Links
- The Pope’s Exorcist: 101 Questions about Fr. Gabriele Amorth (book)
- The Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation
Transcript
Eric Sammons:
A new movie tells a story of the late Father Gabriele Amorth, the Pope’s Exorcist, but what is the real story behind this incredible priest and exorcist? That’s what we’re going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Hello, I’m Eric Sammons your host and inner chief of Crisis Magazine. Before we get started, just want to encourage people to like this podcast, also to subscribe to the channel and let other people know about that. We always appreciate that letting other people know about what you hear and find out and discover on this channel. Also just want to encourage people to follow us on various social media channels @CrisisMag, @Crisis Mag.
So joining us today is Jordan Burke of the Avila Institute and he’s going to be talking to us about a new book which is connected to a new movie. The movie’s called The Post Exorcist, starring Russell Crow as Father Gabriele Amorth and the book is from Sophia Institute Press, the Pope’s Exorcist, 101 Questions about Father Gabriele Amorth. And this is from Sophia Institute Press. The idea is that people are going to be now talking about Father Amorth again, some people know who he is and some people don’t. So this book kind of answers the real questions about it because Hollywood doesn’t always tell exactly the full truth of everything. So we want to get to the heart of the matter. So welcome to the program, Jordan.
Jordan Burke:
It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. So I think the first question, I just want to start right at the beginning. So we talk about the Pope’s Exorcist. So first, what exactly is an exorcist? People see movies about them, people hear about them, but in the Catholic church’s view, what technically is an exorcist?
Jordan Burke:
Right. That’s a great question. So in a nutshell, an exorcist is a priest who has been given specific faculties so that they can perform the right of solemn exorcism. Uses particular prayers that only those with those faculties can say, which is “The rite,” R-I-T-E. And that’s basically it. That’s an exorcism in a nutshell.
Eric Sammons:
So first of all, you said a priest. So a lay person can’t technically be an exorcist. Is that correct?
Jordan Burke:
Correct.
Eric Sammons:
And a priest who’s not been given faculties, I assume from their ordinary, from their bishop or from the Pope obviously, if a priest has not given these faculties and they do these prayers, what does that mean? Does that mean that they won’t work or what does that mean?
Jordan Burke:
That’s actually a great question. So there’s a couple different things that could happen. Now, the primary thing that might occur is that the prayers may not be as efficacious. And secondarily, I think, this is what just came to mind is when we look at the gospels we know the story of the Jewish exorcists, right? So they go to the possessed person and they say, “Well, we cast you out in the name of Jesus and Paul.” And they say, “Well Jesus, we know Paul, we know, but who are you?” And then they get attacked and they literally get stripped and beaten and that’s the kind of retaliation that people can face.
Now, that was then. Doesn’t change over the centuries and that hasn’t changed. So there’s an aspect of retaliation that people have to be aware of as well. That being said, there are different prayers that priests can pray, deliverance prayers, certain imprecatory prayers that they’re permitted to pray because of their priesthood, that apostolic succession. However, the right of solemn exorcism is kind of protected and there’s a whole lot involved in that that I’m not super familiar with, I’m still learning about, but it is a separate thing, if that makes sense.
Eric Sammons:
Right. So my guess is in a sense it’s almost for the priest and lay person’s protection that they’re not given these faculties because exorcism obviously can be a very dangerous right activity and not just for anybody. So I guess I have two questions really. The first one is simply how does one become an exorcist, whether it’s Father Amorth or anybody, how do they actually become an exorcist?
Jordan Burke:
So there seems to be no specific formula. You can’t go just apply like you would apply to a college or something like that or apply for a job. Every story that I’ve ever heard out of all the exorcists that we’ve worked with and spoken to is they were appointed in some form or fashion. Somebody came to them and said, “We have a need, we need an exorcist. You fit this particular profile.” And that profile is listed out in certain church documents. I can’t remember what they’re off the top of my head. But they say generally someone who is of sound morals and character, prayer, understanding, things of that nature. Upstanding character. “You fit this, I know you, we have this need, would you consider doing this?” And then they’re kind of brought into the fold if they accept, then that appointment from the bishop kind can occur.
Eric Sammons:
So let’s say a priest gets appointed as exorcist. Is there training? Is there exorcist school that they go to or something like that?
Jordan Burke:
Well, so for a while there wasn’t. For a while it was strictly learn on the job. So you would have a newly appointed exorcist follow with an older exorcist and they would assist in those exorcisms, whether it’s intercessory prayer or things of that nature. You can read in Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin, which has some fictional aspects to it, but overall it is seems to be fairly accurate to the heart of the stories. “Hey, give me this anointed oil, go get me the holy water, help me hold this person down.” Things of that nature. Now Father Amorth founded the IAE, which was the International Association for Exorcists, in order to help new exorcists learn. Now this is something that I love and I may be jumping ahead so forgive me if I am, but exorcism is a sacramental. It’ not a sacrament, it doesn’t follow a specific formula.
