The John-Henry Westen Show - Vatican's Most Famous Exorcist In 500 Years - Fr. Gabriele Amorth ｜ Fr. Carlos Martins Explains

00:00:00.000 The job of the exorcist is not to cast out the devil.

00:00:04.160 The job of the exorcist is to find out why is the devil there?

00:00:08.460 What rights has he gained?

00:00:10.360 And then it's the exorcist's job to aid the victim in rescinding those rights.

00:00:16.520 Why is the devil allowed to harm us in the first place?

00:00:24.980 Hello, my friends.

00:00:25.940 So many of you enjoyed the show we had with Father Carlos Martins, one of the main exorcists

00:00:32.460 in the church right now.

00:00:33.480 He runs The Exorcist Files, which is a production actually asked for in a way by the Vatican

00:00:39.620 that shows what goes on in exorcism and true exorcism, what it's all about.

00:00:44.660 That show went totally viral before.

00:00:47.000 So we had him back on.

00:00:48.000 This time he's talking to us about a new book released by Tan about probably the most

00:00:55.820 famous exorcist that's lived in the past, I don't know if it's a century or what, but

00:01:00.880 Father Gabriel Amorth was the chief exorcist for Rome for decades and decades.

00:01:08.480 The book is called The Official Biography of the Pope's Exorcist, and it's by Italian author

00:01:14.400 Domenico Agasso, available through Tan Books.

00:01:17.840 Father Carlos Martins, The Exorcist, is here to talk to us about that.

00:01:22.200 This is The John Henry Weston Show.

00:01:24.000 Stay tuned.

00:01:25.820 Hey friends, this July, we at LifeSite are celebrating 25 years of service to life,

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00:03:02.000 I look forward to seeing you there.

00:03:03.800 God bless you.

00:03:06.080 Father Martin, so good to be with you again.

00:03:07.940 Yeah, thank you very much for having me again.

00:03:10.620 Father, if you could launch us off, please, with the sign of the cross. 0.81

00:03:13.500 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

00:03:16.520 Amen.

00:03:17.460 First of all, many people will have seen our old show and know you from your show, from

00:03:22.420 The Exorcist Files.

00:03:23.660 But just give us a little brief thing for people who might not know.

00:03:28.180 Who are you?

00:03:28.820 What do you do?

00:03:29.460 My name is Father Carlos Martins.

00:03:31.920 Most people know me through either my work on Relics, which I run a ministry that

00:03:37.760 a Vatican-sponsored ministry where I travel the world, giving people an experience of

00:03:42.180 God through the relics of his saints.

00:03:44.020 Or more recently, through my podcast, The Exorcist Files.

00:03:49.140 So I took my case studies as an exorcist, which I function in the capacity of one and have for

00:03:55.620 the better part of 20 years.

00:03:57.420 That podcast has become very popular.

00:04:01.840 And if it's available anywhere where you get your podcasts, if you don't know what a podcast

00:04:07.140 is or even what I'm talking about, visit exorcistfiles.tv and you'll get all the instructions you need

00:04:13.040 to access it.

00:04:14.260 Let's talk about Father Gabriel Amorth.

00:04:16.840 Many people will remember him.

00:04:18.640 Some won't.

00:04:19.720 So tell us, first of all, who is Father Gabriel Amorth?

00:04:22.100 Father Gabriel Amorth was the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome.

00:04:28.060 He died just, gosh, over seven years ago.

00:04:32.820 He was quite renowned.

00:04:35.580 You mentioned at the start he was the most famous exorcist perhaps in the last hundred

00:04:38.980 years.

00:04:39.440 I would argue he was the most famous in the past 500 years, probably not since the days

00:04:45.000 of St. Francis Borgia.

00:04:47.320 And the reason why is, A, he was very competent.

00:04:50.440 He was very good.

00:04:51.180 He was a great man of God and renowned for his saintliness, but also the fact that the

00:04:58.900 very order that he belonged to, the Paulines, part of their charism is communication and evangelization

00:05:05.140 through media.

00:05:05.940 And he certainly did that.

00:05:07.720 He was a very published author.

00:05:10.020 He published his experiences, his teachings on exorcism.

00:05:13.560 He did that so well that he became known the world over.

00:05:17.780 One of the things that happened in the church, in fact, we're taping this actually on the

00:05:24.320 Feast of Saints, Peter and Paul.

00:05:26.740 And it's quite something because I wanted to ask you a question that related to 1917, excuse

00:05:33.540 me, 1972.

00:05:34.880 On this very day, Pope Paul VI talked about something in relation to Rome as Father Amorth was the chief

00:05:43.560 exorcist of Rome, but he said this, he said, I quote, from some fissure, the smoke of Satan

00:05:51.140 has entered the temple of God.

00:05:53.280 There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest, dissatisfaction, confrontation.

00:06:00.500 There is no longer trust of the church.

00:06:03.900 End quote.

00:06:04.280 So, first of all, I'd love to hear your take on that.

00:06:09.780 But with regard to an exorcist, their role, and what you would hear as an exorcist, had

00:06:16.660 you been around in that day and heard that, what would that mean to you?

00:06:21.300 There's a priest I know, a really saintly priest, and we talked about this one time, and he has

00:06:26.840 really a definite opinion as to the words of Pope Paul VI and how diagnostic and prophetic

00:06:37.560 they were, diagnostic in the sense that when everything toppled kind of after the Second

00:06:45.120 Vatican Council, you know, no one could have foreseen that.

00:06:48.620 But it also pointed to the fact that what seemed rosy and good leading up to the council, churches

00:06:57.240 were full, there were lots of vocations.

00:07:00.900 The very fact that all of these things toppled so quickly, the bottom fell out from under the

00:07:07.280 vocations, the people of God, you know, there was a wholesale movement to questioning and

00:07:12.460 doubt, and the fact that, you know, contraception was embraced, and many people in the church,

00:07:19.800 many clergy, in my opinion, I think most of the clergy in the church, most, certainly not all,

00:07:27.000 are not pro-life.

