The Pope has officially approved of exorcism as a recognized Catholic practice.
The Vatican has approved of 250 priests under the banner of the International Association of Exorcists, who claim that they have the powers to save people from demonic evils.
The Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reported that the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy has given its stamp of approval and officially recognized the Exorcists under canon law.
The newly approved congregation measure gives legal authority to the performance of an exorcism.
Reverend Frances Bamonte, the head of the International Association of Exorcists, said, “Exorcism is a form of charity that benefits those who suffer.”
The Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained tells us that after an exorcism has been completed, the individual being exorcised feels a “kind of release of guilt and feels reborn and freed of sin.” The encyclopedia explains that exorcisms could sometimes take months to carry out successfully.
According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, exorcism is “the act of driving out, or warding off, demons, or evil spirits, from persons, places, or things, which are believed to be possessed or infested by them, or are liable to become victims or instruments of their malice.”
Pope Francis often speaks of the Devil in his speeches. He once said, “Anyone who does not pray to the Lord prays to the Devil.”
Some asked last year, when a video surfaced of the Pope intensely reciting a prayer with his hands over the head of a wheelchair-bound child, if the Pope had been carrying out an exorcism. A television station owned by The Italian Bishops Conference said of the incident, “The exorcists who have seen the images have no doubt: this was a liberation prayer from evil, or a real act of exorcism.” Father Gabriele Amorth, considered the best-known exorcist and the top official at the International Association of Exorcists, said, “The Pope is also the Bishop of Rome, and like any bishop he is also an exorcist. We live in an age in which God has been forgotten. And wherever God is not present, the Devil reigns.”