And there’s kind of a beauty to that. I have a suspicion that God had it created in this way so to speak or come about in this way so that we can learn. Because the enemy changes and the tactics change and overall they stay very similar, it’s all the same trends and lines, but that means that the exorcists have to be able to learn, “Oh hey, you know what? The breastplate of St. Patrick is really effective.” “Oh hey, you know what? The intercession of St. John Paul II is really effective.” And Father Amorth talks about that as well. That wouldn’t be discovered if there was a specific set sacrament type formula, if that makes sense. So being that it’s sacramental, there’s some leeway so people can kind of learn and navigate these waters and see, okay, well the enemy’s trying this new tactic, this is really effective or this is popping up whether it’s new age cult or anything like that. So I don’t know if that made sense or if I jumped too far ahead.
Eric Sammons:
No, that’s good. And we’re going to talk a little bit more about Father Amorth in a minute, but I just want to continue on just generally exorcism because I think a lot of people are very interested in it and it’s something that’s very secretive, it seems secretive at least.
Jordan Burke:
Sure.
Eric Sammons:
So at an exorcism then, you mentioned how it’s not a specific sacrament where you do things exactly like you’re told to do or also quite possibly might not be a valid sacrament, but in exorcism there’s more leeway. But what is the general framework for how an exorcism goes about? An actual exorcism.
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, that’s a great question. So while the means and tactics may change, I do want to note that the right itself stays somewhat similar. That being said, there was a new right propagated, so you have kind of the old right, which is a certain set of prayers and the new right, which is a certain set of prayers. Some of that overlaps. Now in terms of how it works out, let’s just say someone believes that they’re possessed, they have to go through a formal process. They have to see a psychiatrist, they have to talk to a certain amount of people. And basically what the church is saying is we don’t want to jump to conclusions. We need to make sure that we check all of our boxes, we check everything before we assume that there’s anything more to this because there may just be some sort of natural cause.
It may be physical illness, it may be a psychological illness. No one, we have to check those boxes. Once you get all past all that and it’s determined that it seems to be that this person is actually possessed, then they will meet with an exorcist. From my understanding from talking to different exorcists, each one can kind of have their own way of handling things. But there’s generally follows this diagnostic spectrum. May not be the right word, but they’re trying to see what’s going on with the person to continue to make sure that they serve them in the right way. A lot of that is strictly just these different prayers and preparatory prayers, command prayers, deliverance prayers. The rite, Father Amorth talks about doing diagnostic exorcism because he says there can be no harm to the person if we just start praying the rite. And if they have no reaction, then everything might be okay, but if they do have a reaction, then we know that there’s something deeper and we can kind of change tactics and continue on. I don’t know, did that answer the question?
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I think so. If somebody then, I guess it also leads to my question of how somebody’s brought to an exorcist. So I know that usually they make them go through a psychology, stuff like that. But what usually is the process for when, okay, there’s a lay person who thinks that, “Okay, I think my daughter might be possessed,” she calls the local Catholic parish or she calls the Diocese and tells them this. What is the process that gets them from that point to an actual exorcist coming to their house, whatever and performing an exorcism? What all happens before they get to that last point, I guess?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, so generally what happens is they’ll contact their Diocese, always have to go through the Diocese. And if they have an exorcist appointed in that Diocese, because unfortunately there are plenty of Diocese that do not have exorcist appoint, they will put them in contact with that process. Now, I’m not a hundred percent on whether or not that process differs from Diocese to Diocese. However, it does follow a similar formula that I mentioned earlier from psychology diagnosis, medical diagnosis, interviews with the family, interviews with the person to determine whether or not a need for an exorcist intervention is actually there.
Father Riperger talks a lot about this actually where if there wasn’t a stop gap in place, they’d be overwhelmed. There’s so many people out there who think that they’re oppressed or possessed and they’re not. Or maybe it’s oppression, but it doesn’t necessarily require an exorcist. And because there’s such a shortage of exorcists and their time is so limited and precious, there needs to be some sort of protection in place.
Eric Sammons:
Okay, real quick, let’s define the different levels so to speak. You talked about possession and oppression. What are the different ways that the devil or demons can influence somebody and what level do you have to be at so to speak, to call in an exorcist in order to help?
Jordan Burke:
Sure. So if I’ll, I’ll say right out, if an exorcist has time and somebody is not possessed… Possessed is the end, that’s the far end of the scale. That’s the worst of the worst. And even within that, there’s different levels of possession, but possession as a whole, that’s when you’re calling in an exorcist. Now that being said, if there’s an exorcist and he has time and somebody’s oppressed and he can pray over him, he’ll pray over him. I’ve had an exorcist pray over me when I was struggling with a particular sin when I was younger in confession. He just offered to pray and he did. I said, “Yes, of course,” and he prayed and all was well.
