He was a partisan, Paolino and solid Mariologist priest (among the first to express himself favorably on the apparitions in Medjugorje in 1981), but is universally known as an exorcist and founder of the world of exorcists. Don Gabriele Amorth was born in Modena on 1 May 100 years ago.
He reached popularity thanks to countless radio and TV programs, successful books, articles (also on Famiglia Cristiana) on the spiritual and ordinary life and extraordinary action of the devil, of which he has long been the top world expert, contributing, with his dowry as a great communicator, to clear a cleansing a matter considered a uncomfortable medieval heritage by a mentality daughter of rationalism. But it was enough to meet his “customers”, suffering from various spiritual disorders (possession, obsession, harassment), to understand the pain and solitude that afflicts that small but painful portion of the people of God that he took care.
Don Gabriele might seem a shy man for that dry way and without frills of speaking in public. Yet he was a sensitive man, even at times prankster. Especially when, receiving the person owned in the room in which he practiced the exorcisms, he asked her how she had gone from the last time, and then diluted the tension with a joke. So, after a moment of silence and recited a prayer together with his assistants, he wore the purple stole, looked up his jaw and, challenged the ritual with one hand and the appearance with the holy water in the other, he was put in a battle station for the hand -to -hand with the enemy.
Having met him closely, I often surprised myself how much energy he had in his body for such a tiring and dangerous activity he carried out to the elderly. The answer lies in the strength of his faith. Above all, he counted in the help of Mary, whom he felt close since, at a very young age, he believed he was protected by her during the months spent with the partisans on the Emilian Apennines thanks to a vote that Don Treerione had made for the whole Paolina family and that extended to him and his family in a meeting in Rome a few months before the end of the war. Meeting from which he arose his decision to become Pauline at the end of the Second World War.
Don Amorth was very rigorous in the life of prayer, which led to the secret of his room and in the chapel of the community of via Alessandro Severo in Rome. I met him in meals in the early 2000s, when I was in formation, in the refectory of the community. He always dressed in talare, he had a decisive pace, even if the signs of the elderly age were already seen. He was shy, but at the same time friendly and colloquial with everyone. Often he was missing from home for the many preaching commitments and to practice exorcisms in some church in Rome.
At the first meeting with him for a confession and a spiritual advice he received me in his small chamber, the same (but he always denied!) From which it was told came “strange noises” over the night. In our meetings he always had useful advice for those like me who were on a path of priestly formation. It was, within the limits of his commitments, always ready to “waste” time with me.
Towards the end of my theological studies I asked him to be able to attend some exorcism session. The first few times I came out very proven. I understood thanks to him that the strength of Christ exceeds every adversity and every adverse action of the enemy and that we must not fear. To my precise question about the importance of faith for those who practice exorcisms, he replied: «It is fundamental, without faith I cannot do anything. Without faith, no Christian can do anything. With God, however, we can all ».
