The Devil and Father Amorth

The Devil and Father Amorth. The documentary by William Friedkin.

Yesterday, the official trailer for the documentary "The Devil & Father Amorth" was released. A documentary by William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist, about one of the most famous exorcists.

Friedkin’s film, The Exorcist was released in 1973 and was included in the genre of horror film. Decades later, the director wanted to know how authentic his film was. How far removed it was from reality, what fiction and what reality was. For this he contacted the most famous exorcist.

Friedkin met several times with P. Gabriele Amorth and was allowed to accompany him to his exorcist service. This resulted in the documentary that will be released in theaters in the United States next April 20. What both could not know: These were the last months before Amorth's death.

Existence of evil

According to Friedkin, it was the concern of P. Amorth to make visible the reality of personified evil. Due to interviews of the director after Amorth's death, there had been criticism in the past. He announced that Amorth had allowed him to film an exorcism. Other exorcists, Amorth's students, suspected Friedkin might have filmed with a hidden camera without permission. Friedkin sees himself as the "last witness" of the work of Fr. Gabriele Amorth as an exorcist.

Father Amorth died on 16 September 2016 after a short, severe illness at the age of 91 years. In the last 30 years of his life, he was the priest of the Society of St. Paul Exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, and from 1992 the chief exorcist.

By 2007, he had performed around 70,000 exorcisms. A lot last only "a few minutes", others "several hours", he said in a newspaper interview. All in all, in his life he faced "true obsession" in about a hundred cases. These were usually "demonic disorders" or forms of mental illness.

In 1990, Father Amorth founded the International Association of Exorcists (AIE) based in Rome. It includes priests who are officially commissioned by a diocesan bishop to serve as the exorcist. In 2014, the Association was approved by the Holy See by decree of the Congregation of Clergy. Until his 75th birthday in 2000, he was president, then honorary chairman of the association.

"Evil leads to terrible things"

The evil, according to Father Amorth in the 2013 documentary "Amorth - the Exorcist", seduces "terrible things". But there is no man, "whatever he may have done, who could not be saved by repentance and the grace of God." The motto of every priest, and especially of the exorcists, must therefore be:

"To fight relentlessly against sin, but not against the sinner."

The exorcist of "the Diocese of the Pope" was a man of clear words. In 2010, he caused a stir in an interview with the daily newspaper Il Foglio:

"Yes, there are also members of satanic sects in the Vatican. They are priests, monsignori and also cardinals! It has been confessed several times by the devil during an exorcism."

When asked whether Pope Benedict XVI. was so informed, Father Amorth replied:

"Of course he has been informed! He does what he can. It is a shocking thing. Bear in mind that Benedict XVI. Is a German Pope. He comes from a people who firmly reject such things. There are hardly any exorcists in Germany. "

Freemasonry and abortion

"Unfortunately there are many priests and many bishops who do not believe in the existence of the devil. There are whole countries without officially appointed exorcists. Many bishops do not believe in the existence of the devil and even go so far as to say publicly that hell does not exist, the devil does not exist. But Jesus speaks of it several times in the Gospel, so that one might wonder if they have never read the Gospel or really believe it!”

In 2015, he said in a television interview on Freemasonry and Abortion:

"Freemasonry was originally founded by an Anglican pastor, initially for humanitarian reasons. But then something else came out of it. It's about power and money. For power and money. These are two gates of evil."

"The devil is the confounder par excellence. He twists things. He is the father of lies. There is no truth in him. The less people believe in his existence, the more conscious or unconscious tools he finds among men. Take the example of abortion. An innocent child is killed and a human being killed. But they want to make us believe that this is progress. For progress! To kill a human being is progress? You have to imagine that. It's hard to believe."

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: Youtube (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG