Vatican exorcist Amorth speaks on Satan's smoke

[Lazerlike42]

hurst:

Ok, I read that.

I am not sure why a lay person (Edward Peters) is criticizing a priest, though. He didn’t seem to show any mark of respect in his book review.

“He makes the claim to have performed 30,000 exorcisms over nine years”.

I see no problem with this statement, because an imprecatory prayer (commanding the enemy directly) is also considered to be a solemn exorcism. Fr. Amorth did say that some of them only took minutes. He was obviously not performing public formal exorcisms.

So, I can’t give the other statements Peters makes about Fr. Amorth much credence, either. He is obviously painting a grim picture and seems to be looking to interpret things in an unfavorable light.

Besides, I would think that the Pope would be making sure his own exorcist was in line.

hurst

I have done a lot more reading on Fr. Amorth than just this article. The facts and tone that has come across from him throughout what I have read have always been those that didn’t quite add up. The matter of the 30,000 exorcisms is not the way you are speculating, at least not the way he has described it in other interviews.

In any case, Ed Peters is a very knowledgable and well educated canon lawyer. Are you suggesting that a lay person ought to never criticize a priest?

 

[DavidB]

Father Amorth schedules an average of 9 exorcisms per day, which is where he gets his numbers from. He refers to his exorcisms as “blessings”. He runs through the rite with each appointment and then goes to the next. An individual may require monthly appointments for years to achieve freedom. There are times, of course, when he schedules lengthy sessions requiring hours and even days, but that is the unusual case. He spends time each day filtering requests by phone or email asking key questions to identify some sign of demonic activity. Most never get an appointment. He advises most people to go to confession, take Eucharist, pray and fast which is normally sufficient to achieve deliverance for most people. He only sees the hard cases.

As for his attitude, picture the war-weary sargeant who comes off the battlefield to the rear eschelon and confronts a few officers who are hampering the battle by not recognizing the enemy and not equipping the soldiers. Sometimes, they deserve the dressing down and the sargeants stripes and experience give him the right to be so bold, and they know it.

Father Amorth deals with the enemy face-to-face every day. He gets understandably frustrated by priests and bishops who sit back and speculate that there is no enemy and exorcism is an unnecssary practice left over from the Dark Ages. They don’t see the eemy because they aren’t engaged in the battle and they aren’t ministering to people closely enough to come across the devil in everyday course of ministry - a sad state for priest or bishop to find onself.
David

 

[Thal59]

Don’t forget that an exorcism can take many forms. Baptism, for example, can be deemed an exorcism. It does not apply only to demonic possession. Any act, prayer, or blessing that forgives sin, opposes evil, or evicts demons can be considered an exorcism.

Thal59

 

[Michael_Francis]

Merged threads on same topic.