An Interview With Father Gabriele Amorth:
The Church's Leading Exorcist
Source:
http://www.boston- catholic- journal.com/ an-interview- with-father- gabriele- amorth-the- Church's-leading-exorcist .htm
by
Gyles Brandreth of The Sunday Telegraph
On the bumpy flight to Rome I read The Bible all
the way. The passenger on my left - a wiry
businesswoman from Wisconsin - found this
disconcerting. As the turbulence worsened and I
moved from Jude to Revelation, she hissed at me,
"Do you have to?" "It's only background reading,"
I murmured. She grimaced. "What for?" I turned to
her and whispered: "I'm going to meet the
exorcist." "Oh Christ," she gasped, as the plane
lurched and hot coffee spilled over us.
Father Gabriele Amorth is indeed the exorcist,
the most senior and respected member of his
calling. A priest for 50 years, he is the
undisputed leader of the city's six exorcists
(appointed by the cardinal to whom the Pope
delegates the office of Vicar of Rome) and
honorary president-for- life of the International
Association of Exorcists. He is 75, small, spry,
humorous, and wonderfully direct.
"I speak with the Devil every day," he says,
grinning like a benevolent gargoyle. "I talk to
him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been
wrestling with him, day in day out, for 14 years."
On cue (God is not worried by clichï) a shaft of
October sunlight falls across Father Amorth's
pale, round face. We are sitting at a table by
the window in a small high-ceilinged meeting room
at his Rome headquarters, the offices of the
Society of St Paul. Father Amorth has come to
exorcism late in life, but with impressive
credentials. Born in 1925 in Modena, northern
Italy, the son and grandson of lawyers (his
brother is a judge), Gabriele Amorth, in his late
teens, joined the Italian resistance.
Immediately after the war, he became a member of
the fledgling Christian Democratic Party. Giulo
Andreotti was president of the Young Christian
Democrats, Amorth was his deputy. Andreotti went
into politics and was seven times prime minister.
Amorth, having studied law at university, went into the Church.
"From the age of 15," be says, "I knew it was my
true vocation. My speciality was the Madonna. For
many years I edited the magazine Madre di Deo
(Mother of God). When I hear people say, 'You
Catholics honour Mary too much,' I reply, 'We are
never able to honour her enough.'
"I knew nothing of exorcism - I had given it no
thought - until June 6, 1986 when Cardinal
Poletti, the then Vicar of Rome, asked to see me.
There was a famous exorcist in Rome then, the
only one, Father Candido, but he was not well,
and Cardinal Poletti told me I was to be his
assistant. I learnt everything from Father
Candido. He was my great master. Quickly I
realised how much work there was to be done and
how few exorcists there were to do it. From that
day, I dropped everything and dedicated myself entirely to exorcism."
Father Amorth smiles continually as he tells his
story. His enthusiasm for his subject is
infectious and engaging. "Jesus performed
exorcisms. He cast out demons. He freed souls
from demonic possession and from Him the Church
has received the power and office of exorcism. A
simple exorcism is performed at every baptism,
but major exorcism can be performed only by a
priest licensed by the bishop. I have performed
over 50,000 exorcisms. Sometimes it takes a few
minutes, sometimes many hours. It is hard work multo duro."
How does he recognise someone possessed by evil
spirits? "It is not easy. There are many grades
of possession. The Devil does not like to be
seen, so there are people who are possessed who
manage to conceal it. There are other cases where
the person possessed is in acute physical pain,
such agony that they cannot move.
"It is essential not to confuse demonic
possession with ordinary illness. The symptoms of
possession often include violent headaches and
stomach cramps, but you must always go to the
doctor before you go to the exorcist. I have
people come to me who are not possessed at all.
They are suffering from epilepsy or schizophrenia
or other mental problems. Of the thousands of
patients I have seen, only a hundred or so have been truly possessed."
"How can you tell?"
"By their aversion to the sacrament and all
things sacred. If blessed they become furious. If
confronted with the crucifix, they are subdued."
"But couldn't an hysteric imitate the symptoms?"
"We can sort out the phoney ones. We look into
their eyes. As part of the exorcism, at specific
times during the prayers, holding two fingers on
the patient's eyes we raise the eyelids. Almost
always, in cases of evil presence, the eyes look
completely white. Even with the help of both
hands, we can barely discern whether the pupils
are towards the top or the bottom of the eye. If
the pupils are looking up, the demons in
possession are scorpions. If looking down, they are serpents."
