NEW MOVIE: The Devil and Father Amorth (TRAILER INSIDE)
Friedkin’s
film, The Exorcist was released in 1973 and was included in the genre
of horror film. Decades later, the director wanted to know how authentic
his film was. How far removed it was from reality, what fiction and
what reality was. For this he contacted the most famous exorcist.
Friedkin
met several times with P. Gabriele Amorth and was allowed to accompany
him to his exorcist service. This resulted in the documentary that will
be released in theaters in the United States next April 20. What both
could not know: These were the last months before Amorth's death.
Existence of evil
According
to Friedkin, it was the concern of P. Amorth to make visible the
reality of personified evil. Due to interviews of the director after
Amorth's death, there had been criticism in the past. He announced that
Amorth had allowed him to film an exorcism. Other exorcists, Amorth's
students, suspected Friedkin might have filmed with a hidden camera
without permission. Friedkin sees himself as the "last witness" of the
work of Fr. Gabriele Amorth as an exorcist.
Father
Amorth died on 16 September 2016 after a short, severe illness at the
age of 91 years. In the last 30 years of his life, he was the priest of
the Society of St. Paul Exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, and from 1992
the chief exorcist.
By 2007, he had performed
around 70,000 exorcisms. A lot last only "a few minutes", others
"several hours", he said in a newspaper interview. All in all, in his
life he faced "true obsession" in about a hundred cases. These were
usually "demonic disorders" or forms of mental illness.
In
1990, Father Amorth founded the International Association of Exorcists
(AIE) based in Rome. It includes priests who are officially commissioned
by a diocesan bishop to serve as the exorcist. In 2014, the Association
was approved by the Holy See by decree of the Congregation of Clergy.
Until his 75th birthday in 2000, he was president, then honorary
chairman of the association.
"Evil leads to terrible things"
The
evil, according to Father Amorth in the 2013 documentary "Amorth - the
Exorcist", seduces "terrible things". But there is no man, "whatever he
may have done, who could not be saved by repentance and the grace of
God." The motto of every priest, and especially of the exorcists, must
therefore be:
"To fight relentlessly against sin, but not against the sinner."
The
exorcist of "the Diocese of the Pope" was a man of clear words. In
2010, he caused a stir in an interview with the daily newspaper Il
Foglio:
"Yes, there are also members of satanic
sects in the Vatican. They are priests, monsignori and also cardinals!
It has been confessed several times by the devil during an exorcism."
When asked whether Pope Benedict XVI. was so informed, Father Amorth replied:
"Of
course he has been informed! He does what he can. It is a shocking
thing. Bear in mind that Benedict XVI. Is a German Pope. He comes from a
people who firmly reject such things. There are hardly any exorcists in
Germany. "
Freemasonry and abortion
"Unfortunately
there are many priests and many bishops who do not believe in the
existence of the devil. There are whole countries without officially
appointed exorcists. Many bishops do not believe in the existence of the
devil and even go so far as to say publicly that hell does not exist,
the devil does not exist. But Jesus speaks of it several times in the
Gospel, so that one might wonder if they have never read the Gospel or
really believe it!”
In 2015, he said in a television interview on Freemasonry and Abortion:
"Freemasonry
was originally founded by an Anglican pastor, initially for
humanitarian reasons. But then something else came out of it. It's about
power and money. For power and money. These are two gates of evil."
"The
devil is the confounder par excellence. He twists things. He is the
father of lies. There is no truth in him. The less people believe in his
existence, the more conscious or unconscious tools he finds among men.
Take the example of abortion. An innocent child is killed and a human
being killed. But they want to make us believe that this is progress.
For progress! To kill a human being is progress? You have to imagine
that. It's hard to believe."
SOURCE
