Exorcist fired for saying aliens are actually demons is an ex-Air Force intelligence officer



A Catholic priest who was officially employed as an exorcist has been removed from his role.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said the firing came in direct response to comments made in late May surrounding UFOs and aliens.

'They can do things that we can't do.'

Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., said in a press release on Wednesday that Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, N.Y., would no longer be affiliated with the archdiocese where he was used as an exorcist.

Rossetti recently made comments in a YouTube video saying that his personal belief was that aliens were most likely demonic entities.

"There's no question in my mind ... that probably many, if not most of these UFO sightings, are in fact demons," Rossetti said in a video that has been removed from YouTube.

It has since been noted that Rossetti is a former Air Force intelligence officer who spent six years in service. Rossetti confirmed this in a 2024 interview, describing himself as a signals intelligence officer, while other biographies have also listed him as working in an intelligence capacity.

RELATED: Exorcisms are exploding across America — but nobody wants to admit why

Grzegorz Galazka/Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

Rossetti is also listed as a former serviceman in an official Air Force document, where he is described as a "distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy class of 1973."

"They can do things that we can't do, thus the speed and all sorts of things that human beings can't," Rossetti said in his recent video. "They will try to manipulate us."

Cardinal McElroy said Rossetti's statements that linked "UFOs to demonic presence" and his social media activity "gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons, and exorcism."

Rossetti responded to the press release by saying he was "saddened" by the decision and asked for forgiveness if he had not been faithful to the "teachings of the Church's Magisterium."

"I believe it is of the utmost importance to be obedient to the Church, and I will continue to endeavor to subject all that I do and the Center to be thus obedient," he added.

RELATED: EXORCIST: Is America demonically possessed?

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The comments come at a time of increased UFO disclosure, which has included a trove of government documents revealing reports of unknown objects like "glowing orbs."

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) in particular has been at the forefront of remarkable claims about aliens and UFOs/UAPs in recent months.

Burchett has claimed that alien aircraft, life forms, and even human-alien breeding programs are confirmed to exist.

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Inside the mind of a Catholic exorcist: Fr. Chad Ripperger talks shop with Shawn Ryan



Former U.S. Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan routinely has warriors on his podcast who have battled men using modern weaponry. Last week, he spoke to a warrior who battles demons using timeless weaponry: Christ's name, prayer, and the authority of his vocation.

Over the course of his four-hour conversation with Ryan, Fr. Chad Ripperger — a Thomistic philosopher, psychologist, and founder of the Doloran Fathers — shared insights drawn from years serving as a Catholic exorcist in the Archdiocese of Denver, as well as from his study of church history and Christian theology.

In addition to discussing potential signs of the Antichrist's imminence and the possibility that extraterrestrials might be the trappings of a demonic psy-op, Fr. Ripperger explained the different types of diabolic influence and described how the Church's major exorcism rite is carried out.

Varieties of diabolic influence

Fr. Ripperger — who stressed that he had "no intention of being an exorcist" and only does it out of obedience — identified several forms of diabolic influence, beginning with infestation, "where they infest houses or locations, inanimate objects, animals."

'The demon's not necessarily in the driver's seat all the time.'

The exorcist priest turned to Scripture for an example of animal infestation, referencing the ruination of pigs by the evil spirits cast out by Christ from the demoniac in Gergesa.

Fr. Ripperger suggested that infestations are often the localized byproduct of sin: "It's because somebody has done something particularly evil in a location and, as a result, the demons have gotten their foot in the door there."

Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

While occult activity can grease the way for an infestation, the exorcist said the sins demons tend to "gravitate toward the most — because they're easiest to get human beings to fall into — are the sins against the Sixth Commandment like fornication, masturbation, pornography, those types of things."

Another form of diabolic influence — "the primary way" and a universal challenge — is ordinary temptation, where demons plant notions "in our imaginations," skew perspectives, and manipulate emotions. Though relatively subtle, Fr. Ripperger noted that this form of influence can still be destructive, particularly within relationships and families.

Diabolic obsession is another variety in which demons "attack our interior faculties, specifically the imagination and emotions again — but unlike ordinary temptation, this is extraordinary, where it's very powerful and very strong," capturing the victim's attention and imagination and leaving them with a kind of spiritual "tunnel vision."

While someone experiencing diabolic obsession may initially have periods of lucidity, Fr. Ripperger said those moments of reprieve can diminish over time if the influence persists. Eventually the victim may capitulate and commit a grave sin at the demon's urging — or possibly even become possessed.

