Evidence
A crisis in their own words.
“I said to the bishop, I don’t think her problem is psychological. I think she’s got a spiritual problem, and so you really need an exorcist.”
“He called three different priests and asked them to be the exorcist. They all said no.”
“No one wanted to do it. They just said, ‘Not me.’”
“So I’m sitting there with the bishop, and he said what do we do now?”
“People said, ‘Aren’t you afraid as an exorcist?’ Why should I be afraid? Jesus is Lord.”
- RossettiPriest and psychologist. Exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington for nineteen years.
- AmorthExorcist of the Diocese of Rome, 1986 to 2016. Founder of the International Association of Exorcists.
- ForteaPriest, theologian and exorcist, Spain.
- CollinsVincentian priest and exorcist, Dublin.
- TruquiMexican priest and exorcist, a pupil of Amorth’s.
- BamontePresident of the International Association of Exorcists, 2012 to 2024.
- RippergerFounder of a society of American priests that does exorcism and nothing else.
- TaraborelliExorcist, Rome.
- SalvucciExorcist, Fermo, Italy.
- MacNuttCatholic priest. Prayed deliverance over people for decades, and wrote the manual.
- MabitPhysician. Founder of the Takiwasi Centre in the Peruvian Amazon.
- TonelloCoordinator of the exorcists of the Diocese of Padua.
- The bishopsOf Italy, of Ireland, of Washington.
The doors are full
“When I started almost twenty years ago, no one talked about it.”
“And then all of a sudden, the last five or seven or eight years, it’s exploded in interest and also requests. We are flooded with requests constantly.”
“The number of requests for exorcism has skyrocketed too, by the way.”
“[W]e get about anywhere from 400 to 800 requests for help a month.”
“[I]t’s only in recent years that the demand has risen exponentially.”
“The suffering is great, and it is increasing.”
“They should be exorcised once a week, minimum, and I’m forced to exorcise them once a month…”
“It’s becoming a pastoral emergency.”
Not me
“He replied that he had been unable to find a priest who would accept the task. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence.”
“Me? I would not know where to start.”
“I told the bishop that I can’t find anyone willing to do this. Many of them are scared. Even priests can be scared.”
“Few exorcists are being appointed, and there are no longer young priests willing to learn the doctrine and practice of the liberation of souls.”
Nobody is taught
“One can leave the seminary and become a priest without ever having heard a word on the devil, a word on exorcisms, much less the danger of mages and other occult sciences. Or on demonic possession. And so they don’t believe in it, they never preach it.”
“The devil was never mentioned.”
“Even today, very few seminaries, if any, teach about this ministry.”
“Very often, we priests do not know how to face concrete cases brought before us.”
“These things don’t get talked about during priestly formation.”
“How many of you have had someone come to you and say they’ve got demons, need help? Everybody raises their hand. And I said, ‘How many of you had some training either in the seminary or after on how to deal with these issues?’ Nobody raised their hand.”
“And so there was a mentorship. Well, that mentorship collapsed in the fifties.”
“[O]ut of that one hundred forty, maybe only about twenty to twenty-five that I would feel comfortable sending someone to, knowing they’re going to get the help they actually need.”
“It is not sufficient to entrust the ministry of exorcism to priests endowed with piety, knowledge, integrity of life and prudence. Specific preparation is also necessary for this demanding task.”
They do not believe it
“The majority of the clergy, especially cardinals and bishops, don’t consider the Devil as a concrete reality.”
“The situation unfortunately has not changed, because even still we have many priests and many bishops who do not believe in it.”
“We can find some priest or bishop who is very traditional but who, let us say it clearly, does not believe in exorcisms because he does not believe in demonic possession.”
“Many times I’ve had priests come to assist me in my exorcisms, who have said to me, ‘Look, Don Amorth, at first I didn’t believe it, but now I really do!’”
“Infestations are remarkably frequent, but generally pass unidentified as such, even by religious practitioners.”
“If you don’t take the Devil seriously, he’ll run rings around you which I think he’s doing by the way.”
They will not appoint
“In the majority of dioceses in the world there is no exorcist. That’s how it is… there are cases in which the prelate does not want to name anyone.”
- “I do not appoint exorcists as a matter of principle.”
- “I believe only in parapsychology.”
- “Do you still believe in such things?”
- “I do not appoint exorcists and do not practice exorcisms because I am afraid. If the devil becomes my enemy, what am I to do?”
- “I would like to know who put these idiocies into your mind.”
- “It is the two of you who are possessed.”
The last, to the parents of a young man the bishop refused to see.
“Each one of these answers brought great suffering to the person who received it.”
Ireland
“I’ve been complaining for years, I would refer lay people to the local bishop but when they get in touch with bishop’s house, they find that there’s nobody competent.”
“It’s a dereliction of duty, I really feel that strongly.”
They shut it down
“Cases in which a bishop has arrived at a diocese with the will to end the ministry of liberation. This has certainly occurred and must be stated in all its harshness, without diplomacy… It has happened in Europe, in the United States, in many places.”
“With one stroke he ends a ministry… What will happen to the people he attended to?”
“The problems that turn up (and everyone has heard about them) simply serve as an excuse for denial by many Christian ministers unwilling to recognize a more important problem: that many people suffer from demonic infestation and that there is an enormous vacuum in pastoral practice because most churches are not dealing with demonic infestation.”
“But the answer to abuse is not to shut down the deliverance ministry. The answer is not no use but right use.”
“We exorcists are forced to work almost secretly, like rats in a sewer.”
“Jesus did exorcisms in the street. Now we have to do them in hiding.”
