Talking With. . . Fr. Gabriele Amorth
Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Rome
Fr. Gabriele Amorth of the Society of St. Paul studied law and is a member of the Pontifical International Marian Academy. He is the president of honor of the Association of Exorcists that he founded in 1990, and of which he was president until the year 2000. He has been an exorcist in the diocese of Rome for over twenty years now.
After seeing some of the photographs out there, one could think that he is a very sad, serious and preoccupied man due to his work. However, appearances are deceiving. Fr. Amorth is not at all sad. He is a delightful, serene and very spiritual person. Among his friends he has the fame of being a great joke-teller. As a matter of fact, his work as an exorcist began while mutually sharing jokes with Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the Pope’s vicar in the diocese of Rome. The cardinal asked him to dedicate himself full time to exorcise people affected by Satan. Fr. Candido Amantini who had been carrying out this work was now sick and needed help. “To say the truth, in that moment I thought it was a joke, but I understood that I was needed and I ended up accepting.”
What is an exorcism and what does it do?
It is an official prayer made in the name of the Church and is thus a sacramental. It frees people from diabolic possession or from the evils caused by the devil.
Do you remember how many exorcisms you have done throughout your life?
It is difficult to say so, because I have done only this from morning to evening, seven days a week, for 21 years. Thus, I must have done several thousands.
Do you remember your first exorcism?
The first difficult experience was with a farmer who was twenty-seven years old. Six strong men were needed to hold him down because he had an incredible strength and would become very furious. He even levitated during the exorcism. It was a very strange case for me because it is normally very difficult to make the devil speak. In this case, however, he spoke a lot and on his own initiative. In addition, he always spoke to me in English, a language which neither the man nor myself knew. I thus constantly needed a person to translate for me to Italian. The devil even said the day on which he would come out of the man and, in effect, he came out on that day. When this farmer came to me to do other control exorcisms I saw that he was truly free. I asked him if he had been conscious of the moment in which he had been set free and he told me that he was out in the field and that he thought he had given a great shout, but nobody had heard him.
Is the first exorcism on a person always successful?
Exorcisms are always very slow. In general, many years are needed to free a person. I have people who continue to come after fifteen or twenty years; but it is true that even though a total liberation is not always achieved, a certain alleviation is. The action of the devil also diminishes, to the point of only being felt in moments of crisis. These people, in general, can lead a life of normal activity, even though they have great sufferings that no one sees, commonly in the head and the stomach.
Let us speak of the devil. Is he a person?
He is an angel and therefore a pure spirit created good by God and who became evil when he rebelled. If he had not rebelled he would continue to be an angel in paradise. He has a very great intelligence, much greater than ours. He is a personal being. In addition there are many devils: as manyas the stars in the night.
What is the face of Satan like? How does he appear?
Since Satan is a pure spirit, he does not have a face or a body. If he wants to present himself and become visible he hast to take on a provisional body. The form with which we usually represent him is with wings, in the form of a bat, with hoofs, and horns, a form that he likes greatly because it makes him seem ridiculous, thus favoring him because people do not believe in his existence. When the devil presents himself he takes on different forms depending on the effect that he wants to provoke. For example, when he appeared to Padre Pio, it was in general as a ferocious dog which tried to attack him. Other times he appeared as Jesus or as Mary and other times as his spiritual director or as his Father Guardian. The devil would give him surprising commands and Padre Pio would then go to the Father Guardian to ask him if he commanded that. Hearing the negative response, he would understand that it had been the devil.
How does the devil act?
He has a double way of acting: the normal way and the extraordinary way. The normal way is to lead man towards evil to make him fall into sin. The devil prefers this way and we are all subject to it from our birth until our death. So much so that even Jesus, as a man, allowed the devil to tempt Him. The less frequent, extraordinary way of acting is when the devil causes individual evils that can culminate in diabolic possession.
What does the devil seek through possession?
He hates God and that is why he seeks to convince people to commit sins and thus drag them down to hell. When the devil possesses a person, he continually says: this person is mine, he has been given to me, he belongs to me.
What have you learned from Jesus in this work that you do?
John Paul II explicitly said that acting as an exorcist was one of the principal activities of Jesus. We see indeed how He cast the devil out on several occasions and how the people were in awe at His power and at how the devils obeyed Him. But this power of casting out demons has also been given to us. In Mk. 16:17 He says, “Those who believe in me will cast out demons in my name.” Therefore, any believer, who believes with true faith in Jesus Christ, can with His strength and power, cast out demons.
There are two ways to fight against the devil in his extraordinary action. On one hand, there is exorcism which is a sacramental instituted by the Church, reserved for priests who have the authorization of their bishops. And then there are the liberation prayers which are private prayers that can be done by anyone. We see this in the life of the great saints who were not exorcists and who yet cast out demons. This is the case, for example, of St. Catherine of Siena or of St. Benedict who, even though he was not acting as an exorcist nor was he a priest, still had a great strength against the devil.
What means does the devil use to reach a diabolic possession?
He uses many means. Sometimes, since the suffering offered to the Lord by souls has great value, it is God Himself who permits the possession. We have several saints who were possessed by the devil for even long periods of time or who were tormented greatly by the devil. It suffices to think of Padre Pio who was beaten by the devil all the days of his life. He liked to say, “I have always conquered him.”