The priest described two kinds of diabolic possession. The first is "perfect possession, where the person has given themselves over to the demon entirely, and then the demon possesses the whole body, and the demon is manifested all the time."

According to Fr. Ripperger, this condition — outward signs of which include malice, mendacity, animus, and destructiveness — is rare. Individuals in such a state rarely seek out priests, since they are not desirous of liberation.

Partial possession, by contrast, refers to a temporary and localized possession of part of the body where "the demon's not necessarily in the driver's seat all the time."

The exorcism rite

When asked about the process of conducting an exorcism, Fr. Ripperger said the approach is structured, though the particulars vary depending on what is known about the individual, whether they have had prior encounters with dark forces, and what stage of diabolic influence they appear to be in.

"So in many cases, if the person who's possessed can tolerate it, we'll actually offer Mass so that the person can receive Holy Communion, which then weakens the demon significantly," he said, noting that confession is encouraged beforehand.

After Mass but before the exorcism ritual begins in earnest, a series of prayers are recited "to provide everybody protection that's in the room."

"So we do a series of prayers — binding prayers — which bind the demon from being able to do certain things, and then we'll actually start the formal ritual."

The Latin ritual typically begins with the Litany of the Saints. According to Fr. Ripperger, this serves as a kind of diagnostic tool because a demon's reaction to the names of certain saints can reveal clues about "the demon's particular sin" and how best to proceed.

From there, the exorcist alternates between "deprecatory and imprecatory prayer" — the former asking Christ for help and the latter commanding demons directly, ordering the evil spirits to consider specific truths that cause them pain.

The goal, Fr. Ripperger explained, is to allow the demon's pain "to build to where they finally give you what you need to know in order to get them out."

Canon law stipulates that "no one can perform exorcisms legitimately upon the possessed unless he has obtained special and express permission from the local ordinary."

Such permission is granted "only to a presbyter who has piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life."

The Catholic Church also requires that a suspected demoniac undergo "thorough examination including medical, psychological, and psychiatric testing" before being referred to an exorcist.

The Church distinguishes between minor exorcisms — used, for example, in baptismal preparation — and major exorcisms, the rite discussed by Fr. Ripperger, which may only be performed by a bishop or an authorized priest.

Fr. Ripperger told Ryan that "Protestants have a certain degree of efficacy [in exorcisms] by using Christ's name because it has a force of its own."

However, he suggested that certain types of possession require the authority of the Catholic Church and its clergy — authority that traces back to Christ's commissioning of the apostles.

Bad signs and end times

Asked where evil appears to be gaining ground in society, Fr. Ripperger said the forces of darkness have increasingly targeted good families — "families that historically led good lives, were raising their kids properly, very often very religious, doing the things that they're supposed to do."

The priest suggested this "full-blown attack" on previously resilient targets may indicate that demons are emboldened by a worsening moral climate — or that they "know their time is short," possibly because a divine "corrective" is approaching.

'That is not a reference to the Jewish temple.'

Ryan asked whether such developments might signal the approach of the end times.

While acknowledging that "we don't really have any certitude," Fr. Ripperger said several conditions traditionally associated with the Antichrist appear increasingly plausible.

Among them:

  • "A worldwide implosion of people's morality," in which "people just aren't following the laws of God or the natural law in any sense of the term";
  • The emergence of technological and institutional systems — such as unified global financial systems and digital currencies — capable of controlling populations on a mass scale; and
  • Internal crisis within the Catholic Church prior to a future renewal.

Fr. Ripperger also expressed skepticism about the idea that rebuilding a third Jewish temple in Jerusalem is a necessary precursor to the end times. He argued that the Church Fathers consistently held that such a temple would never be rebuilt and that the prophecy often cited in this context has been widely misunderstood.

RELATED: Understanding hell — Part I

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"The difficulty is people tend to misinterpret the Book of Daniel, which says when the abomination of desolation takes its seat in the temple," he said. "What they don't realize is that that is not a reference to the Jewish temple."

Instead, he suggested that the New Covenant superseded the Old Covenant and that the "holy place" referenced in such passages should be understood as the Catholic Church.

'It permanently robbed a person of the possibility of the beatific vision.'

Whatever the signs of the times, Fr. Ripperger emphasized that Christians must remain faithful.

It is critical, he said, that believers "follow Christ regardless of the personal cost."

