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Hitler and Stalin were possessed by the Devil, says Vatican exorcist By NICK PISA Last updated at 17:32pm on 28th August 2006 Adolf Hitler and Russian leader Stalin were possessed by the Devil, the Vatican's chief exorcist has claimed. Father Gabriele Amorth who is Pope Benedict XVI's 'caster out of demons' made his comments during an interview with Vatican Radio. Father Amorth said: "Of course the Devil exists and he can not only possess a single person but also groups and entire populations. "I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about...

Adolf Hitler and Russian leader Stalin were possessed by the Devil, the Vatican's chief exorcist has claimed. Father Gabriele Amorth who is Pope Benedict XVI's 'caster out of demons' made his comments during an interview with Vatican Radio. Father Amorth said: "Of course the Devil exists and he can not only possess a single person but also groups and entire populations. "I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler - and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the Devil. "You can tell by their behaviour and their...

Twenty-nine years have passed since that day, June 29 1972. It was the Feast of Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles. It was the Feast of Saint Paul who brought the Gospel of Christ to the extreme corners of the West. On that day, June 29, Feast of the Patron Saints of Rome, Peter’s successor who had taken the name of Paul issued a dramatic warning. Paul VI spoke of God’s enemy supreme, that enemy of man called Satan, enemy of the Church. “The smoke of Satan”, warned Paul VI, “has found its way into the Church through the fissures”....

It was the first day of school, so some students were understandably nervous. But then again, they were not taking just any course, but one run by a Vatican university to teach aspiring demonologists and exorcists."There is no doubt that the devil is intervening more in the life of man these days," Father Paolo Scarafoni told the students, most of them priests who want to learn how to tackle the demon if they should ever encounter him."Not all of you will become exorcists but it is indispensable that every priest knows how to discern between demonic possession and psychological problems,"...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Orthodontists have national conventions, as do lawyers and computer salespeople. So why not exorcists? At the end of his weekly general audience Wednesday Pope Benedict greeted Italian exorcists who, he disclosed, are currently holding their national convention. The Pope encouraged them to "carry on their important work in the service of the Church."Problem was that until the Pope spoke few people outside the inner circle knew that a convention of Beelzebub-busters was going on, presumably in Rome.And where were they holding it? In a church, a hotel, a graveyard?"They try to keep these things quiet," said...

MADRID, Spain, MAY 11, 2005 (Zenit.org).- God is greater than "Satan's vehement irruption," said Benedict XVI in his general audience, something of which exorcists are well aware. In the following interview with Father José Antonio Fortea, priest of the Diocese of Alcala de Henares in Madrid, an experienced exorcist comments on the reality of the devil in modern life. Father Fortea recently wrote a book entitled "Summa Daemoniaca." Q: What is Satan's greatest triumph? Father Fortea: To make us believe that he doesn't exist. Indeed, after the 60s, many theologians said he was a symbol, and this has been a...

SELF-PROCLIMED exorcist Bob Larson could be using hypnosis to entrance his subjects, an expert says. Melbourne counseling hypnotherapist Daryl Wilkinson says the techniques used by the US evangelist are typical of hypnotherapy. "Basically what he's doing is a selection process, seeing who is susceptible to suggestion," he said. Larson performed several exorcisims and blessings before hundreds of mostly young people at a free sermon at the Forum Theatre on Friday night.... "If someone is wide-eyed and into it, he'll take them, but if someone is 'Oh yeah, c'mon, he won't." Mr Wilkinson said.

WAUWATOSA, Wis. -- A priest who participated in the 1949 exorcism that inspired "The Exorcist" book and movie has died at age 83.A funeral mass will be held Friday in a Milwaukee suburb for the Rev. Walter Halloran.He was the last living Jesuit who assisted in the exorcism at a St. Louis hospital. Halloran died Tuesday night at a Jesuit retirement home in suburban Milwaukee. Halloran was a 27-year-old Jesuit student when a priest called him to the psychiatric wing at a St. Louis hospital to help control a 14-year-old boy who he believed was possessed by a demon.A brief...

WAUWATOSA, Wis. -- The Rev. Walter H. Halloran, a priest who took part in an exorcism that spawned the book and movie "The Exorcist," has died at age 83. He was the last living Jesuit who assisted in the exorcism in 1949 at a psychiatric unit in St. Louis. He died Tuesday night at a Jesuit retirement home in suburban Milwaukee. Halloran was a 27-year-old Jesuit scholastic at Saint Louis University when a priest called him to the psychiatric wing at Alexian Brothers Hospital. The Rev. William S. Bowdern was trying to help a 14-year-old boy who he believed was...

