NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- When Pope John Paul II spoke of the exorcisms that Jesus performed during his earthly life, his statements were "an implicit advertisement for the clergy," according to a noted Italian exorcist.

      Don Gabriele Amorth, interviewed the Italian daily Avvenire today, said that the Pope's remarks at a Wednesday audience noted that in recent centuries "excorcisms have been almost completely abandoned by the Church." As a result, he continued, priests and even bishops are unacquainted with the work of exorcism, and some of them even reject it. Some theologians, he observed, even argue that Christ's exorcisms, as reported in the Gospels, were not real events but merely dramatic descriptions of the fight against evil.

      Father Amorth said that the prayer of exorcism was widespread among Christians prior to the 4th century, when it was formally incorporated in the Latin rite. The prayer of exorcism is still used in Baptism, he pointed out. And the clergy should remain active in the fight against the devil, he said, quoting the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that Satan would remain active "until the end of the world."