But as far as different levels go, starting kind of at the more mild end, you can have something called infestation. Generally infestation is going to be involved with houses or places. So if there was something traumatic that happened in a house or with a particular thing, I’ve seen it with items. I was following an exorcist who was blessing a property and he came across a statue of the Virgin Mary, and this particular exorcist has particular giftings from the Holy Spirit and he knew that there was something tied to it. So he starts doing different prayers of deliverance, and in this case there was more than I should say for context, there was more than one statue that had issues. One of them was freed or cleaned, and the other one he could not clean. And so it had to be destroyed. And that’s a whole different topic, a very interesting topic. But that would be something that we’d look for infestation.
That could also mean people are having nightmares that don’t seem to make any sense. People are struggling with discord and disharmony. That doesn’t seem to make any sense and nothing can seem fix it no matter what they pray, no matter what they do. That even to the more extreme end of infestation, looking at that as an individual scale, sounds, noises, plates falling off the walls. Excuse me. You have even more extreme cases of this sounds very sensational and I don’t mean to make anything sensational at all, but there have been reports of blood dripping from walls and things of that nature. But that is, that’s very extreme, very rare. It’s not common at all. But that’s the scale of infestation.
Then you move into oppression. I’ve seen it put also as vexation, and that could be basically, I want to say this as accurately as possible. An individual person suffering from some sort of ailment could be intrusive. Thoughts. Could be they go to prayer and they have horrific things pop up in their head that don’t seem to go away and it repeats. A lot of this follows a trend. So if you’re going to diagnose something, there has to be a trend in data before you can say, yeah, that seems like there’s an issue there. So not a one-off thing, but a continuous trend.
You can have an aversion to holy objects, you can have an aversion. There was another case recently that I was made aware of where somebody requested that the people praying for them would not use the name of Jesus. That would be what certain exorcists, depending on the book you read would say is a cursory or possibly secondary indicator of or a heavy oppression or possession. And then you move into possession and that is obviously there’s demons involved. The person can go into trances, loose consciousness. Again, not to be sensational, but there are, Father Amorth also talks about this as well, but people can levitate. Again, that’s rare, it’s not very common, but that’s kind of an attempted nutshell of each of these really broad and complex topics.
Eric Sammons:
Now is there anything, that just made me think, is there anything a lay person can do on any of those levels to help out? If they can’t get, let’s say they don’t know how to, they can’t find an exorcist, maybe went out in the Diocese or whatever, or the priest, let’s say their parish priest isn’t really interested, doesn’t really believe in that stuff or whatever, is there anything a lay person can do? Prayers they can say, using holy water or whatever. I mean mean obviously when you get to full blown possession, you’re going to have to find an exorcist somewhere. But just on those other levels, what can a lay person do?
Jordan Burke:
I love this question because we need to understand as Christians, as Catholics living the normative Catholic faith, normative Catholic life, you’re going to come in contact with evil if you are pursuing good. You read about this in Theresa of Avila, the Interior Castles. You read about this in the Council of Trent, the audacity of demons. They have the whole section that says the war against the demons is unending and with them there can be no truce. That’s not a direct quote, but it’s something similar to that. You read the gospels of course. So recognizing that if we are living a true Catholic faith and we take our faith seriously, we’re going to face some sort of “retaliation” of some kind.
Number one thing that you can do is have a healthy spiritual life, frequent sacraments, daily mass if you can. Better be going to mass every Sunday, go to confession as often as you possibly can, take advantage of those graces. That’s the primary way to keep yourself safe. Many exorcists have said that because the sacrament of confession is a sacrament, it is more efficacious than the sacramental of exorcism. So that could be something that people can rely on. And it’s beautiful that that’s our kind of foundational level of what we engage in. It’s a beautiful thing.
Secondarily, there are different prayers that you can pray. Now it’s important to note that there are levels of authority so we have authority over ourselves. I know you’re a father, I’m a father, we have authority over our children, those within our own household. Father Riperger has a great descriptor to explain authority because it gets kind of complicated, but you can go tell your son to mow the lawn and he’ll go mow the lawn, but you can’t tell your neighbor to mow the lawn. It’s a little weird, it doesn’t make much sense. So we don’t have our authority stops in certain places.