00:07:28.800 Like, they, well, you know, like, we look at the circumstances of people, and it's really hard,

00:07:34.780 and therefore, it's okay to murder a pre-born life.

00:07:38.060 Like, I mean, I encounter clergy like this all the time.

00:07:41.400 There was a rot that was there, but it was beneath the surface, and then the conditions

00:07:49.160 created following the council just kind of exposed to that.

00:07:53.820 So he believes, this saintly priest I know, that the fallout was God's retribution to expose

00:08:04.120 the rot that was there.

00:08:05.120 And the words of Paul VI are prophetic in the sense that they have identified what is

00:08:12.560 the case for so many people in the church, so Catholics.

00:08:16.520 So in the past, you disagreed with the church, you left the church.

00:08:21.080 But the disagreeers, the discontents, the malcontents have remained in the church now.

00:08:26.520 This is different.

00:08:27.300 You have theologians, you have clergy teaching in the name of the church, and their teaching

00:08:34.360 is at variance with the church.

00:08:36.020 This is a new thing.

00:08:37.460 This is a satanic thing.

00:08:39.480 This is an act of rebellion.

00:08:42.680 Not just a rejection of the teaching on a personal level, but I want to change God's church. 0.98

00:08:49.360 This is a satanic thing.

00:08:50.480 Those are strong words.

00:08:52.160 And we do see that.

00:08:53.600 And thank you for saying it, because it gives a lot of the faithful comfort in that, really,

00:08:59.800 we're not going crazy.

00:09:01.660 That's what it feels like.

00:09:03.400 From the pews, it feels like we're going crazy.

00:09:08.020 And yet, a lot of us fight it also, not only for ourselves, but especially for our children.

00:09:13.540 And that's where, really, you can't, as a parent, you can't sit by and let it go and

00:09:20.620 just wonder, oh, well, whatever, because you know it's harming your children and perhaps

00:09:26.360 their eternal lives.

00:09:27.200 So there's no way to sit and let it happen.

00:09:30.900 Why now?

00:09:31.800 Why a book right now about Father Gabriel Amorth, Rome's chief exorcist, as you said, probably

00:09:37.940 one of the most famous exorcists in the last 500 years.

00:09:40.760 I, you know, why now and what difference do you think it's going to make?

00:09:46.700 This past year, this past April, there was a movie released called The Pope's Exorcist.

00:09:52.040 It was released by Sony Pictures, and it was starring Russell Crowe, the famous actor,

00:09:58.740 the Oscar winning actor.

00:10:00.800 And, you know, to put it, to put it simply and frankly, that movie exploited the name of

00:10:06.680 Father Gabriel Amorth.

00:10:07.640 That movie is loosely presented as an exorcism movie, but it's done so in the horror genre.

00:10:16.260 Everything in it is make-believe.

00:10:19.020 Russell Crowe plays Father Gabriel Amorth, but it is not true to life in any way.

00:10:24.900 And Father Amorth would have been repulsed that such a movie, that he was being exploited

00:10:32.680 to portray such a message, which was the antithesis of what he spent his life doing.

00:10:38.880 This is what you get when you're a famous person, as Father Amorth was, and, you know,

00:10:43.880 the result of which being, because of freedom of expression, somebody can create a movie about

00:10:48.700 your life.

00:10:49.220 So, as a result of that, it became necessary to clear the air and clarify not just the Church's

00:10:57.420 teaching on exorcism, but the name of this great saintly priest, Father Gabriel Amorth,

00:11:05.480 who spent his life, who spent decades combating evil and educating on evil in a way like no exorcist

00:11:14.620 had ever done before his time.

00:11:17.360 Let's unpack that a little bit, because exorcisms, the last time you were on my show, you explained.

00:11:21.920 Exorcisms do have some of those very, you know, levitation and the lights going on off and

00:11:30.120 can be super cold in the room.

00:11:32.260 It doesn't make any sense.

00:11:33.760 So, there are those kind of manifestations, yet that's not the heart of it.

00:11:39.860 So, tell us, if you will, how the movie exploited, and where it got it wrong, and what the truth

00:11:45.500 actually is.

00:11:46.480 The job of the exorcist is not to cast out the devil.

00:11:51.040 The job of the exorcist is to find out why is the devil there?

00:11:55.580 What rights has he gained?

00:11:58.120 And then it's the exorcist's job to aid the victim in rescinding those rights.

00:12:04.000 So, we need to dispel in our minds the concept that the exorcist comes in and he's combating

00:12:11.520 the devil with a Latin ritual in one hand, a crucifix in the other, and then when he puts

00:12:17.960 down the crucifix, only to pick up the aspergillum where he sprinkles holy water on the victim.

00:12:24.240 In other words, it's not a battle where each one is trying to hit the other one over the head.

00:12:28.480 But it's a battle in the sense that the exorcist is trying to get access to the victim, to the

00:12:37.780 human being whose consciousness is suppressed, and getting the human being to reverse decisions

00:12:44.540 that were made that got him or her ensnared in possession.

00:12:50.680 Now, if the possession resulted from, say, a generational sin, where there was a curse

00:12:58.140 instituted by a family member, and now this one, for whatever reason, has been ensnared,

00:13:04.020 then, okay, there isn't a particular sin he or she has done that has to be reversed, but

00:13:08.820 there may be a claim, a claim as to the identity of being a son or a daughter of God, that that

00:13:15.380 has to be done, that sin in general, the sin, the repetitive sin in my family line, I reject

00:13:22.720 that.

00:13:23.500 I claim freedom purchased by Jesus Christ in his sacrifice and reject the constant rebellion

00:13:31.260 that has repeated itself in my family line.

00:13:34.460 So, in other words, the exorcist has to diagnose how is the devil manifesting here?