Demonic psy-op

Former President Barack Obama claimed in an interview last month that aliens are "real."

Although Obama later walked back the remark, President Donald Trump announced he would nevertheless be "directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)."

Asked about UFOs and extraterrestrials, Fr. Ripperger suggested that some sightings could simply be government experiments — a suspicion reinforced by a 2025 Wall Street Journal report that found the Pentagon had at times disseminated false information about aliens to obscure sensitive weapons programs.

However, he noted that many accounts of alien abductions closely resemble descriptions of demonic encounters.

RELATED: What Shia LaBeouf's public struggle shows us about Christian redemption

Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

"If you strip the veneer of the alien aspect of it off, then in point of fact what you're dealing with is just — they're just demons," he said.

Fr. Ripperger added that some unidentified anomalous phenomena could also be what he called "diabolic mirage[s]" — supernatural illusions permitted by God in rare circumstances.

Abortion: Demonic empowerment

After Ryan brought up Baphomet — the goat-headed occult figure whose likeness the Satanic Temple adopted as its logo and displayed in a statue in the Iowa Capitol in 2023 — the conversation turned to abortion.

Ryan asked about the demonic interest in child sacrifice.

Fr. Ripperger said demons are empowered by abortion not only because it involves the killing of an innocent but because it denies the child the opportunity for baptism.

"We know of no other means of their salvation other than baptism. ... And so historically, the Church always considered abortion to be such a heinous crime because it permanently robbed a person of the possibility of the beatific vision. This is why the Church considered it so evil," he said.

Obtaining an abortion is an excommunicable offense in the Catholic Church.

The priest argued that demons "are so wed to" the widespread practice of abortion that they will "expend enormous amounts of energy protecting it" in order to prevent children "from ever seeing God."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, an estimated 1,038,000 abortions were executed in states without total bans in 2024. There were nearly 600,000 abortions in the first six months of 2025.

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Exorcisms are exploding across America — but nobody wants to admit why



From Michigan to Melbourne, exorcisms are rising — an odd trend in an age when Christianity is supposedly retreating.

Odd, that is, if you accept the official story: that faith has faded, churches have emptied, and modern life has supposedly outgrown such concerns. Yet behind parish doors and rectory walls, priests report the opposite: more calls, cases, and urgency.

Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized.

The demonic, it seems, didn’t get the secular memo.

I began making inquiries recently, speaking with clergy who have dealt with what most people would rather joke about, pathologize, or turn into content. One name surfaced repeatedly: Fr. Michael Shadbolt, a veteran priest who had performed numerous exorcisms and spoke of them with measured calm. I reached out to him for insight. Instead, I received word that he had recently passed away.

Thankfully, there was another source, carrying decades of experience where spiritual and psychological care meet. Fr. Stephen Rossetti, an American Catholic priest and seasoned exorcist, spoke without qualification.

“Yes, requests for exorcisms are on the rise in the U.S. and in other countries as well,” he told me. “There may be many reasons for this, but one obvious one is the decline of the practice of the faith.”

That observation runs counter to the fashionable narrative. The usual explanation for the rise in exorcisms is framed as a paradox: Christianity declines, so belief in demons increases.

But that framing flatters modern assumptions. It treats belief as an all-or-nothing package. Either accept the creed or discard the lot. But human experience has never worked that way.

One doesn’t need to believe in God to believe in evil — it’s everywhere. A loved one consumed by addiction. The husband who revels in beating his wife. The wife who revels in beating her husband. The son who turns on parents with lethal force.

RELATED: Interview with an exorcist: 'God always takes the first step'

D-Keine/Getty Images

Evil doesn’t depend on belief to function. It advances through repetition, fixation, and the gradual loss of restraint. The language shifts with each generation, but the pattern remains. Every day, roughly 137 women and girls are killed worldwide in acts of femicide. Child sacrifice, usually relegated to ancient Peru or remote civilizations, still occurs in parts of Africa today. In the U.S., one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18.

No vocabulary of Pinkertonian progress dissolves these facts. Calling evil “trauma” or “dysfunction” may describe the damage left behind, but it doesn’t confront the force itself. Such language manages outcomes while leaving causes untouched.

The modern world prefers to believe that evil is a misunderstanding, a system failure, or a lack of education. History suggests otherwise. Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized. It thrives where it is renamed, rationalized, or treated as an embarrassing superstition.