With that in mind, you can pray deliverance prayers. Father Riperger has a fantastic book, Deliverance Prayers for the Lady, I’m sure you’re familiar with it, where it has a whole list. He explains authority in there as well, but it has a whole list of prayers that you can pray for yourself, for those you have authority over, your spouse and your children, and those are extremely efficacious. Even going into discernment of spirits, the Ignatius 12 Rules of Discernment, the way that you handle certain things that pop up, even something as simple as, “In the name of Jesus, I reject if there are any spirits causing me anxiety or fear. And then in the name of Jesus, I ask that they’d be sent to the foot of the cross to be dealt with as you please in the name of Jesus. I affirm the truth that I’m well loved and beheld and a child of God.”
Those sorts of things, which that’s not even a written prayer so to speak, it’s just taking from the gospels and taking from these other books. You can do that for yourself and they are extraordinarily efficacious. And if you’re living any sort of normative Catholic faith, you are probably using them already or you’re going to start using them and find out that, “Oh yeah, this works and this is really helpful.”
Eric Sammons:
Now, just today, obviously we have a massive influence of let’s just say demonic spirits and whatnot from the culture, from just how things are going south all around us. From your experience, do exorcists believe, people involved in this ministry believe, that possession is becoming more common? Is it widespread or is it still something pretty rare or is this something that really we should recognize is becoming more and more common around us?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, that’s a great question. If I’m not mistaken, I believe, and I could totally be wrong on this, but I believe Father Riperger stated that possession is becoming more rare, but oppression may be on the rise which would make sense. Although it is tough to say because again, we have a shortage of priests, as I’m sure you know, and a shortage of exorcists as a result of the shortage of priests. So it’s tough to narrow that down and determine whether or not possessions are on the rise. But as far as I know, that that’s accurate. I’m happy to be corrected on it if anyone wants to correct me, I’m more than happy.
Eric Sammons:
Okay, we’re going to get to Father Amorth here in a minute, but I’m just fascinated by this more general discussion first. Why would the devil or a demon possess somebody? It seems to me almost like it’d be better just to have, I’m not a demon so how would I know, but it would seem better just to let somebody be somewhat influenced, oppressed a bit and do these awful things. What purpose does it serve to actually possess a soul like a demonic spirit might do?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, this is a fascinating question because of course with much of this, there’s different levels, but there have been many who’ve written on the beauty and efficaciousness, that’s a word, of the suffering soul. And so we need to understand that even a possession is permitted by God. You go back to Alphonso Legori, everything is either willed or permitted. So if someone is being possessed, they are permitted to be possessed by God. Now why would God do that? Well, it could be to bring about the good of that person or it could be in some cases, as suspected by Father Amorth and some others with certain cases, it’s to bring about the redemption of souls in general.
So Sister Maria of Jesus Crucified, the Little Arab, she was permitted to be possessed for a period of time, I believe while she was a nun. And that is believed, in that case, for the suffering souls because God knew that this person could essentially handle what he was permitting to happen. And so this is the other part of it that’s really kind of beautiful that I’m trying to thread together here, there’s a cyclical nature to this. So in the person being permitted to be possessed, their suffering and offering up to God is redeeming souls. And in the redemption of souls and in the person offering up their suffering, the enemy is being defeated.
So the enemy thinks, “Well, yeah, we’re taking the soul,” but God says, “No, you’re not. Not only are you not taking the soul, but we’re going to set a whole bunch of other people free.” It’s the reason St. Gemma was attacked behind me. St. Padre Pio was attacked, St. John Viani was attacked, all these other different, these priests, this was permitted to happen so that they could suffer efficaciously for others. So I think that’s one aspect of it. And as for anything else, it’s tough to say. That seems to be the answer that really rings the most true out of everything that I’ve read and that’s the one that I kind of clinging to. So there may be more out there, but that’s the one that really kind of jumps to mind first.
Eric Sammons:
It is amazing how much the demons, who are highly intelligent beings, we have to remember that, far more intelligent than us in many ways, but they ultimately are their own demise. Obviously crucifixion is a perfect example. The devil thought he had won, he had defeated the Son of God here, and it ended up being what defeated him in the end. So I think that probably is a good way to look at it. That in their obsession with evil to possess somebody they think, “Okay, now we’ve run over the soul,” but God’s like, “Well, actually we’re going to make it work the opposite way that you think it’s going to work.”
Jordan Burke:
Right.
Eric Sammons:
So that’s amazing. Okay, so let’s talk about Father Gabriele Amorth. So he’s known as the Pope’s Exorcist. So why don’t you tell us, just give us a brief bio of him before we talk about him in more detail. Who was Father Gabriele Amorth?
Jordan Burke:
Sure. So he was born in 1925, and what’s fascinating is that he didn’t initially feel the call to the priesthood until, I believe he was about 12. He became a priest when he was 32. Before he became a priest, he actually fought for the resistance in World War II. Then he was involved in politics and helped the Prime Minister at the time, the Italian Prime Minister, write their constitution, which is really fascinating. He was a prolific author, wrote a lot of different articles, but he became ordained at 32 years old, which was a little bit later in life. And what’s most fascinating, I believe anyway, is that he didn’t become an exorcist until he was in his sixties. Now, keep in mind, by his estimation he performed over 60,000 exorcisms while he was an exorcist. So in his sixties, he died at 91 years old, that’s not a long time, that’s a lot of exorcisms. So he had a lot of experience.