00:13:40.120 Why is he manifesting himself in this way?

00:13:44.140 And then he has to get to the victim, to get the victim's cooperation, to institute something

00:13:50.300 new through the grace of God.

00:13:52.500 So, to phrase it differently, an exorcist is an expert in relationship, and he needs to

00:14:01.600 get the victim to abandon one relationship in favor of another.

00:14:06.620 That is what exorcism is.

00:14:08.120 There has to be a replacing of relationship.

00:14:12.420 It's not just denying the devil.

00:14:14.920 It's filling in the space the devil is occupying with Jesus Christ.

00:14:20.960 The outward manifestations are there in terms of what the priest does.

00:14:24.180 He does use a missal, does pray prayers, does use the holy water, does use the crucifix.

00:14:30.320 That plays in, but as you said, that's not the meat of it.

00:14:33.160 That is part of it.

00:14:34.440 Maybe you can go into that a little bit.

00:14:35.780 The manifestations of the devil, the devil will manifest, but I'll tell you this.

00:14:41.780 As one's career as an exorcist, if we can speak like that, as one gains experience year

00:14:50.040 by year as an exorcist, the diabolical signs begin to diminish.

00:14:54.460 And they're initially there, the devil kind of uses these parlor tricks to try to manipulate

00:15:03.140 you into a place of fear.

00:15:05.740 Oh my gosh, look at the power of the devil.

00:15:07.460 He's having this small child is walking up the wall backwards and then walking across the

00:15:12.600 ceiling as if the law of gravity didn't apply to him.

00:15:16.080 The first time you would see something like that, the hair on the back of your head might

00:15:21.520 stand up.

00:15:23.180 What about the 89th time that you see that?

00:15:25.960 What about the 289th time that you see that?

00:15:30.600 Your reaction is going to be different.

00:15:32.280 And at a certain point, seeing that isn't even going to stop the yawn that you feel like

00:15:37.760 letting out of your mouth, right?

00:15:38.980 And that's just a fact.

00:15:41.080 We get used to reality.

00:15:42.060 So as the effect of these parlor tricks don't produce what the devil wants to produce, he

00:15:50.080 abandons them because at the end of the day, they're not achieving what he wants them to

00:15:56.960 achieve.

00:15:57.360 And that is making you afraid.

00:15:58.660 And so he doesn't spend his energy on those.

00:16:02.260 He spends his energy on just resisting what you are doing as an exorcist.

00:16:07.640 So Father Amorth in the book, he talks about in his very first exorcism, he saw a levitation.

00:16:16.860 So the victim was levitated into the air, was suspended by nothing.

00:16:23.920 He never saw it again in his entire career.

00:16:27.860 As time goes on, those extraordinary manifestations, they just kind of go away.

00:16:34.340 And now you have the resistance of a belligerent, rebellious enemy of God, and that's what you've

00:16:43.320 got to attack.

00:16:44.400 If I bring in someone else in the room, so if I'm training a priest, for example, who has

00:16:50.540 been assigned by his bishop to be an exorcist and he's apprenticing, I can expect to see more

00:16:55.760 extraordinary signs.

00:16:56.820 Because now the devil's got a brand new audience and he cracks his knuckles and wants to display

00:17:02.580 what he wants in order to get into the mind and the heart of this new person.

00:17:07.020 This is the very thing that we seek to resist.

00:17:11.300 And this is the very thing that I'm going to brief that individual on before we enter into

00:17:15.900 the room.

00:17:16.340 This is what you probably are going to see.

00:17:18.220 Um, and you, you just have to imagine as you experience these things, imagine this is

00:17:25.740 the 289th time that you're seeing this and let that guide what, how you would behave when

00:17:33.660 that happens.

00:17:34.780 Father Morse said, the devil is already causing us as much harm as he's allowed to do.

00:17:41.560 It is false, he says, to believe that if I leave him alone, he will leave me alone.

00:17:47.940 It's not only false, it's a betrayal of our priestly ministry, which should be directed

00:17:52.540 solely at leading souls to God, even by removing them from Satan's power, if necessary.

00:17:59.460 So what does he mean there?

00:18:01.500 What's the danger of believing the devil will leave me alone if I leave him alone?

00:18:05.900 There's a couple of elements there.

00:18:07.260 One is that there, within humans, there is a natural repulsion by the devil.

00:18:15.040 There's a natural fear.

00:18:16.720 And that fear is, is, is healthy, right?

00:18:21.060 I think it would be unhealthy to be, um, to be, to have no anxiety about encountering the

00:18:28.420 devil at all.

00:18:29.100 I, I think that would be, we, I think we would call that arrogance.

00:18:34.300 Nevertheless, we are soldiers of Christ.

00:18:36.660 All of us priests, all of us Christians, we are in fact.

00:18:40.120 And so we have to expect that we're going to engage in spiritual warfare at a certain

00:18:46.460 point.

00:18:46.860 In other words, there has to be a grace filled limit to our fear of the devil, right?

00:18:54.720 There has to be that.

00:18:56.660 And, and because if there, if that isn't there, then we're ceding too much to the devil.

00:19:02.140 We're giving him too much real estate within our mind and in our hearts.

00:19:05.380 And, and, and what to phrase it in a different way, you know, we're limiting our faith in

00:19:11.180 God, which is, which his presence is in us.

00:19:14.760 And we're limiting that very thing by granting too much to the devil.

00:19:21.240 So it's, it's, it's, it's a detriment to our very selves to, to, to be afraid of the devil

00:19:28.520 in such a way that we never want to encounter him or engage him on a spiritual level.

00:19:34.220 So it's good and healthy to engage in proper spiritual warfare warfare.

00:19:40.980 And so that means when we encounter something evil, we pray, Lord, limit the power of the

00:19:46.900 evil one here, we, we educate and teach people on the devil.

00:19:51.640 We have to do this even at the risk of, of sounding like we believe in, in something

00:19:57.280 make-believe from a, from a bygone age.