The other door
“[W]hen they turn to the Church, the Church doesn’t know what to do with them, and they refer them on either to a psychologist… and they do fall between the cracks and often are not helped.”
“Here in Spain, if a psychiatrist grants an interview and says that he believes in demonic possession, he risks having his boss open an investigation against him… he risks losing his position at a hospital or as a professor at a university.”
“As soon as there are two or three convictions of this type, it’s over. No bishop is going to give permission to perform exorcisms in that country… I assume we are living through the last years of exorcism.”
More exorcists
Every diocese
“I am convinced that allowing the ministry of exorcism to die is an unforgivable deficiency to be laid squarely at the door of bishops… The Catholic hierarchy must say a forceful mea culpa.”
“First, I would insist that each diocese be obliged to have an exorcist. Second, [I would insist] that seminaries restore the courses in angelology and demonology…”
“[T]he need for each diocese in the world to have one or more priest exorcists.”
“To priests, my brother priests: there’s an intense need around the world… It’s part of who we are as priests to deliver people from the power of the devil. All of us.”
The voice wasn’t me
“During my quest, priests and bishops laughed at me and subjected me to humiliations.”
“Not only was she told that there were no exorcists and that there was no need of one, but she was also ridiculed for her fears and told not to give in to her imagination, because priests had much more important work to do than to deal with foolishness.”
“My bishop and the priests in my diocese are always proclaiming their full solidarity with the poor. How about those who are tormented by the evil one? Aren’t they poor?”
“I have talked to my priest and he is sympathetic. He tells me to go to confession, but it is not enough. I need help.”
“My psychiatrist came and told me I had to be admitted. I refused because I knew I could not get the help I needed in a hospital.”
“After talking and talking, Father said in essence that I was a nice, confused lady who needed a psychiatrist. That hurt, not because I hadn’t heard it before, but because I hadn’t come all the way to a distant city to hear it.”
“Then I asked him pointblank about the voice. He was very distressed but said he thought the voice was mine.”
“I told him I didn’t know what to say except that I knew the voice wasn’t me. ‘How do you know?’ he asked.”
“But who believes these victims?”
- Rossetti · The Lila Rose Show, ep. 243. Palilla · to Vatican Radio, February 2018, as reported by The Local and Newsweek; the same figure is given by the Association of Italian Catholic Psychiatrists and Psychologists, as cited in Baglio, The Rite (2009). Ripperger · interview, Tucker Carlson.
- Rossetti, the three priests · interviews with Fr Mark Baron, MIC (Divine Mercy) and Mike Creavey (Gracious Guest Show), YouTube. “Why should I be afraid?” · the same interview with Fr Baron.
- Rossetti · The Lila Rose Show, ep. 243; Gracious Guest Show. Ripperger · interview, Tucker Carlson.
- Collins · to The Irish Catholic, January 2018, as reported by CNA. Tonello · Diocese of Padua, “Esorcisti, esorcismi e cammini di liberazione”, YouTube.
- Amorth · The Devil Is Afraid of Me, with Marcello Stanzione (2019). The association · Dr Valter Cascioli, to CNA, November 2014.
- Amorth, the bishop who could find no priest · An Exorcist Tells His Story. Taraborelli · to the BBC, October 2016, as reported by Christian Today. Truqui · as quoted by Balarm, 29 March 2019.
- Amorth · Memoirs of an Exorcist, with Marco Tosatti (2010). Rossetti · The Lila Rose Show. Collins · CNA, 2018. Ripperger · interview, Tucker Carlson. Palilla · to Catholic News Service, as reported in America. Bamonte · on the second edition of Possessioni diaboliche ed esorcismo (Paoline), YouTube.
- Amorth · to Newsweek, June 1992; Memoirs of an Exorcist. Fortea · “Obispos y exorcismo”, talk to the fifth congress on exorcism, Dominican Republic, 2021, YouTube. Collins · The Irish Catholic, November 2020. Mabit · Takiwasi Centre.
- The bishops’ replies · Amorth, An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories.
- Collins · to The Irish Catholic, November 2020. Diocese survey by GRIS, the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum and the University of Bologna, reported in the same.
- Fortea · “Obispos y exorcismo”, 2021. MacNutt · Deliverance from Evil Spirits (1995). Salvucci · Pastoral Indications of an Exorcist, as quoted in Newsweek, June 1992. Amorth · Memoirs of an Exorcist.
- Collins · CNA, 2018. Fortea · interview with Yohanan Díaz Vargas, 2017, YouTube.
- Amorth · Father Amorth: My Battle Against Satan (2018). Chavez · “Modern Practice, Archaic Ritual”, Religions 12:811 (2021). Muchembled, as given by Giordan & Possamai. The International Association of Exorcists · Amorth, An Exorcist Explains the Demonic (2016), and the association.
- Amorth · An Exorcist Tells His Story; An Exorcist Explains the Demonic. The association · proposal to Pope Leo XIV, March 2026, as reported by EWTN News. Rossetti · interview with Fr Mark Baron, MIC.
- The afflicted · letters quoted in Amorth, An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories; the girl of eighteen, An Exorcist: More Stories; the woman who wrote to MacNutt, in Francis MacNutt, Deliverance from Evil Spirits (1995).
Every quotation is given as its speaker gave it. Square brackets mark a capital or a word supplied where a quotation starts mid-sentence; an ellipsis marks words left out. Spanish and Italian quotations are our own translations from the recordings and articles named. If you are quoted here and we have got you wrong, write and we will correct it: hello@metanoiaproject.ie
Martin Schongauer, Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons, c.1470–75. Jacques Callot, from The Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1635. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.
See also A crisis in numbers, and The Black Paper, Part three.
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