Father Halloran, who died Tuesday (March 1, 2005) at 83, was the last living Jesuit to be involved in an exorcism that took place in 1949...at a psychiatric unit in St. Louis. The incident provided the inspiration for William Peter Blatty's 1971 runaway bestseller by that name, which led to the hit movie, and a few more of lesser box office appeal, including a recent prequel. The Rev. William S. Bowdern was dealing with a 14-year-old lad who he believed was possessed by a diabolical spirit or spirits. The boy, Douglas Deen, was a Lutheran from Mount Rainier, Md., a...

Priests get lesson in exorcism Lack of qualified clergy prompts Vatican class ROME – The Roman Catholic Church is facing a shortage that you might not have heard about: qualified exorcists. Thursday, about 100 priests rose in prayer, asked St. Mary for protection, then sat down to an eight-week study of exorcism and how to distinguish and fight true demonic possession. The course at Rome’s Regina Apostolorum, a prestigious pontifical university, represents the first time a Vatican-sanctioned study at this level has been dedicated to exorcism. In Italy, the number of official exorcists has soared in the past 20 years...

On the bumpy flight to Rome I read The Bible all the way. The passenger on my left - a wiry businesswoman from Wisconsin - found this disconcerting. As the turbulence worsened and I moved from Jude to Revelation, she hissed at me, "Do you have to?" "It's only background reading," I murmured. She grimaced. "What for?" I turned to her and whispered: "I'm going to meet the exorcist." "Oh Christ," she gasped, as the plane lurched and hot coffee spilled over us. Father Gabriele Amorth is indeed the exorcist, the most senior and respected member of his calling. A...

LOS ANGELES -- The backstory of "Exorcist: The Beginning" is enough to make your head spin. Hollywood is fond of remakes, but this prequel — the fourth in the series of "Exorcist" films — was discarded and remade before it was even released. The bedevilment doesn't end there: Its original director died, its next director was fired, and its final director was struck by a car during the shoot. It changed casts, and its budget more than doubled. Some joke about an "Exorcist" curse. But not Renny Harlin, the director of the prequel version headed to theaters Friday. He takes...

ROME -- In a small room, well away from the street so that no one hears the screams, Father Gabriele Amorth does battle with Satan. He is a busy man. As the Vatican's top exorcist, Amorth performs the mysterious, ancient ritual dozens of times a week. A confused world engulfed in tragedy and chaos is turning increasingly to black magic, the occult and fortune-telling, he said, proof that the devil and his handmaidens are having a field day.

Most of the time, Father James LeBar, one of three official exorcists in the New York Archdiocese, and based near Poughkeepsie, is at a desk working at a psychiatric hospital, or conducting other priestly tasks. But when he's called, he goes where he is needed to cast away the devil and his demons in the time-honored fashion -- indeed, very much like in the movie, he says. "The Exorcist is about the most accurate portrayal of what can happen at an exorcism that I have ever seen," Father LeBar told Spirit Daily yesterday. "There were some Hollywood embellishments, to be...

AN EXORCIST yesterday called for a ‘crusade from the pulpits’ against the growing power of the occult. Father Jim McManus said paganism and witchcraft were intertwined with evil and needed to be stamped out. The 62-year-old priest - the only Catholic clergyman to perform the service of "deliverance" regularly - said devil worship could only lead to tragedy. The profile of paganism will get a boost next month with two festivals and an academic conference on the subject are held north of the Border. On Saturday, Scotland’s largest ever festival to celebrate followers of Wicca will be held in Glasgow,...

To win any war, the three most necessary things to know are (1) that you are at war, (2) who your enemy is, and (3) what weapons or strategies can defeat him. You cannot win a war (1) if you simply sew peace banners on a battlefield, (2) if you fight civil wars against your allies, or (3) if you use the wrong weapons. Here is a three point checklist for the culture wars. I assume you would not be reading a magazine called Crisis if you thought all was well. If you don’t know that our entire civilization is...

In early December the official exorcist of the Rome diocese, Father Gabriele Amorth, warned parents against the Harry Potter book series. The priest, who is also the president of the International Association of Exorcists, said Satan is behind the works. In an interview with the Italian ANSA news agency, Father Amorth said, “Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of darkness, the devil.” The exorcist, drawing on his decades of experience in directly combating evil, observed that young people could become involved in Satanic practices because they see the invocation of supernatural powers as a simple and attractive...