As far as why is he called the pope’s exorcist, it’s not made clear. I’ve read all of his books, it’s not made clear in any of the text. My suspicion is in order to do something as exemplary as performing 60,000 plus exorcisms, generally you have to request permission, even if you have faculties, you still have to request permission for certain cases. So I would assume at a certain point the Pope just said, “Listen, I know you, I know what you’re doing. Do what you need to do.”
Eric Sammons:
Officially he’s the exorcist for the Diocese of Rome. Right?
Jordan Burke:
Right.
Eric Sammons:
Every exorcist is assigned to or is associated with a Diocese, he associated with Rome, which of course the Pope’s Diocese. But then like you said, it seemed to grow beyond. I don’t think you’d do 60,000 in Rome only as well. It sounds like he probably went further afield than just Rome.
Jordan Burke:
No, from what I understand, it was all in Rome.
Eric Sammons:
Really?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah. And again, I could be wrong on that, but from what I read, it seems as if it was all Rome. But it’s important to note, and that seems extreme, but it’s important to note, especially in Rome and during that time there was a huge rise of the occult. So tarot cards, things of that nature. So at least to me, reading the different books, it makes sense that when you’re in an area that is inundated with these types of activities and behavior, that you would then have somebody who is responding to that. And that’s why the numbers would be so large. So I do know that he moved around a lot. Now if he ever left the Diocese of Rome. And I guess the other question is how large is the Diocese of Rome, how many people are living there,, that factors into it as well. But yeah.
Eric Sammons:
And you wonder if some people brought people to him once his reputation grew who might have been somewhere else in Italy and just realized. And who knows if the other Dioceses even had exorcist at that point.
Jordan Burke:
Right. He lamented often. He actually went as far as saying that bishops who did not appoint exorcists were in mortal sin. He was very strong on the topic. And I do want to note something else that kind of puts the 60,000 into perspective, that’s individual exorcisms and certain people could be seen multiple times. So you may have somebody who was seen, I think his minimum, I believe for serious cases was like 50 times. So that kind of brings that number into perspective as well.
Eric Sammons:
Right. So there’s other exorcist exorcists in the world, of course today. Actually, Monsignor Rosetti I interviewed about a year or so ago, and he’s an exorcist and he wrote a book for Sophia about his experience there. But Father Amorth seems a bit, can we say eccentric? Am I allowed to? He seemed to be a little different than most. So what was it about him that made him stand apart that we know that a movie was made about him?
Jordan Burke:
Right. So I think one of the reasons the movie was made about him, because he was such a prolific writer, you and I both know Msgr. Rosetti, he’s written at least one book. Father Riperger has written several, I got a bunch of them back there. But for Father Amorth, he was writing and writing and writing and teaching and teaching and teaching. He had radio shows. He became kind of a public figure to the point where at one point he had to have security just because people wanted to be with him all the time and to have him pray over them and things of that nature. But he is eccentric.
One of my favorite stories about Father Amorth is he was interviewed and they said, “Well, are you afraid of the demons?” He said, “No, never. In fact, the devil poops his pants when he sees me.” That’s the kind of guy that he was, which you would never expect from an exorcist. And keep in mind his first exorcism, he writes about his first exorcism, and at one point he commands the demon to reveal his name in the proper context, and that’s a whole nother conversation. But in the proper context, he commands the demon to reveal his name, and it says, “I am Lucifer.” So his very first exorcism, he’s up against Satan himself. So it’s not that he was flippant about anything. He had a realization of what was going on and I’m sure he saw everything that you could possibly imagine over the course of those 60,000 exorcisms.
But he lived in the joy of God and he told his bishop or multiple bishops, he said, “Why do you want me? I’m just a joker. I’m just a prankster. Why do you want me?” He was always joyous. He was always trying to make people laugh. But I think that what’s extra important as well is that he understood his own failings and he was very humble and he knew his place. So you’ll read over and over again in the Pope’s Exorcist, the book, he says, “I’m a good for nothing. I’m a good for nothing. It’s Jesus. It’s not me, it’s Jesus.” He knew that if you step out of those bounds and you start believing that, “Oh, I’m the one who’s doing this. I’m the one who’s casting out these demons.” That’s when you open a door you don’t want to open and you’re going to get some kind of retaliation that you don’t want to deal with. So yeah, he is eccentric, but it’s very joyous.
