Devil is in the Vatican

[Welsh cake]

Chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth says the Devil himself is behind the child sex scandals that rocked the Catholic Church.

Extract From The Times

Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".

He added: "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia."

He claimed that another example of satanic behaviour was the Vatican "cover-up" over the deaths in 1998 of Alois Estermann, the then commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife and Corporal Cedric Tornay, a Swiss Guard, who were all found shot dead. "They covered up everything immediately," he said. "Here one sees the rot".

A remarkably swift Vatican investigation concluded that Corporal Tornay had shot the commander and his wife and then turned his gun on himself after being passed over for a medal. However Tornay's relatives have challenged this. There have been unconfirmed reports of a homosexual background to the tragedy and the involvement of a fourth person who was never identfied.

Father Amorth, who has just published Memoirs of an Exorcist, a series of interviews with the Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, said that the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981 had been the work of the Devil, as had an incident last Christmas when a mentally disturbed woman threw herself at Pope Benedict XVI at the start of Midnight Mass, pulling him to the ground.

Father José Antonio Fortea Cucurull, a Rome-based exorcist, said that Father Amorth had "gone well beyond the evidence" in claiming that Satan had infiltrated the Vatican corridors.

"Cardinals might be better or worse, but all have upright intentions and seek the glory of God," he said. Some Vatican officials were more pious than others, "but from there to affirm that some cardinals are members of satanic sects is an unacceptable distance."

Father Amorth told La Repubblica that the devil was "pure spirit, invisible. But he manifests himself with blasphemies and afflictions in the person he possesses. He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, transform himself or appear to be agreeable. At times he makes fun of me."

He said it sometimes took six or seven of his assistants to to hold down a possessed person. Those possessed often yelled and screamed and spat out nails or pieces of glass, which he kept in a bag. "Anything can come out of their mouths – finger-length pieces of iron, but also rose petals."

He said that hoped every diocese would eventually have a resident exorcist. Under Church Canon Law any priest can perform exorcisms, but in practice they are carried out by a chosen few trained in the rites.

Father Amorth was ordained in 1954 and became an official exorcist in 1986. In the past he has suggested that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were possessed by the Devil. He was among Vatican officials who warned that J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels made a "false distinction between black and white magic".

He approves, however, of the 1973 film The Exorcist, which although "exaggerated" offered a "substantially exact" picture of possession.

In 2001 he objected to the introduction of a new version of the exorcism rite, complaining that it dropped centuries-old prayers and was "a blunt sword" about which exorcists themselves had not been consulted. The Vatican said later that he and other exorcists could continue to use the old ritual.

He is the president of honour of the Association of Exorcists.

70,000 cases of demonic possession? Wow so that's how it happened. Thanks to Father Amorth's well-documented studies into the supernatural I guess we can safely rule out the likelihood they were actually all power-corrupt colossal perverts that would make the psychotically violent 'Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells' look cute and cuddly.

[Minimalist]

Figures, really. If they don't blame the fucking devil they'd have to look in a mirror to find the perverts. Way too much to ask of those cassock-wearing, bullshit-spouting, child-molesting, queer-as-a-three-dollar-bill, hypocrites.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth says the Devil himself is behind the child sex scandals that rocked the Catholic Church.

When I was 5 my mother was obliged to have words with the head nun at the convent school I attended,over:

(1)The nightmares I had due to the graphic stories our class teacher told us about the deaths of the martyrs.

(2) My cunning propensity to take on an angelic expressions and exclaim "the Devil made me do it" as a defence of any accusation of wrong doing.


The stories stopped and I was confronted with the reality that blaming the devil just won't wash,so I stopped doing it.----and you say there's an 80 yr old cardinal who still does it? Why doesn't that surprise me?


Funny how the church's attitude to the Devil and demonology changes as convenient. Heaven forbid some clerical douchebag be held accountable for his criminal activities.---OF course there was a time when civil authorities could not prosecute clergy for any offence whatsoever. The Church graciously allowed civil authorities to burn heretics at the stake,once the Church had found them guilty

[RedFish]

We call him 'EvilNaziPope', just look in his eyes.... The catholic church is a disgrace, and should be tried for crimes against humanity. News on in my localshop this morning says the pope has written a letter apologising etc... F*** you your assholiness, we want blood. The Universal Church of the Holy Roman Empire. < Its full title. Far more accurate as a descriptor.
If possession by demons requiring exorcism is an actual reality, and not just an excuse for unacceptable behaviour, why do these demons not flee at the approach of someone of faith? Surely they know who the sky daddy is. A friend of mine once hallucinated a terrifying demon, and argued logically that it was merely a construct of his imagination, and even if it weren't it could not harm him without harming its own existence. He calmly explained this, and the 'demon' left. He was off his face on magic mushrooms, but said afterwards that he couldn't understand what all the fuss was over 'demons'. ''They're a bit stupid, really.''

[downbeatplumb]

We call him 'EvilNaziPope', just look in his eyes.... The catholic church is a disgrace, and should be tried for crimes against humanity. News on in my localshop this morning says the pope has written a letter apologising etc... F*** you your assholiness, we want blood. The Universal Church of the Holy Roman Empire. < Its full title. Far more accurate as a descriptor.
If possession by demons requiring exorcism is an actual reality, and not just an excuse for unacceptable behaviour, why do these demons not flee at the approach of someone of faith? Surely they know who the sky daddy is. A friend of mine once hallucinated a terrifying demon, and argued logically that it was merely a construct of his imagination, and even if it weren't it could not harm him without harming its own existence. He calmly explained this, and the 'demon' left. He was off his face on magic mushrooms, but said afterwards that he couldn't understand what all the fuss was over 'demons'. ''They're a bit stupid, really.''

A friend of mine was once chased around a field by giant smurfs when he was off his face on shrooms.
Sounds funny now but scared the shit out him at the time.

[Darwinian]

Was that Mad Corbett?

[downbeatplumb]

Was that Mad Corbett?

No.

[Samson]

The Atheist Experience show was just talking about this last week......

Typical....."The Debal made me do it".......

[RedFish]

Just as a further to what I said earlier. I'm not advocating drug use, was a long time ago and we were all styoopid. er. But how would you atheists feel if somebody were to offer you a substance that would enable you to 'see God'? What if this 'experience' were repeatable and universal? Would you give it creedence? Returning from the 'wilderness' carrying ecstatic visions..., or just poisoning/ indigestion?

[downbeatplumb]

Just as a further to what I said earlier. I'm not advocating drug use, was a long time ago and we were all styoopid. er. But how would you atheists feel if somebody were to offer you a substance that would enable you to 'see God'? What if this 'experience' were repeatable and universal? Would you give it creedence? Returning from the 'wilderness' carrying ecstatic visions..., or just poisoning/ indigestion?

You would not be experiencing god, just the effects of a drug, in much the same way as my mate was not really being chased by smurfs.
It seems there is an areaof the brain that when stimulated simulates the experince people feel when they 'experience god' (darwinian had a thread on it a while ago) so maybe the drug would be stimulating that area.
It would prove exactly zip, one way or the other on the existance of a god.