Fr Gabriele Amorth, an Italian Pauline priest renowned for his work in dispelling demons, has died aged 91.
Fr Amorth began his ministry as an exorcist for the Diocese of Rome in 1986 and performed – according to his own estimates – some 70,000 exorcisms or other prayers to liberate people from demonic influence.
He said frequently that, while it was rare for a person to be possessed by a demon, the Devil’s influence was strong in today’s world, affecting not just individuals but sometimes entire societies.
“For example, I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed by the Devil,” he told Vatican Radio in 2006.
“If one thinks of what was committed by people like Stalin or Hitler, certainly they were possessed by the Devil. This is seen in their actions, in their behaviour and in the horrors they committed,” he said.
One reason the Devil’s influence was so high today, he said, is that Christian faith had weakened, replaced in many cases by superstition and an interest in the occult, which he said “open the way to demonic influences”.
Born in Modena in 1925, he joined the Italian underground partisan movement against occupying German forces and Italian Fascists when he was 18. He received a number of honours and medals for his efforts during the resistance.
After World War II, he took a law degree and was ordained a priest aged 28.
Fr Amorth gained notoriety in 2000 when he revealed that the then Pope John Paul II had performed an impromptu exorcism on a young woman who had flown into an apparent rage at the end of a general audience at the Vatican.
Vatican: arranging abortion is an obstacle to ordination
The sacredness of human life is so absolute that performing or helping procure an abortion or attempting suicide is an obstacle to ordination as a priest, even if the man was not Catholic at the time, a Vatican ruling has said.
Pope Francis approved the definitive interpretation of Church law at a meeting with officials of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, according to a Vatican statement.
Canon 1041 of the Code of Canon Law defines as “irregular for receiving [holy] orders” a person who has “committed voluntary homicide or procured a completed abortion and all those who positively cooperated in either,” as well as “a person who has mutilated himself or another gravely and maliciously or who has attempted suicide”.
A question was submitted to the Vatican asking if the canon also applied to a non-Catholic, and the answer was affirmative.
Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, told reporters the sin involved can be forgiven if the person is contrite, “but a warning sign remains”, and a special intervention of the bishop is needed before a person can be ordained. The extra caution, he said, is meant to “protect the dignity of the sacrament” of holy orders.
Pope visits newborns in hospital
Pope Francis has visited a neonatal unit and a hospice for terminally ill patients as part of his Mercy Friday visits.
In a statement, the Vatican said he “wanted to give a strong sign of the importance of life from its first moment to its natural end”. At San Giovanni Hospital he peered into incubators, making the Sign of the Cross, and encouraged worried parents.
At the Villa Speranza hospice he went into each of the rooms, greeting patients and relatives.
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