00:20:00.380 And, and, and I tell you there, there's a story in the book of Father Amorth encountering

00:20:06.640 a cardinal and being present in his office.

00:20:11.200 And the, the, the cardinal himself believes that, that these, these are the stories of

00:20:17.300 the devil.

00:20:17.660 They're all fairy tales.

00:20:18.900 In other words, he is denying what the gospel presents us.

00:20:23.600 He, he's, he's denying the, the encounters that Jesus had with demons as, as make-believe.

00:20:32.860 Well, of course, the problem is if, if you think any part of the Bible is make-believe,

00:20:38.220 then the entire thing has to be distrusted because at, at the heart of it, the word of

00:20:45.160 God contains lies.

00:20:47.720 And, and if that's the case, we can't trust it at all.

00:20:50.720 Right, and so, so here's somebody who's operating at the highest level of the church, occupying

00:20:57.880 one of the offices with the most authority, and he doesn't believe one of the basic tenets

00:21:03.820 of the faith.

00:21:04.740 That is the fact that the Prince of Darkness exists, and he has minions beneath him called

00:21:11.620 demons, and they're working to build a kingdom in order to, to, to usurp God's sovereignty.

00:21:20.400 And he wants you and me to be the, the, the vassals of his kingdom.

00:21:26.560 He's working to destroy God's plan of salvation for you and for me.

00:21:30.780 Amazing, Father, when you were speaking there, I couldn't help thinking of the movie Nefarious.

00:21:36.500 When the priest comes in, and immediately the, the devil's possessing the, the possessed

00:21:43.560 person is like, so afraid, you know, uh, why have you come to destroy me or whatever?

00:21:49.500 Son of, son of, son of God.

00:21:52.120 And then the priest presents, just as you said, oh, we, we, you know, we don't believe in that

00:21:57.500 anymore.

00:21:58.900 Um, and then the devil's all sorts of comfortable with him.

00:22:01.280 Oh, come on in.

00:22:02.120 I should have had you in earlier.

00:22:04.180 Fascinating.

00:22:04.980 Um, you know, that, but that, that was great.

00:22:07.700 You know, and, and that point in the movie, uh, so, uh, you know, I, I know the, I've,

00:22:12.740 I've gotten to know and, and to befriend the, the, the two writers who were also the two directors

00:22:18.300 of the movie.

00:22:19.280 Uh, and this, it, it was a completely spontaneous thing, but it was something that the actor

00:22:24.280 who played Nefarious, uh, who played the possessed man, Sean Patrick Flannery, an idea

00:22:29.140 he had when the priest came in and, and he recoiled at the presence of the priest, he

00:22:35.460 actually turned two locks of his hair into points so that they look like horns.

00:22:40.300 He flexes his muscle in terms of his appearance, so to speak.

00:22:45.480 When the priest denies the existence of the devil, when he thinks that evil is just a matter

00:22:53.340 of, of, of, of a psychological aberration, when you look at Sean Patrick in the next scene,

00:23:00.220 his hair is flat.

00:23:01.180 He doesn't need to flex now because this, this, so this is something that is, uh, it's,

00:23:06.880 it's, it's not advertised, so to speak, in the movie, but if you look for it, you can

00:23:11.180 see it.

00:23:11.540 It's one of the hidden gems that they put within the movie.

00:23:14.640 The thing that's interesting about that quote from scriptures, you know, you know, when,

00:23:19.220 when the demon says to the Lord, have you come to destroy us before the appointed time?

00:23:27.240 What the devil informs us there is God always retains his sovereignty.

00:23:34.400 So, so the Lord has put down his rules for reality, which apply also to the devil and his

00:23:41.700 demons and, and they are assured of an eternal condemnation.

00:23:48.060 And it's coming to a point where his time is getting short, but they know he has the

00:23:54.740 authority to change the rule at any time.

00:23:58.620 They, they were given a date and a time of their destruction and they know that it can

00:24:03.080 be moved.

00:24:04.140 And at that point they, they were scared out of their skins, so to speak, and we can speak

00:24:10.080 this way, that God has changed the date, right?

00:24:14.520 So this goes to show you the devil there is one of the greatest evangelists in that he

00:24:22.360 proclaims the power of God.

00:24:24.760 And I think an exorcist is the best person to answer it, but why is the devil allowed to

00:24:28.320 harm us in the first place?

00:24:29.580 Why does God permit evil?

00:24:31.300 And, you know, St. Augustine, he gives us the answer that the church has held up perennially,

00:24:37.060 and that is he fits in God's plan in order to bring about greater good.

00:24:42.620 In other words, the end state of affairs, when all is said and done, when time comes to a

00:24:50.240 close, it will have been better.

00:24:52.620 There will be a better end result because of the fact that there was evil, that there

00:24:58.000 was pain and suffering than if there weren't.

00:25:00.480 That God, in his wisdom and his majesty, has ordained this to be the way by which we come

00:25:08.240 into eternal communion with him.

00:25:11.300 Because, you know, otherwise, if we don't believe this, then God would even be more cruel

00:25:19.240 than the devil because he's allowed us to be exposed to something that is just pure

00:25:26.380 destruction.

00:25:26.900 But it's not pure destruction, that the devil has a place in God's plan, and God is using

00:25:31.940 him, even though the devil, who, because of his tremendous angelic intellect, he should

00:25:39.200 know better and, in fact, does see better.

00:25:42.500 He spends an incredible amount of energy trying to usurp God's plan and fails at every corner.

00:25:50.100 He doesn't change his course.

00:25:52.040 And this is part of what even St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian in the history of the

00:25:58.700 church, said, there is a mystery to evil.

00:26:02.020 In the end, there's something so irrational about it that the mind simply cannot penetrate

00:26:09.720 it enough to understand it.

