A ministry that is more necessary than ever. Pope Leo receives the president of the International Association of Exorcists (IEA) in a private audience, Monsignor Karel Orlita, and the vice president Father Francesco Bamontereligious of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and encourages them to move forward. Half an hour of conversation in which the Pontiff reveals that he knew and respected Father Gabriele Amorth, the Pauline priest who founded the Association. The Pope, after having illustrated the aims of the AIE, its structure and the current situation of exorcists in the world, was given a report on the history of the Association, the initial and ongoing training of exorcist priests and on the “increasingly widespread” situation of people disturbed by the extraordinary action of the devil following association with occult sects. The IEA made Pope Leo aware of the need for each diocese to have one or more exorcist priests and for the new bishops, in their training, to attend a course in exorcist pastoral care. Finally, close collaboration between exorcists and doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists is necessary.
Last September the Pope, signed by State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sent the Association a message during their biennial conference, in which he expressed «appreciation for the priests who dedicate themselves to the delicate and extremely necessary ministry of the exorcist” encouraging them «to live it both as a ministry of liberation and consolation, accompanying the faithful truly possessed by the evil one with prayer and the invocation of the effective presence of Christ, so that through the sacramental of exorcism the Lord grants victory over Satan».