On the other hand, there are times when one enters into the possession of the devil or under his influence and experiences certain disturbances without being possessed and it is the person’s fault for having practiced occultism. Nowadays, unfortunately, with the declining of the faith, superstitions grow and we have so many young people and people not so young who have done sessions of spiritism, satanism and magic. Just one fact: in Italy we have thirteen million Italians who frequently go to fortune tellers and magicians.
Lastly, the most frequent way that a person is tormented by the devil is because of a curse. It is possible for a person to go to a magician, a witch or someone related to the devil and pay him to call a curse down upon a certain person. If the person is in the state of grace and prays, it is difficult for the curse to take effect. But if the person is less protected from the spiritual point of view, it is easier for the curse to affect him.
Have you ever been discouraged upon seeing the force of evil?
Discouraged, never. But yes, I have had a certain disillusion because of the slowness and the time and that is required to reach a liberation or an improvement. I have only had one case in which only one exorcism was needed. It was a girl who had been possessed by the devil on the previous evening and only needed one session to be freed. The more time that the devil is in a person the deeper the roots are. Many times people of forty and fifty years of age come to me and recalling their story we reach the conclusion that the devil had taken possession of them when they were two or three years old.
What are the main needs of the Church today?
Paul VI in a discourse on November 15, 1972 asked this question, “What is the greatest need of the Church today?: The defense against that evil which we call the Devil.” Unfortunately nowadays there are priests and Bishops who do not believe in the devil and that is why it is often very difficult to find exorcists. For three centuries, for different reasons, exorcisms in the Latin Catholic Church were practically abandoned. Theology is no longer studied. Priests leave the seminary without knowing about these things. Entire nations such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal have no exorcists.
But it can be said that now there is a slight increase in exorcists. I have tried as much as I can to spread the fact that the devil exists and to make his presence known.
How can the presence of the devil be recognized?
I always ask that a medical diagnosis be done before the person comes to me. Normally when a person feels these disturbances and problems, the first thing he does is go to the doctor and psychiatrist. It is very difficult is to distinguish the devil’s action from a psychological problem. The path normally followed is to go to the psychiatrist but not achieve any result. The person begins to suspect that the problem is not a natural one and then goes to a conjurer or magician from whom he receives even greater harm. In this moment it is possible that someone more experienced in these matters suggests that he go to an exorcist.
By the strange reactions of a person, through liberation and healing prayers you can discover if it is a case of possession and thus see if there is a need for exorcism. Other times there is no intervention of the devil. They are only physical illnesses that science has still not been able to cure.
What difference is there between a conjurer and an exorcist?
A conjurer acts with the aid of Satan and with the power that Satan gives him, while the exorcists acts in the name of Jesus with the strength that comes from Jesus. That is why faith is so important, both for the exorcists and for the person who is exorcised, for the friends and people who accompany him and for those who pray for him. With sacramentals, prayer is very important. I always carry brochures with the Ten Commandments on me because people no longer know them. The first thing I ask the person is whether they go to Mass and confession and whether they pray.
When someone tells you that the devil does not exist, what do you say?
I respond with the words of John Paul II to whom I once asked this question, “Your Holiness, I find many Bishops who do not believe in the devil.” And John Paul II responded just this: “Those who do not believe in the devil, do not believe in the Gospel.”
Can music also be an instrument of the devil?
It is a diabolical instrument that the devil often uses and which is very efficient. Just think of heavy-metal music and satanic rock. Unfortunately, a great quantity of young people enter into Satanism through these satanic singers.
What is Satan’s greatest achievement?
Precisely to make people not believe in his existence because he can thus act with freedom. Today the influence of Satan in the world is very strong, to such a point that he can attack not only individual people but also groups of people. In fact, when I call upon the intercession of John Paul II in an exorcism the devil becomes furious. On one occasion I asked him, “Why are you so angry with John Paul II?” He answered me, “Because he has destroyed all of my plans.” I think that he was referring precisely to the inexplicable fall of communism in Europe.
Do you believe that Satanism is growing?
Unfortunately it is being spread more and more. When faith decreases, superstition increases. Man cannot live without anything.
Could God not block Satan’s action and the work of the conjurers and witches?
This is a question that I have asked myself many times. It forms part of the plans of God. He has given us freedom. He permits men to be tempted. But St. Paul says that He never allows the temptation to be greater than our strength. If man rebels against God and falls into sin by his own fault, God gives him thousands of occasions to convert. It is not God who sends man to hell; it is man who goes there by his own will.
Can an exorcism be done against a person’s will? And from a distance?
If a person does not want it, you cannot impose the exorcism and in this case it would not be effective. Yes, it is possible to do an exorcism on people at a distance, even though a contact is needed. I do many exorcisms by phone but they are always with people whom I have already met personally. It has great efficiency. In these cases I also speak with the devil.
Does the Blessed Virgin help you against the power of evil?
Mary helps greatly. The devil is terrified of Our Lady. He is terrified because Our Lady crushes his head. I have often been asked if Mary was tempted by the devil. Definitely. From her birth until her death. But she always conquered. And the devil on certain occasions has praised Mary because God obliges him to say the truth. On one occasion an exorcist friend of mine asked the devil what most hurts him of Our Lady, what most annoys him. He responded, “That she is the purest of all creatures and that I am the filthiest; that she is the most obedient of all creatures and that I am the most rebellious; that she is the one who committed no sin and thus always conquered me.”
©HM Magazine No. 135 - March/April 2007
