Critics find earthly motives in publicity about Pope's exorcist

The Pope's exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth, recently granted a rare interview to the Italian newspaper La Republica. Critics have suggested that very real, almost Machiavellian motives explain his unusually high public profile recently.

The Pope's exorcist has only given two extensive interviews this century. One was in 2002 and the second was last week (see recent coverage here). Catholic Online quotes Father Amorth as saying: "Yes, also in the Vatican there are members of Satanic sects. There are priests, monsignors and also cardinals!" involved in these sects. Skeptics have suggested a host of very temporal, even earthly motives, for his recent assertion that the Vatican, is home to "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon" and active battlefield of the devil. Many analysts, including David Knowles of aolnews.com, note that the Pope's exorcist is also a newly published author. He recently released an autobiography entitled, fittingly, Memoirs of an Exorcist. In other words, his recent availability, is a Papal version of any author's book tour. Writing for slade.com today, Christopher Hitchens, points out that the Vatican, and indeed the Pope himself, need a daemonic excuse for the sordid tails of child rape, homosexual prostitution and murder that have emerged from the Vatican in the last year. Not to mention, Hitchens adds, the cover ups that have been attempted and are gradually being exposed. The concluding sentence of Hitchen's post is scathing:

Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] himself may be banal, but his whole career has the stench of evil—a clinging and systematic evil that is beyond the power of exorcism to dispel. What is needed is not medieval incantation but the application of justice—and speedily at that.

In a story entitled, "Vatican Possessed By Harry Potter Says Pope’s Chief Exorcist," the satirical news site Anorak News ridicules the entire idea of a Papacy possessed and any excuse, temporal or spiritual, justifying the sordid news that has emerged about Ratzinger since he protected priests implicated in pedophilia while he was Bishop of Munich to his current position as Pope.