Fr. Rossetti put it plainly, “Increasingly people are not protected by faith, and many are involved in occult practices, which are a clear opening to the demonic.”

That point is crucial. Militant atheism is seldom the starting point. The entry point is engagement with practices the Church has long warned against.

“We have a number of cases of people who drifted away from the faith and then got into the occult,” Rossetti explained. “After a few years, they found themselves afflicted by evil spirits.”

The remedy is clear. “The first thing we do is have them go to confession, start practicing the faith, and live a virtuous life,” he said. “All sin is an opening to evil in some way, and the worse the sins, the greater the opening.”

It is precisely for this reason, Rossetti continued, “that exorcisms are very effective.” However, he stressed, there’s no wand, no instant result. “Sometimes the process takes time. It is typically not one and done,” Rossetti said. After years of spell-casting, curse-making, and demon worship — often misidentified as “self-discovery” or “ancient wisdom” — it can take far longer to undo the damage.

He was explicit about the timeline. “It typically takes three to five years of exorcisms to liberate the person.” The process, he added, is one of conversion and purification.

“An exorcism is not magic,” he said.

The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.

What we are witnessing, then, is not the complete disappearance of belief but its fragmentation. Christianity retreats institutionally while belief itself goes feral. Old anchors are cut loose. New fixations rush in. The vacuum does not remain empty.

Look around. Astrology, once harmless nonsense, has become a personal operating system. It graduated from brainless fun to life-management software, complete with a $3 billion price tag. Tarot cards are sold as “self-care.” Witchcraft is rebranded as empowerment, paganism as wellness. Social media is saturated with spiritual freelancers promising protection, manifestation, and power — usually bundled with a payment link.

None of this is neutral, and none of it is consequence-free. Doors opened casually tend to stay open.

This is where the supposed paradox dissolves. Christianity isn’t retreating because belief vanished, but because belief lost its footing. Structure recedes, so superstition rises. When doctrine disappears, disorder follows. There is no neutrality — only exposure.

For those skeptical because of Hollywood portrayals, exorcism is not a medieval curiosity revived for effect, but a practical response to persistent realities. The Church isn’t inventing demons to stay relevant. Rather, it is reacting to what it actually sees — a culture defined by isolation, instability, and constant immersion in content that destroys self-control and sanity.

Fr. Rossetti was clear on the final point, one that many increasingly resist.

“It is critical to understand that Jesus is Lord and not Satan,” he said. “The big mistake people make today is thinking that Satan is so very powerful. He is not.”

Compared to Christ, “Satan is dust.” He has no authority unless it is surrendered.

Christian theology has never been ambiguous on this point. Satan is not a rival god, not an equal force locked in cosmic balance. He is a created being who rebelled, fell, and was expelled. His power is parasitic rather than inherent. He doesn’t rule a kingdom by right, but lurks in territory abandoned through disobedience and pride.

The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.

That, it seems, is the warning embedded in the rise of exorcisms. Not that evil has grown stronger, but that we have grown careless. We treated the spiritual realm as a curiosity, then a hobby, then a marketplace — and acted surprised when something followed us home.

Fr. Rossetti put it without hesitation: “Jesus is Lord and has smashed Satan’s kingdom.” The tragedy is that many live as though He hasn’t.

Christian turns exorcist after divine dream, encounters horrors ‘exactly’ like ‘Nefarious’ movie



Steve Hines is the author of “Salt, Light & Kids: Parenting Well in Today's Culture” and a longtime friend of Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of “Strange Encounters” — a podcast centered around spiritual warfare.

On the latest episode, Steve joined Rick to share stories from the period of his life when God gave him a daunting assignment: casting out demons.

Steve grew up in “a church that was more law-driven than spirit-driven,” but in his mid-30s, he started seeking the Holy Spirit, asking questions such as, “How does the Holy Spirit affect my life? What are the gifts of the Spirit? What are the fruit of the spirit? And how does this all manifest itself?”

He embarked on this journey alongside a few of his good friends who were asking the same questions and experiencing the same desire for depth in their faith.

“So we started getting together roughly once a week, and we would just praise and pray and worship and talk and no agendas, but it was just a transformational period in my life and the life of these friends of mine as well,” he tells Rick, noting that these gatherings took place for about four years.

One night during this period of meeting with his friends, Steve experienced “an overwhelming prompting from the Spirit to pray for God to reveal His will in a dream.” That night he “went right to sleep and all of a sudden was in the middle of a dream that was surreal in that it was so real it didn’t feel like it was a dream.”