Eric Sammons:
I’ve read that where he said that where he was asked, “Are you afraid of demons,” and he said no. And I’ll be honest, I was a little bit concerned about that answer, how people might interpret it. Because on some level, obviously we’re on the side of the more powerful entity, which is God, and we know he wins in the end and we know he can defeat. There’s not even a comparison between God and devil. It’s not like two sides of the same coin. No. There’s God who’s everything, and then he allows the devil to do some things, and that’s about it. But at the same time, the devil is very dangerous for us mortal humans and I feel like we should have some level of fear. And so what’s that balance there of that Father Amorth, I’m sure he would’ve recognized, just for people who don’t know, he passed away about five or six years ago, I think it was.
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, 2016.
Eric Sammons:
2016. Okay. So yeah, seven years ago. So what is that balance of that healthy fear of you don’t want to flirt with the devil, so to speak, but at the same time to have the attitude like Father Amorth had, which is I’m also not afraid of the devil.
Jordan Burke:
So I’ve struggled with this a lot myself because I got roped into studying demonology, not by choice, but by profession, so to speak, for the work that I do. And I wondered for a long time, I don’t want to ever stumble into curiosity toss. I don’t want this to become disordered. I know that I need to tread carefully. And I think it’s worth noting that these exorcists talk about, while there have been some who have been harmed because of whether they stepped out of their roles of authority or what have you, they generally know that they’re protected because of their state of office. I think it’s in, you study angelology, I believe it’s when a priest is ordained he gains a second guardian angel, something along the lines of that. I’m not super familiar with that. So there’s different levels of protection.
For us lay people I think it’s important to note that you’re exactly right and we need to take it probably a little bit more seriously. Not that they’re not taking it seriously, the priests and exorcists, but they have something that we don’t. We all have protection, and we all have our lady, and we all have the saints, and we all have the sacraments and sacramentals, but we have to be a little bit more on guard. What is it first Peter 5:8, “The devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking for souls to devour.” That’s the reality of what we have to deal with. It doesn’t say that it’s a rabid dog, it doesn’t say that it’s a little puppy. It says it’s a roaring lion and we need to take that seriously. Again, the Council of Trenton and the section of the audacity of demons it says that their hatred against us is enormous and fierce, I believe is the quote.
So then we ask, how do you not be afraid? And I think it’s just an understanding of… I’ll put it this way. The way that I’ve described it is demons are like mosquitoes. Some of them will just suck your blood and make you itchy and uncomfortable, some of them can pass you serious illness and you may die. But if you are taking advantage, so to speak, there’s probably a better way to say that, but if you are living a healthy spiritual life, healthy sacramental life, if you have that protection, if you have that bug spray so to speak, then you can navigate that a little bit better and you don’t necessarily have to be afraid. You should still be aware, and you should still swat at them when they’re on you, but you don’t necessarily have to be afraid, if that makes sense.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, definitely. So now Father Amorth, if he is performing exorcisms at the rate he is, that is a lot of contact with evil. It sounds like every day he has direct contact with pure evil. So what kind of things was he doing other than just the natural, what you’re talking about, spiritual life? Did he have anything else he did in his life outside that to protect himself and protect those around him from being influenced by these demonic forces?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, so the Rite of Exorcism talks about this a little bit in the book as well, but there’s always a preparation, praying beforehand, preparation praying and blessing the salt, holy water, oils, things of that nature. Even minor deliverance ministry today, so to speak, if they’re doing things correctly, there is a prayer, I believe it comes from deliverance prayers from the lady, against a cleansing afterwards. “If there’s anything that has come, if there’s anything that’s attached itself to us, Lord, please take it away.”
I also think in a lot of ways, Father Amorth was graced with who was around him. So his spiritual director for I believe like 26 years was Padre Pio. So if you want to talk about having a heavy hitter on your side, he’s one of the heaviest. So with who he trained with and was taught by and prayed with and confessed to and had around him and all these other different things, I think he was graced in a particular way for a particular time to execute his office as effectively and efficaciously as he could.
Eric Sammons:
Now did he ever state an opinion? You mentioned earlier about how there’s an old rite and a new rite, of course on everything these days, there’s an old rite and a new rite, of exorcism. Did he ever state a preference for either of those rights? Did he feel one was more powerful than the other, or did he kind of use them interchangeably?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, this is so interesting. I’m very glad you’re asking this question. So he actually really despised the new rite, which is fascinating. And so I read that and I’m thinking, I don’t understand. Because I’ve spoken to so many exorcists now who love the new rite. And one of the reasons is they give is that it involves much more grace and love. And they’re finding, at least some of these exorcists that I’ve spoken to, they’re finding that the grace and the love that’s involved in this new rite is really efficacious in driving demons out, which would make sense on the face of it.