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00:26:54.960 Bishop Strickland came to L.A. to react to the L.A. Dodgers just honoring the most anti-Catholic

00:27:06.180 demonic hate group, if you will, anti-Christ hate group, like just horrific.

00:27:12.160 But because they were doing that, because the devil sort of reveled in that horrific display,

00:27:19.280 there was like 5,000 Catholics praying, processing with the bishop, Bishop Strickland, with a relic

00:27:28.940 of John Paul II.

00:27:29.740 It was so beautiful.

00:27:31.340 It was so moving.

00:27:33.200 None of that would have happened if they didn't do this demonic thing.

00:27:36.080 So it's just amazing.

00:27:37.920 And there may be people having been converted out of that, that the grace of the action

00:27:43.780 produces grace, that the action itself produces and diffuses a grace that simply through the

00:27:54.140 sacrifice done by those people who did that, God releases something that he wouldn't have

00:28:00.460 done that can bring about the conversion of many of those people who participated in that

00:28:06.420 or even on TV are just mesmerized and edified by that witness.

00:28:12.060 I encounter things like that when I go, when I do the missions I do all over the world.

00:28:18.040 I'll encounter a seminarian, for example, who's in his first year or second year.

00:28:23.440 And I ask him, you know, how did you get your call?

00:28:27.660 And gosh, so many of them say, you know, I was living a life of evil. 0.98

00:28:32.080 I was fornicating. 0.99

00:28:34.020 I was viewing internet pornography. 0.97

00:28:36.220 I was using drugs. 0.97

00:28:37.320 And I saw somebody do a heroic act, a kind act, looking like a fool, for example, praying

00:28:46.360 a rosary in public or being made fun of as they walked along the street, somebody who

00:28:52.840 was obviously religious, for example, a sister or maybe a religious brother in habit and even

00:28:57.920 being spat on and responded with simply a smile.

00:29:02.900 And that moved to the heart of that individual and broke through the shackles that, you know,

00:29:11.240 listening to 10,000 sermons may not have.

00:29:13.900 But that single act, that small act of heroism changed his heart.

00:29:19.380 It released a grace in him that pulled him out of one kingdom and into another.

00:29:24.260 Also in the book, we have, there's a title, excuse me, a chapter titled, His Eminence Does

00:29:31.560 Not Believe in Satan.

00:29:33.480 That's the one you referred to.

00:29:35.880 And that cardinal who you said did not believe.

00:29:39.880 How about that in the church today?

00:29:42.800 So this is way back.

00:29:43.980 Do you think that over the last, now almost 50 years, that has remained the same, increased

00:29:52.720 or decreased?

00:29:53.260 I do have to say it's decreasing simply because the ones who are like that cardinal and don't

00:30:02.040 believe God's biological solution is taking effect.

00:30:06.960 In other words, they're dying, right?

00:30:09.200 And so when you look at the church and who makes up the church now, for example, you look

00:30:14.620 at the seminarians that have joined the church in the last, let's say, 20 years, they are

00:30:21.560 different than the ones that joined starting, say, 40 years ago, right?

00:30:27.020 So looking at the past 40 years, the first 20 years of that, so men who joined the priesthood

00:30:33.060 beginning in the 1980s and all through the 90s, and then the ones that joined after, you're

00:30:39.420 talking about two different types of people.

00:30:42.760 So the ones today, they believe in God.

00:30:47.760 They believe in the devil.

00:30:48.940 They have a devotion to Our Lady.

00:30:50.780 Everything that the church professes in the creed, they believe.

00:30:54.540 It has been beyond two decades where I've encountered a seminarian who doesn't believe an article

00:31:02.600 of the faith that the church proposes to be definitive and believe by all, right?

00:31:07.800 So that's different.

00:31:10.100 In the first group, what you often encountered, and I hear bishops, I hear other priests talk

00:31:18.580 about, like, hey, what went through your mind when you wanted to, when you became a priest?

00:31:23.600 Well, I wanted to help people.

00:31:26.300 So I wanted to be a source of kindness, a source of encouragement to them, and there's nothing

00:31:32.180 wrong with these things.

00:31:33.680 But the belief of the church became secondary, and you could, many just kind of picked and

00:31:39.800 choose what they bought in, and they modify the teaching accordingly in their ministry.

00:31:43.940 That doesn't occur anymore, right?

00:31:47.100 So is that a grace?

00:31:49.540 Was that an effect of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who worked very hard to reform the seminaries,

00:31:57.280 or maybe a bit of both?

00:31:59.280 But we're in a different place here now.

00:32:01.360 So that age, that generation that didn't believe in the devil, they're dying out, and

00:32:08.780 they're not being replaced.

00:32:10.420 So we are becoming in a better place.

00:32:12.540 I would credit also Satan with some of that.

00:32:16.700 The horror of the priestly sexual abuse scandal has made, and it's a revelation, has made the

00:32:25.240 becoming a priest much more difficult because it's no longer regarded as, by the public, that

00:32:35.220 is, as something great and wonderful.

00:32:37.780 In fact, a lot of priests wonder if they should wear their clerics out in public because of being

00:32:42.520 called horrific names.

00:32:44.600 So the decision to become a priest is no longer about, well, it's a nice job, and I'll get

00:32:51.600 to do lots of nice things, and I'll be able to help the poor and encourage people.

00:32:55.720 You'd also have to come from a real faith, a commitment to this thing unto death.

00:33:02.380 So Satan, for all his horror and that situation of the abuse scandals, is a horror and satanic.

00:33:10.780 But I think that's also played a role in terms of cleaning things up.

00:33:13.700 The priesthood does not have the prestige that it used to have, that's for sure.

00:33:17.140 And, you know, another factor that's there is, you know, most of the abuse has been caused

00:33:26.660 by homosexuality in the priesthood, right? 0.68

00:33:29.940 So most of the abuse has not been done by what psychology defines as true pedophiles. 0.87

00:33:38.140 They've been acts of homosexuality done by priests on post-pubescent youth, right?