As I report this now, it sounds absurd. As Father
Amorth told it to me, it felt entirely credible.
I had gone to Rome expecting - hoping, even - for
a chilling encounter, but instead of a sinister
bug-eyed obsessive lurking in the shadows of a
Hammer Horror film set, here I was sitting in an
airy room facing a kindly old man with an uncanny
knack for making the truly bizarre seem wholly
rational. He has God on his side and customers at
his door. The demand for exorcism is growing as
never before. Fifteen years ago there were 20
church-appointed exorcists in Italy. Now there are 300.
I ask Father Amorth to describe the ritual of exorcism.
"Ideally, the exorcist needs another priest to
help him and a group nearby who will assist
through prayer. The ritual does not specify the
stance of the exorcist. Some stand, some sit. The
ritual says only that, beginning with the words
Ecce crucem Domini ('Behold the Cross of the
Lord') the priest should touch the neck of the
possessed one with the hem of his stole and hold
his hand on his head. The demons will want to
hide. Our task is to expose them, and then expel
them. There are many ways to goad them into
showing themselves. Although the ritual does not
mention this, experience has taught us that using
oil and holy water and salt can be very effective.
"Demons are wary of talking and must be forced to
speak. When demons are voluntarily chatty it's a
trick to distract the exorcist. We must never ask
useless questions out of curiosity. We but must
interrogate with care. We always begin by asking for the demon's name."
"And does he answer?" I ask. Father Amorth nods.
"Yes, through the patient, but in a strange,
unnatural voice. If it is the Devil himself, he
says 'I am Satan, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub. We
ask if he is alone or if there are others with
him. Usually there are two or five, 20 or 30. We
must quantify the number. We ask when and how
they entered that particular body. We find out
whether their presence is due to a spell and the specifics of that spell.
"During the exorcism the evil may emerge in slow
stages or with sudden explosions. He does not
want show himself. He will be angry and he is
strong. During one exorcism I saw a child of 11
held down by four strong men. The child threw the
men aside with ease. I was there when a boy of 10 lifted a huge, heavy table.
"Afterwards I felt the muscles in the boy's arms.
He could not have done it on his own. He had the
strength of the Devil inside him.
"No two cases are the same. Some patients have to
be tied down on a bed. They spit. They vomit. At
first the demon will try to demoralise the
exorcist, then he will try to terrify him,
saying, 'Tonight I'm going to put a serpent
between your sheets. Tomorrow I'm going to eat your heart'."
I lean towards Father Amorth. "And are you
sometimes frightened?" I ask. He looks
incredulous. "Never. I have faith. I laugh at the
demon and say to him, 'I've got the Madonna on my
side. I am called Gabriel. Go fight the Archangel
Gabriel if you will.' That usually shuts them up."
Now he leans towards me and taps my hand
confidentially. "The secret is to find your
demon's weak spot. Some demons cannot bear to
have the Sign of the Cross traced with a stole on
an aching part of the body; some cannot stand a
puff of breath on the face; others resist with
all their strength against blessing with holy water.
"Relief for the patient is always possible, but
to completely rid a person of his demons can take
many exorcisms over many years. For a demon to
leave a body and go back to hell means to die
forever and to lose any ability to molest people
in the future. He expresses his desperation
saying: 'I am dying, I am dying. You are killing
me; you have won. All priests are murderers'."
How do people come to be possessed by demons in
the first place? "I believe God sometimes singles
out certain souls for a special test of spiritual
endurance, but more often people lay themselves
open to possession by dabbling with black magic.
Some are entrapped by a satanic cult. Others are the victims of a curse."
I interrupt. "You mean like Yasser Arafat saying
to Ehud Barak, 'Go to Hell' and meaning it?"
"No." Father Amorth gives me a withering look.
"That is merely a sudden imprecation. It is very
difficult to perform a curse. You need to be a
priest of Satan to do it properly. Of course,
just as you can hire a killer if you need one,
you can hire a male witch to utter a curse on
your behalf. Most witches are frauds, but I am
afraid some authentic ones do exist."