“In the dream, I was casting out demons out of people,” he says.

A few weeks later, the dream became reality. Steve’s group had begun inviting other people interested in seeking depth with God to join their meetings. One night, a newcomer became “physically agitated” during worship.

“All of a sudden, he started making sounds that were not of himself and his eyes were not of himself,” says Steve, who knew immediately that this was what the dream was preparing him for.

The group understood that they were in the presence of a demon but “didn't know what to do.”

“We started laying hands on him and praying over him and anointing him with oil, and as this went over half an hour, it got more and more physical, more and more violent,” says Steve. “We ended up actually having to restrain him physically because it was getting so violent.”

“We kept praying and invoking the name of Jesus over him … and after a while, as it got more and more intense, all of a sudden, he just went limp,” he says.

“We knew what had happened: A demon had been present, and we cast it out through the power of the Lord.”

But the group’s experience casting out demons was just beginning. As they continued to invite more people to join their group, the same experience occurred again and again with different newcomers.

“It was always so consistent,” says Steve. In each case, the afflicted person “would have been fighting us if we hadn't been restraining them, and the language would change and it would be kind of guttural … and the eyes were always really crazy because you could just tell that it was not them looking at us.”

When under demonic influence, their physical strength would become remarkable. “It would require three or four of us to bear-hug them or sometimes hold them down on the ground,” says Steve, adding that the language they used was “the foulest language you could ever imagine.”

He compares the experience to the Christian horror film “Nefarious,” which was co-written by BlazeTV host Steve Deace, based on his 2020 book, “A Nefarious Plot.”

“The actor who portrayed the guy that was possessed by a demon was exactly like what we experienced,” he tells Rick.

After it became clear to the group that casting out demons was an “assignment” they’d been given from God, they began inviting people who they suspected might be experiencing demonic oppression or possession.

From a freakishly strong man with an OxyContin addiction who left “blood on the floor” to a sex addict who had “laughter coming out from inside [his] body,” Steve has experienced things most of us couldn’t imagine.

To hear his story, watch the episode above.

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My great-grandfather cast out a demon — that night, it returned



We never celebrated Halloween. My family were so Protestant that they rejected any ritual or tradition that was not explicitly detailed in the Bible.

Even though we never dressed up as witches and wizards, we believed in demons. You might say it was a requirement of the "family business."

They could hear an axe swing against one pine tree, then another, randomly and drawing nearer. This was punctuated with bursts of maniacal laughter.

My paternal grandfather was a traveling evangelical preacher who had seen and cast out demons. He’d jump on the trampoline with us, and then when we were all exhausted, he’d regale us with tales from the Bible or stories from his youth.

Family tradition

He'd grown up the third of thirteen children. One of his most memorable stories was about his father, a former Pentecostal preacher who also had a talent for ridding people of the demonic.

It happened when my grandfather and his brothers were teenagers. The family had met a middle-aged husband and wife who owned a forested island in Florida. Eventually the woman came to my great-grandfather with a problem: Her husband had demons. Could my great-grandfather help?

He could. My grandfather watched as his father cast out the man's demons.

The axe falls

My grandfather and his brothers camped on the island that night to watch over the couple, who were now friends of the family.

There were four or five of the brothers gathered around a campfire singing gospel songs they’d learned or written and popping corn. Everything was dark except for the fire at their center and the stars above them.

Then chopping soundsinterrupted their singing. It sounded like someone was cutting a tree down somewhere — which was odd, considering that they were on an island that nobody lived on except the middle-aged couple, who were certainly sleeping right now and not chopping anything.

Nevertheless, they started to sing another song.

Sound and fury

The sounds became stranger. They could hear an axe swing against one pine tree, then another, randomly and drawing nearer. This was punctuated with bursts of maniacal laughter.

Whatever it was at first seemed to be several miles away, and then two, and then only one. Now it was a quarter-mile away. The brothers had stopped singing, and they waited until they were sure that the creature — man or evil spirit — was quite close.

The brothers put their heads together and formed a plan to surround it. If it were a trespasser, they’d catch him and tell him he wasn’t allowed to be chopping trees here! They convinced themselves that they were not scared, because God was on their side — and they figured there were more of them and only one of whatever it was.

Spiritual combat

They spread out and closed in around the laughing man, who continued to chop at the trees, coming nearer to them. When they knew the voice was at their very center, they rushed at it. The creature broke into one last, long laugh.