00:33:47.600 So this is, by definition, homosexuality rather than pedophilia. 0.62

00:33:51.820 Today, if a homosexual doesn't need to become a priest in order to live an unquestioned single 1.00

00:34:00.500 life, or actually, on the contrary, today, gays are socially permitted, societally permitted

00:34:11.040 to marry one another.

00:34:12.440 So whereas the priesthood was a refuge before that prevented questions of like, hey, how come

00:34:18.800 I never see you dating?

00:34:19.660 How come you aren't married yet with a wife?

00:34:21.820 It's not that anymore.

00:34:23.100 It's not the refuge that it once was.

00:34:26.000 So all of these things are contributing to a cleaning up of the priesthood. 0.71

00:34:30.660 The one similarity or the one place in which I think it's gotten much worse is that that

00:34:37.660 older generation now all find themselves among the hierarchy.

00:34:43.040 That's why the stunning revelation from Germany was so severe. 0.86

00:34:49.520 The vote in Germany of the bishops with regard to allowing for homosexual blessings in churches,

00:34:59.640 which is completely against the teaching of the church.

00:35:02.100 The vote was 38 to 8, 38 bishops in favor, 8 bishops opposed, and there was 11 abstentions,

00:35:09.820 but that doesn't even matter.

00:35:11.560 That's just stunning.

00:35:12.300 I find myself without words as to why the church in Rome, which the job of the Holy Father is

00:35:22.440 to strengthen and confirm the brethren.

00:35:25.800 He is the visible source of unity in the church.

00:35:28.160 Well, there's a horrific source of disunity, a cavity beginning in Germany, and why is this

00:35:35.620 permitted to go on?

00:35:36.820 I just, I'm at a loss.

00:35:40.000 I don't know what to say about that.

00:35:42.420 But that clearly is an instance of evil.

00:35:47.580 It is an anti-gospel that is being presented.

00:35:50.440 One can't call it anything other than that.

00:35:53.760 This is at variance with the Word of God.

00:35:56.380 In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, 16 to 20, Christ says,

00:36:00.440 By their fruits you shall know them.

00:36:03.900 Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?

00:36:07.440 Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

00:36:12.980 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.

00:36:16.420 Neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.

00:36:18.760 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.

00:36:24.000 Wherefore, by their fruits you shall know them.

00:36:26.180 How can we apply this, then, to our own lives and to our approach to the Catholic Church and her members?

00:36:32.880 We have to always, as Christians, we have to be examining our lives for what needs pruning,

00:36:39.200 for what is not aiding us in our journey to heaven, and what in fact is bringing us down.

00:36:43.920 And look, it's really easy to get caught up in the bad fruits of the world.

00:36:50.920 You know, I decided, for example, years ago that I needed to give up movies.

00:36:56.920 Why?

00:36:57.620 Because, you know, turn on a movie today.

00:37:00.660 Find me a movie that doesn't have a blasphemy other than it, where God's name is not used

00:37:08.140 disrespectfully, and, you know, you have a name, I have a name, God is his name.

00:37:18.000 And so, in the Old Testament, when his name was disrespected, the punishment was death

00:37:23.420 because the disrespecting of God's name is a literal attack on him.

00:37:29.680 And that is, by definition, a repeating of the rebellion of Satan, right?

00:37:36.680 It is a participation in that original demonic rebellion.

00:37:40.660 So, it brings a curse, not only upon the individual, but upon the place where that was uttered.

00:37:48.440 The demons rush in.

00:37:50.220 So, the penalty for that action was death.

00:37:52.240 Today, we don't stone people for uttering a blasphemy, but we certainly don't respond

00:37:59.500 to it in the way that we ought to.

00:38:01.400 And so, for me, I mean, who doesn't love a good movie?

00:38:04.380 But I had to sacrifice the good that was present in it because of the bad that is concomitant

00:38:11.200 with it.

00:38:11.780 And you know what?

00:38:13.280 My life is the better for it.

00:38:14.880 And it's not just blasphemy, but just themes that are detestable, things that are just unbecoming

00:38:23.980 of a Christian to watch. 0.94

00:38:25.980 And we may appreciate the relaxation and the recreation that watching a movie gives us,

00:38:33.440 but if we have a dichotomy within ourselves, so we have one self that is trying to build

00:38:40.540 holiness and trying to be faithful to God, build a prayer life, turn away from sin, and

00:38:45.040 so forth.

00:38:45.520 And we have this other part where we suspend the former in view of the latter.

00:38:51.080 We have a fizzer within ourselves, right?

00:38:53.880 We're not going to get holy by having this kind of fizzer.

00:38:58.460 I had to make a decision like that.

00:39:00.780 What the Word of God calls us to do is to make sacrifices where we need to in our lives

00:39:08.820 in order to become holy.

00:39:11.100 So that sacrificial dimension of the Christian life is always operative.

00:39:17.640 You know, there's a line, and the reference for which escapes me right now, there's a line

00:39:23.240 in one of the Psalms in the Old Testament, and it goes,

00:39:31.260 As you behold, so you will glow.

00:39:34.620 Whatever you set your eyes on, whatever you look at and observe, the glow of that thing

00:39:41.720 is going to be upon you.

00:39:42.840 If you're looking at ugly things, blasphemous things, immoral things, that's the glow that

00:39:48.760 you're going to cast.

00:39:49.500 That's the holiness that you're pursuing and the holiness that's going to stick to you.

00:39:55.600 Father Amorth was known for many, many things.

00:39:59.520 One of the things that happened even in later years, near the closing of his life, but changing

00:40:07.700 of the prayers of exorcism from the Latin into the vernacular, changing of the holy water,

00:40:17.180 if you will, to just blessed water from exorcism water.

00:40:19.780 He had some very strong opinions about that.

00:40:25.680 Can you explain what his opinions were and why he would have that?