My suspicion is this. So reading this book and reading all of his other books, Father Amorth had a, what I would call, healthy distaste of red tape. And initially when the new rite came out, there was a lot of red tape. And so you can read him saying, “Well, I don’t like the new rite,” but if you read a few more questions, and he says, “Well, here’s the issue. I have to go and talk to bishops and get permission to do this, this, and this. And I had to get seven or nine different exorcists to sign a document with me to say that, ‘Hey, we need faculties from the old rite to do this. This needs to be changed, this needs to be added.'” I don’t think it was so much that he didn’t like the new rite as a whole or as a practice, I think it was the red tape surrounding it that he was more opposed to.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. I’ve also heard some discussion among exorcists and people talk about Exorcist, about the idea of using Latin. The devil hates Latin is kind of a saying people say. Did Father Amorth have any opinions about whether or not the exorcism was better if it’s done in Latin, or is it more just like as long as you’re doing the exorcism it didn’t really matter.
Jordan Burke:
He was very fond of sticking very strictly to the original rite, so Latin included. And what’s fascinating about Father Amorth is he performed so many exorcisms that at some point he had it completely memorized. And it was really kind of sad because they said while he was getting older, one of the ways that they could tell that he was kind of coming to the end is that he had to start using the book. So he went from strictly memory to having to use the book. But yeah, he was very fond of the original as it is, don’t change anything, this is what we’re doing.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Now, when he performed, did he perform most of his exorcisms at the same place? I think I remember reading something about that. Was it like at his place or some special place he would do most exorcisms?
Jordan Burke:
He bounced around for a while and a few of the places that he went to, this sounds sensational and, again, I don’t mean it to be at all, but people will scream in certain cases. And so where he was there, wherever the house was, the folks around him couldn’t handle that so he had to be moved. Eventually it seems that he had a set office and he writes about how his room where he performed, the Exorcist had to be very far in the back with windows facing away from the street, otherwise the cops were being called. So it seems that he finally at one point had a set area that he, or a set room or set office that he performed all the exorcisms in.
Eric Sammons:
Now, when he did exorcisms, did he have any, exorcists in general, did he have any special, for lack of a better term, spiritual tools? What I mean by holy water, crucifixes, scapulars, anything, what would he do when he did the exorcisms?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, so in his briefcase it was written that he had a wooden crucifix, a silver crucifix, anointing oils. Of course, his purple stole. In the room itself, it gets a little bit more interesting in the sense that they had a bed and the bed had straps underneath. And that made people think, okay, what’s that about? But it’s primarily to keep the person who is possessed from hurting themselves or somebody else. Very often those who are possessed and who are going through exorcisms, depending on the type of possession and depending on the demons, the person will harm themselves. So to have a padded bed, to have, I believe it was leather straps, to restrain the person to help keep them from hurting themselves is really, really important. But that was kind of the primary thing. It was crucifixes and obviously he didn’t need the rite for a while because he had it memorized. But purple stole, anointing oils, and holy water.
Eric Sammons:
Did he perform the exorcisms by himself or did he usually have somebody with him?
Jordan Burke:
You always got to have somebody with you. So he had a few people who, I shouldn’t say a few. He had priests from all over come and assist because they wanted to learn and that was the best way to learn. But he also had a team of intercessors who would pray, and then he had a few priests who were kind of solid in the sense that they followed him for a significant period of time. So Father Stanislaw, I believe is how you pronounce his last name, he kind of took over for Father Amorth after Father Amorth passed, he took over Father Amorth’s most difficult case, a young woman named Anna who was possessed. She would go into periods of possession for, I think it was 27 hours at a time. And by the time Father Amorth passed, he still had not been able to liberate her from those demons. And even Father Stanislaw writes, after decades we only would get to a place where she could kind of live a normal life for a couple of weeks before having any type of negative effects.
So that’s a long-winded way to say he had quite a few people helping him, whether it was intercessory prayer, whether it was helping hold people down, if that was necessary, or just priests who were trying to learn the reality of what exorcism is.
Eric Sammons:
Now, you mentioned this woman who he only had limited success with. Now if we believe God is all powerful, he can do anything, and he’s far more powerful than the devil, and we bring in, let’s just say the church’s top exorcist, Father Amorth, yet he still is not able to successfully do an exorcism in the sense of driving the demon out completely. Why is that? Because that seems to make it sound like the devil’s strong enough to resist God in certain situations.
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about suffering souls. And I don’t remember if they wrote about it in this book or one of his other books, it may have been The Devil Is Afraid of Me, I think it went a little bit more into detail. But I think the consensus was, in this particular case, that this person was a suffering soul. He’s also written about how there are certain demons who will leave either on their own, which is a very interesting idea, or that will leave through the intercession of our lady, which is beautiful and much more common than I think people would realize. But yeah, if it’s permitted by God, it’s permitted for a reason, whether it’s to bring about the sanctification of that particular soul or the sanctification of many souls. And in this case, for Anna, it seems to be that the consensus was that she was just a suffering soul.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Now, the movie’s coming out, Russell Crowe, the Pope’s Exorcist. I know it’s not out yet, but have you been able to see it yet?