Father Amorth shakes his head and sighs at the
wickedness of the world. At the outset be has
told me he is confident he will have an answer to
all my questions, but he has a difficulty with
the next one. "Why do many more women seem to become possessed than men?"
"Ah, that we do not know. They may be more
vulnerable because, as a rule, more women than
men are interested in the occult. Or it may be
the Devil's way of getting at men, just as he got
to Adam through Eve. What we do know is that the
problem is getting worse. The Devil is gaining
ground. We are living in an age when faith is
diminishing. If you abandon God, the Devil will take his place.
"All faiths, all cultures, have exorcists, but
only Christianity has the true force to exorcise
through Christ's example and authority. We need
many more exorcists, but the bishops won't
appoint them. In many countries - Germany,
Austria, Switzerland, Spain there are no Catholic
exorcists. It is a scandal. In England there are
more Anglican exorcists than Catholic ones."
Although the post of exorcist is an official
diocesan appointment (there are about 300
attached to the various bishops throughout Italy)
and Father Amorth is undisputably the best known
in his field, there is some tension between
Amorth and the modernising tendencies in the Church hierarchy.
Devil-hunting is not fashionable in senior church
circles. The Catholic establishment is happier
talking about "the spirit of evil" than evil
spirits. The Vatican recently issued a new rite
of exorcism which has not met with Father
Amorth's approval. "They say we cannot perform an
exorcism unless we know for certain that the Evil
One is present. That is ridiculous. It is only
through exorcism that the demons reveal
themselves. An unnecessary exorcism never hurt anybody."
What does the Pope make of all this? "The Holy
Father knows that the Devil is still alive and
active in the world. He has performed exorcism.
In 1982, he performed a solemn exorcism on a girl
from Spoletto. She screamed and rolled on the
floor. Those who saw it were very frightened. The
Pope brought her temporary freedom.
"The other day, on September 6, at his weekly
audience at St Peter's, a young woman from a
village near Monza started to shriek as the Pope
was about to bless her. She shouted obscenities
at him in a strange voice. The Pope blessed her
and brought her relief, but the Devil is still in
her. She is exorcised each week in Milan and she
is now coming to me once a month. It may take a
long time to help her, but we must try. The work
of the exorcists is to relieve suffering, to free
souls from torment, to bring us closer to God."
Father Amorth has laughed and smiled a good deal
during our three-hour discussion. He has pulled
sundry rude faces to indicate his contempt for
the pusillanimous bishops who have a monopoly on
exorcism and refuse to license more
practitioners. In his mouth it does not seem like
mumbo-jumbo or hocus-pocus. He produces detailed
case histories. He quotes scriptural chapter and
verse to justify his actions. And he has a large
following. His book, An Exorcist Tells his Story,
has been reprinted in Italy 17 times.
Given his shining faith and scholarly approach, I
hardly dare ask him whether he has seen the
notorious 1973 horror film, The Exorcist. It
turns out to be his favourite film. "Of course,
the special effects are exaggerated. but it is a
good film, and substantially exact, based on a
respectable novel which mirrored a true story."
The film is held to be so disturbing it has never
been shown [until recently] on British
terrestrial television and until last year could
not even be rented from video shops. None the
less, Father Amorth recommends it. "People need to know what we do."
And what about Hallowe'en? The American tradition
has made no inroads in Italy. "Here it is on
Christmas Eve that the Satanists have their
orgies. Nothing happens on October 31. But if
English and American children like to dress up as
witches and devils on one night of the year that
is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that.''
It is time to go to the chapel where our
photographer is waiting. Father Amorth, used to
the ways of the press, raises an eyebrow at us
indulgently as he realises the photograph is
designed to heighten the drama of his calling.
Pictures taken, he potters off to find me one of his books.
"What do you make of him?'' asks the photographer. "Is he mad?"
"I don't think so,'' I say. The award-winning
Daily and Sunday Telegraph Rome correspondent,
who has acted as interpreter for the interview,
and is both a lapsed Catholic and a hardened
hack, is more empathic: "There's not a trace of
the charlatan about him. He is quite sane and utterly convincing."
Surprised at myself I add: "He seems to me to be
a power for good in the world." With a smirk, the
photographer loads his gear into the back of the
taxi. ''So he's Peter Cushing then, not Christopher Lee," he says.
Father Amorth reappears with his book and smiles.
"Remember, when we jeer at the Devil and tell
ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest."
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