00:40:30.180 At the Second Vatican Council, it called for a reform of all of the rituals and liturgies

00:40:38.220 of the Church.

00:40:39.320 So the very last ritual to be reformed was the rite of exorcism, which occurred in 1999.

00:40:46.080 And that was done under the supervision of Cardinal Estevez, who was a liturgist, had never performed

00:40:55.340 an exorcism in his life.

00:40:57.540 And so what you have is somebody who has no practical expertise in an area, trying to interpret

00:41:04.560 it in himself and understand it, and then give that interpretation to the world.

00:41:10.280 Well, this is a very practical craft.

00:41:13.360 And so if you don't consult exorcists, the men that are actually doing that craft, then

00:41:19.720 the probability that you're going to get something wrong is going to be high.

00:41:23.480 And guess what happened?

00:41:25.600 Because what occurred, among other things, is they changed this ritual, which is very much

00:41:34.480 a confrontation with evil, right?

00:41:37.440 So where there's an alternation in the original rite of exorcism between praying to God, asking

00:41:44.760 for his intervention in the exorcist, but in the situation as well, and then an attack

00:41:52.300 of the demon, a visceral attack using language that was abusive. 0.99

00:41:59.320 You know, you hear a thing, I adjure you, ancient serpent, ancient liar, cunning fiend. 1.00

00:42:05.680 May you be struck in hell along with your venomous poison. 1.00

00:42:10.440 Those abuses, that abusive language wounds the devil. 0.99

00:42:15.520 Much of that was removed in the revised rite.

00:42:18.760 And the revised rite became not so much a confrontation, but a liturgy where one begins, it almost looks

00:42:27.680 like a kind of almost a mass, if you will, without a consecration.

00:42:32.700 Begins in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, I'm in, the Lord be with you.

00:42:36.300 And so how do you think the devil is going to respond when the priest says, the Lord be

00:42:43.080 with you?

00:42:43.480 He's going to say something distasteful, crude, and horrific.

00:42:48.780 And this is the reality in the revised rite of exorcism.

00:42:53.160 Much of its guts were usurped.

00:42:55.560 So I'm not going to say that it's not effective at all.

00:42:59.200 But the vast majority of exorcists, and I'm at a meeting of them right now, this is where

00:43:04.580 I am.

00:43:06.660 There's, I personally don't know a single one that uses the revised rite.

00:43:11.600 They use the traditional rite, the rite that was first composed in the year 1614, which

00:43:16.460 has the muscle that you want to use in the rite.

00:43:20.060 I, again, not to say that none of them have ever used the revised rite.

00:43:25.780 I have used it.

00:43:27.300 I just have not found the same kind of success that the traditional rite gives us.

00:43:35.720 One of the final sections in the revised rite is the exorcist out loud thanks the Lord for

00:43:44.200 liberating this victim of the presence of the devil.

00:43:48.840 And at that point, if the devil is still there, how do you think he's going to respond?

00:43:53.320 Now, I'm still here, along with some abusive language towards the exorcist, calling the

00:44:01.760 exorcist himself a liar. 0.78

00:44:04.240 And yet this is what is printed in the ritual, a thanking of the Lord for liberating this person.

00:44:10.300 Guess what?

00:44:10.660 The person was not liberated.

00:44:12.800 Most possession cases, in my experience and that of my colleagues, require something in

00:44:20.140 the neighborhood of 75 exorcisms.

00:44:22.740 So if someone is being exorcised once a week, it requires a year and a half.

00:44:27.980 Here you have someone with zero experience thinking that, okay, this is just going to be

00:44:34.420 super quick and almost magical, whereby we just pronounce these words, the devil's going

00:44:40.200 to magically leave and none of us are going to be late for dinner as a result.

00:44:44.360 And this is just not the case.

00:44:46.600 And what about holy water?

00:44:47.640 He said something interesting about holy water, too.

00:44:50.300 I don't know that many people know the difference.

00:44:52.280 What is the difference?

00:44:53.300 What happened there?

00:44:54.380 In the church, there are many kinds of holy water.

00:44:57.320 There's Easter water, the water that we blessed at the Easter vigil.

00:45:02.480 There's epiphany water, water that is blessed on the solemnity of the epiphany.

00:45:07.100 We have different formulas of holy water that are blessed on a particular saint's day or

00:45:15.600 in a particular manner, according to a devotion to a saint.

00:45:19.960 All of them are effective.

00:45:22.920 You know, people ask, well, which is more powerful?

00:45:25.360 I don't know that we can really speak this way.

00:45:29.280 They're all holy waters.

00:45:30.960 They all repel evil.

00:45:32.320 They all give God's blessing.

00:45:35.920 But the waters each affect what is prayed into them.

00:45:41.200 So for exorcism, we use a particular holy water that is in the old ritual of 1614.

00:45:49.560 And so what occurs?

00:45:52.360 First, you start with exorcising salt.

00:45:56.960 All right.

00:45:57.080 So the first words are God's creature salt.

00:45:58.960 I cast out the devil from you.

00:46:00.680 And why would salt need exorcising?

00:46:03.440 Why would anything?

00:46:04.340 Why would an inanimate object need exorcising?

00:46:07.400 Because at the fall of Adam, the devil became the prince of the world.

00:46:11.120 The world is under his dominion.

00:46:13.220 So the exorcist is removing the dominion of the devil from the salt.

00:46:19.380 After he exorcises it, which is a good, solid paragraph, then he blesses the salt.

00:46:25.580 The next thing he does is he exorcises the water.

00:46:29.680 Good, solid page.

00:46:31.860 And then he blesses it.

00:46:33.900 Then he mixes the two elements and he blesses the mixture.

00:46:38.380 Right.

00:46:38.560 So why salt and water?

00:46:39.980 Well, because both of them have cleansing properties in the natural realm.

00:46:44.980 And these, the word of God has identified they have cleansing properties in the spiritual realm.

