take it away.

  Prayers of deliverance, just recently rediscovered in Catholic circles, are very important because, while liberating a person from less-serious evil spells, they also reveal the presence of the extraordinary influence of the demon. Normally they are practiced by groups of the faithful, such as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a movement derived from the Pentecostals who initially developed it in the United States and that has, in recent decades, established itself in Italy. The rediscovery of charisms — as, for example, that of speaking in tongues, of healing, of prophecy, and many others — has always been accompanied by the works of liberation. The liberation from the demon, as I said earlier and as I have written many times,28 is the prior condition for healing some physical illnesses that are tied up with the demon. Once the spiritual liberation has been accomplished, the physical cure is manifested immediately.

  Precisely as it happens during the exorcism, at the moment of the invocation of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, the persons affected by evil spirits begin to experience various kinds of suffering. At times, the more organized groups have small nuclei that act on these persons, praying and invoking the powerful liberating action of God. For these prayers to be efficacious, much faith and fasting is necessary. These are without a shadow of a doubt the most efficacious means of defeating Satan.

  At times, criticisms are directed at these groups. I have much faith in them. The prayers of healing and deliverance have the same positive effect today that they had in the apostolic Church of two millennia ago. Already in the first Christian communities, as the Acts of the Apostles attest, numerous prodigious cures and liberations occurred through the works of the first evangelizers, confirming the power of the evangelical announcement of the Resurrection. The Magisterium of the Church explains it like this: “The same New Testament refers to a true and proper concession on the part of Jesus to the Apostles and to the other early evangelizers to heal infirmities. . . . This power is given in a missionary context, not to exalt their persons, but in order to confirm the mission.”29 His mission, by divine mandate includes the coming of the messianic times through the ministry of healing and liberation.

  I spoke earlier of charisms. The Church teaches that “the meaning of charism, is, per se, very broad.”30 A charism, then, is an unmerited gift of the Holy Spirit that a person enjoys for the benefit of the community. A charism is not a trophy, but a task and a service. As to the “charism of healing,” St. Paul maintains that it is attributable solely to the liberty of the Spirit, “who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). For this, the Magisterium maintains that “in the gatherings of organized prayer that impetrate cures, it would be completely arbitrary to attribute a ‘healing charism’ to a category of participants; rather they are to trust the very free will of the Holy Spirit who gives a special charism of healing to some in order to manifest the power of grace of the Risen One.”31 It is necessary to instruct the faithful not to divinize the person who carries out this ministry; rather, they must see beyond those who are lent for this service [the exorcist] and focus solely on the Holy Spirit.

  Finally, a question: What are the prayers of deliverance? Above all, the Lord’s Prayer, when we say “deliver us from the Evil One,” which is the exact translation, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms (cf. no. 2851). The difference with respect to “deliver us from evil” and “deliver us from the Evil One” is important: the demon has a personal, individual nature [and it must be addressed]. Other prayers using expressions such as “protect me from temptation” or “in the name of Jesus, I command: Satan, go away from here,” can also be said. The final part of the Ritual lists other formulas that can be of service if necessary.

  Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces

  “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph”: Mary’s prophecy at Fátima reassures us that besides the body-to-body [struggle] with the demon (the exorcism), the earthly anticipation of the eschatological struggle between the Mother of God and the ancient dragon (cf. Rev. 12) also has her attention. Despite rampant sin and despite the man who abandons God, considering him only a useless impediment to his own unrestrained liberty, the tribulations of the Church will have an end. And the finale will be good: God will have the last word on history. For this reason, Mary is always invoked during the exorcism; although, to tell the truth, the old ritual did not include an invocation to her. Adding her to the ceremony is a practice I borrowed from Father Candido, however. It is a necessity, and the current ritual has gotten around this deficiency. During the prayer, the priest repeatedly invokes her intercession and her powerful action. Without her, little is accomplished in the struggle against Satan. It is always God who liberates one from his influence — it is good to keep repeating it — but His ear is especially attuned to the mediation of Mary, the Mother of His Son.

  What role does the Virgin have in the liberation of the obsessed? Mary, as the Hail Mary says, is “full of grace.” She is the mediatrix of God’s every grace for all men, particularly for those who suffer much, including those who suffer from spiritual evils. The enmity between Mary and Satan — proclaimed solemnly by God in the first book of Genesis (Gen. 1:3–15) and manifest in the eschatological struggle with the dragon — makes her the number-one enemy of the demon. She will be the one to crush his head at the end of time.

  The help of the Virgin, however, goes beyond the exceptional situations of the demoniacs. In man’s every struggle against Satan and sin, it is always she who represents the extraordinary and the irreplaceable. The demon is terrified of her. In order to be very clear, I wish to cite an episode at which I personally assisted many years ago. During an exorcism, Father Candido asked the devil a question: “Why are you more afraid when I invoke Mary than when I implore God Himself?” He responded: “I feel more humiliated being conquered by a simple creature than by God Himself.”

  Mary is a creature like us, but, having been elevated to be the Mother of God, she has extraordinary power. Also for this reason I ask the persons who assist me to pray the Rosary. It is the most advisable prayer in that context, prayed individually, not aloud and collectively, as it is often prayed in church before Mass, so as not to disturb the exorcism. I would add that the Rosary, being the prayer most appreciated by our Lady, is an extremely powerful arm against the devil, and I warmly recommend it to anyone suffering from spiritual evils. This prayer has, in fact, a strong power of protection and liberation from evil. One day Sister Lucia, a seer of Fátima, revealed that God has conferred a power so great on the Rosary that there is no evil — personal, family, or social — that cannot be defeated by its recitation with faith.

  What, then, can we ask of Mary in the Rosary? There is nothing else to ask of her except for the gift of peace — for the world certainly, but also for ourselves; for the serenity of our heart, so that we may b
e able to accept our crosses, so that we may know how to recognize the gifts that we receive each day from the good God and thank Him for this. It is also important to pray the Rosary together as a family in order to invoke peace in our homes and in our parochial communities, in workplaces, in nations, and in the world. Wars and the division of souls are unequivocal signs of the presence of the devil, which, not by chance, in Greek means “divider.”

  I also recall that on March 25, 1984, St. John Paul II consecrated the world to Mary. It was a very important gesture in an epoch in which communism still represented an explicit threat to Christianity. During an exorcism, I asked an unclean spirit who was persecuting someone why he had so much hatred toward John Paul II. He replied: “Because he has ruined our plans.” I imagine that he was referring to the fall of communism. At Fátima, when the Virgin affirmed that her “Immaculate Heart will triumph,” what could it mean if not to trust in the Lord and her maternal help always — particularly before the danger of discouragement that lies in wait for everyone, but, above all, for those suffering from evil spirits, because often waiting for the results can seem interminable. It also means that, with the help of Mary, we must continuously engage ourselves in converting to God, so that we will know how to do His will — that is, to pardon and to love — and so that we may know how to make every event an occasion of sanctification and the realization of God’s plan for us. Mary brings us to Jesus, because initially she allowed the Holy Spirit to touch her intimately, permitting her to generate Jesus in time.