Jordan Burke:
No. So Sophia sent me the trailer and I was like, “Why are you sending me this?” I was so confused. I didn’t understand. I haven’t seen it, I’ve just seen the trailer.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Have you seen The Exorcist or any of the famous movies on Exorcism?
Jordan Burke:
Yeah. So people may find this interesting because literally one of the things I’m paid to do is study these different things and read these texts. I have no interest of putting any of that in my head in terms of how the movies go. And the reason is because I’ve read enough and I know enough about my own personal experience that… Well, let’s just talk about the reality of it real quick. The enemy, how does he affect you? He can suggest things to you, he can’t read your mind, he can intuit what you might be thinking, but he can’t read your mind. As you mentioned, they’re highly, highly intelligent.
But one of the ways that they can really kind of bother you is by pulling up images from either your past or things that you’ve seen. And I have found the longer I’ve gone on studying this and the older I’ve gotten, the less of that stuff I put in my head, the more peace I have and the less they can bother me in that way. If that makes sense. So I’ve seen some things. I was young, I don’t want to age myself, but I was young when The Exorcist was out and it scared the crap out of me. When I saw a commercial of it, I was like I’m done. But as I’ve gotten older and I understand more, I just don’t permit the enemy, as much as I can, as much as in my power, to affect me in those means and fashions.
Eric Sammons:
And my very high level of being distrustful of anything Hollywood puts out, I also worry that the imagery, it’s much more likely to be inaccurate than accurate and sensational. Like you mentioned, there are cases of levitation, of blood dripping from walls. All those things actually have happened, but they’re very much the rarity, they’re not the norm, and they’re not even the important thing. They’re not what matters. Ultimately what matters is the souls that are involved and the power of God over the power of the evil one. So I’ve seen the trailer for the movie. Like I say, it comes out this week. I’m not going to watch it. I know that.
Jordan Burke:
Yeah, nor am I.
Eric Sammons:
I have no desire. I saw The Exorcist I believe. It’s the only one of those. I don’t like horror movies. I just don’t get them. And I’ve heard that one has some accuracies in it. It’s not that bad from a standpoint of how Hollywood did it. But that being said, I just want to be clear to everybody, we’re not recommending watching this movie.
Jordan Burke:
Correct.
Eric Sammons:
We’re talking about what matters. In fact, the book, the Pope’s Exorcist, 101 Questions about Father Gabriele Amorth, that I would recommend because then you can find out actually about exorcism and about Father Amorth from a non sensational way, a more factually accurate way. Now, the other thing I want to ask before we wrap up here in a minute, but you’re with the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation and you’ve mentioned how your job is basically in this area. So what does the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation do when it comes to things like demonic possession, oppression? Do you guys offer services, for lack of a better term? What is your role there?
Jordan Burke:
We don’t offer services in that way. My role is, I joke with my dad. You know my dad. I joke with him that my title should be changed to a cult researcher. Basically, I kind of got thrown into a position where, because of my social media presence online, I was getting asked a lot of questions and I started researching and discovering things and was able to provide really concise and clear answers quoting church teaching and things of that nature. And then also, for whatever reason, we just seem to have a lot of exorcists who like to hang out with us. And so being able to pick their brain and present that information to the general public in a way that’s not sensational, because that’s incredibly important, that doesn’t hopefully perk any type of disordered curiosity. That’s kind of where my role comes in on this. And so currently I’m writing something a little bit more in depth on the Enneagram, picking up where Father Mitch Paqua has really led the charge there, and then a bunch of different other things as well. But I don’t know if that kind of explains and answers the question.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Yeah. So I’ll put a link in the description to the book, obviously to buy the book. Again, it’s from Sophia Institute Press and also to the Avila Institute. I just want to highly recommend it, the Avila Institute, you guys are doing great work.
Jordan Burke:
Thank you.
Eric Sammons:
You mentioned your father, Dan Burke, and your mom all involved with that. I just think the stuff you’re doing there is great. And so I’ll put a link to that as well and encourage people to just check out all the different programs and everything you guys offer there.
Jordan Burke:
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Eric Sammons:
Well, that’s it for now, everybody. I just want to encourage you, we’re not telling people go watch a movie, but it is a topic that we should be well aware of and the Pope’s Exorcist the book is a good kind of intro. Especially if you know somebody who’s asking questions about it, maybe they saw the movie, this is a good book to give them to get them introduced to it.
Jordan Burke:
Absolutely.
Eric Sammons:
And then they can move on from there. Okay, everybody, until next time. God love you.