00:46:50.220 So in the formula of making that water, we pray into, the exorcist prays into the elements, what he wants them to achieve.

00:47:02.620 So, you know, he says, wherever this water is sprinkled, may there be peace in the homes of the faithful.

00:47:10.220 May the wickedness of the foul fiend be cast away, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:47:14.740 Such that when the holy water is sprinkled and wherever it is sprinkled, that effect is accomplished.

00:47:22.160 And it's a powerful effect.

00:47:23.500 So in the old ritual, the priest would typically use it to bless a great amount of holy water.

00:47:32.700 That is the holy water that would be placed in the tank that people at church could take home, sprinkle in their homes.

00:47:39.780 And guess what?

00:47:40.700 The priest doesn't have to be present in their homes.

00:47:43.600 The very fact that the faithful are spreading it, that effect is occurring in their homes.

00:47:47.620 This is the holy water that is typically used in exorcism.

00:47:54.080 So what happens?

00:47:56.220 Well, in the new rite of exorcism, they include the option of producing holy water right in the very ritual itself.

00:48:07.120 Well, what's the problem with that?

00:48:08.620 You're introducing something that really should have been done prior because exorcism is a confrontation with evil.

00:48:16.200 So you're having somebody who doesn't want to be present at a liturgy and who's going to be as belligerent as possible as it's happening, be right front and center as a main character when the scene is happening.

00:48:30.040 So you're introducing, you're casting pearls before the swine in the most literal way.

00:48:37.220 The effect of the holy water in an exorcism, what have you seen of that?

00:48:42.640 Oh, it's a visceral effect.

00:48:44.240 Visceral.

00:48:44.600 The devil will always recoil.

00:48:47.320 And if he's being belligerent, a splash of the holy water on the face always stops that.

00:48:54.360 In fact, my laypersons that I will employ in an exorcism, all of them have their own bottles of holy water such that in the midst of their praying, if a belligerence happens, they already know what to do.

00:49:07.620 So they don't have to be guided in it.

00:49:09.300 So they serve as additional hands and arms for me.

00:49:13.860 I know everybody's going to be wondering.

00:49:15.820 So might as well just explain it.

00:49:18.100 What do you mean lay people at an exorcism?

00:49:20.440 What's that all about?

00:49:21.560 Aren't you just there with the victim just by himself?

00:49:24.400 How's that go?

00:49:24.900 So you need other persons there.

00:49:26.800 First of all, you need holders to hold down the victim because the devil is going to attack you otherwise.

00:49:32.480 You need people that are interceding there.

00:49:36.360 You're picking people that have a holiness.

00:49:38.960 They have faith and a holiness, a lived faith.

00:49:42.560 You want those people in the room because their prayers are going to help you, and those prayers are caustic to the devil.

00:49:49.820 You may have a nurse or doctor, a medical expert there in the room, and you have just other people there that are an extension of you, your hands and your arms, so that they are handing you something you might need.

00:50:07.700 A crucifix at this point, or a relic of a saint, or even on their own initiative, sprinkling holy water upon the victim as a response to something that the devil is doing.

00:50:20.400 So this aids you because really exorcism is an act by the church, and these people here are representative of the church.

00:50:28.240 They're the fingertips of the church, so to speak, in this act of liberation.

00:50:33.160 Can you tell me a little bit about Father Amorth in your sort of relationship with him, what he meant to you, how he might have inspired you?

00:50:43.880 Father Amorth, I never did get a chance to meet him, but we certainly ran in the same circles in the sense that his teacher, who was Father Candito Amantini,

00:50:54.300 he was a Passionist priest who operated out of the Scala Santa Church, the Church of the Holy Stairs in Rome, which is across the street from St. John Lateran Archbasilica.

00:51:07.020 So the Church of the Holy Stairs contains the steps that went up to Pontius Pilate's Praetorium in Jerusalem, meaning those are the steps that our Lord had to walk up and down.

00:51:18.960 So Helen, Constantine's mother, removed them and sent them to Rome, and Constantine erected a basilica around them.

00:51:26.400 Beneath those stairs, in the basement, so to speak, or the crypt, is where Father Candido used to conduct his exorcisms.

00:51:37.140 I conducted them there myself.

00:51:41.180 Candido was Father Gabriel's teacher.

00:51:44.420 So Father Candido was the one who taught Father Gabriel, and Father Gabriel succeeded him in the ministry.

00:51:53.640 So what I found especially good in this book is how Father Amorth talks about how he was taught, what he was told to zero in on, what he was told to avoid.

00:52:09.020 And so I had never encountered another resource where he's being given the lessons against the demonic.

00:52:18.320 And they are lessons that are worthwhile for all of us.

00:52:22.320 And so that appears, that's essentially the last third of the book.

00:52:27.300 So I found that particular part quite edifying.

00:52:30.300 Father Candido was an immensely holy man, and his cause for canonization is well underway.

00:52:39.000 In fact, he's reached the status of venerable, and his body has been moved inside the Basilica, inside the Scala Santa Basilica itself.

00:52:49.120 So that is an immense nod of approval by the Universal Church when that occurs.

00:52:55.460 Father, thank you so very much.

00:52:57.860 Pick up this book for an inside view of the life of an exorcist, what it really means.

00:53:03.200 The Battle with the Devil, Incredibles, available from Tan Books, the official biography of Father Gabriel Amorth.

00:53:10.100 Thank you so much for being with us, Father.

00:53:12.120 God bless you.

00:53:13.040 Thank you. God bless you.

00:53:14.400 And God bless all of you.

00:53:16.620 And we'll see you next time.

00:53:17.460 Hi, everyone. This is John Henry Weston.

00:53:27.060 We hope you enjoyed this program.

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00:53:42.500 Thanks for watching, and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - July 10, 2023

Vatican's Most Famous Exorcist In 500 Years - Fr. Gabriele Amorth ｜ Fr. Carlos Martins Explains

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