Whoosh! They were all pushed back as something went up out of their midst. Faint laughter rose to the top of the pine trees. It stayed up there for a moment, then fell back to the ground outside their circle.

The sound of the axe chopping at the trees resumed, but this time it began traveling away from them until it faded away. They knew then that it was the demon their father had cast out of the man that day.

They returned to the campfire. Their popcorn was burnt, and they all felt a little unnerved.

In the morning they looked around the forest, but they could find no sign of any tree being cut into. After that, they would see other demons, but that particular devil was never heard from again.

EXORCIST: Is America demonically possessed?



America is undeniably in a state of moral crisis — but does it have anything to do with demonic possession?

While Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti, a Roman Catholic priest and exorcist in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., doesn’t believe we are possessed as a nation, he does believe Satan’s influence is “getting stronger.”

This is what Rossetti explains as “demonic oppression.”

“Satan’s always been around. So he didn’t disappear,” Rossetti tells Liz Wheeler of “The Liz Wheeler Show.” “Satan seems to be more unmasked today. You know, that sort of hidden presence, he almost seems to be more out front.”

“You see this in many different ways,” he continues. “So I think that we’re really entering a time of spiritual warfare where Satan is burning churches, turning people from the faith, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people practicing witchcraft.”

While Rossetti believes practices like Kundalini yoga are demonic influences, he doesn’t think that people realize what they’re doing.

“You’re making a contract with Satan, whether you realize it or not, and you’re worshipping demons, whether you realize it or not,” he says, adding, “All these people who are practicing these occult things are putting themselves under the sway of Satan.”

On social media platforms like TikTok, there are billions of people watching “WitchTok” videos, which showcase people dabbling in the occult.

“The evil effects are coming to roost,” he says, explaining that one way demonic influences can manifest in human beings is through mental illnesses.

Rossetti, who’s been practicing as a licensed psychologist for 35 years, tells Wheeler that in order to discern whether or not a person is under the influence of demons, he first screens them for psychological problems.

“If it seems like there’s something spiritual going on, then we’ll start to discern, and part of discern is praying over the person. And if they’re really possessed, if the demons possess their bodies, then as we pray over them, eventually, the demons start reacting,” he explains.

“Typically, the person’s personality recedes into the background, the demons come forward, and the first thing they say is, ‘You stupid priest.’”

“It’s not the person's voice, it’s a different voice and obviously a different attitude. And the second thing they’ll say is ‘she’s mine’ or ‘he’s mine,’” Rossetti says. “And then we say, ‘Okay, well, game on. She belongs to Jesus, he belongs to Jesus.’”


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Interview with an exorcist: 'God always takes the first step'



Exorcisms are on the rise.

Of all the symptoms of America's decline, it's one of the least discussed. But it speaks volumes about our country's growing mental health crisis — and inexorable drift into darkness.

"One of the unique things about Christianity is that it's not about our search for God, it's about God's search for us."

As exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis for the last two decades, Father Vincent Lampert has seen it firsthand.

In that time, the number of exorcists in America has grown from about 12 to roughly 125. (There’s no official number, as many exorcists remain anonymous.) Lampert also belongs to the International Association of Exorcists, which comprises 905 priests from nearly 60 countries worldwide.

A growing darkness

When Lampert began, he averaged about 100 inquiries a year regarding possible demonic possessions. Since then, it has climbed to about 1,800.

He recounts some of his harrowing yet faith-bolstering experiences in his 2020 book "Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons."

When Lampert took the time to speak to me just before Easter, we began our interview with a blessing. A reminder that, despite his unusual specialization, Lampert remains a parish priest at heart. "Being an exorcist gives me a good balance in rediscovering priesthood as a vocation," he tells me.

Thanks to the distortions of Hollywood, many people don't realize that exorcism is not just a “struggle against Satan that relies on the power of Jesus Christ and the authority of his Church.”

It is also itself a form of prayer and a "ministry of compassion." It's an active devotion to God designed to subvert the evil one’s mission to separate us from our creator.

In Lampert's words, his job is to show "the afflicted the face of God" through an “act of mercy that unleashes God’s love against the attacks of the devil, bringing healing and peace."

Exorcism as a rite is grounded in the Gospels, which offer instructions from Christ himself on how to expel demons, as well as in the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles. Lampert points especially to Mark, with its four accounts of demonic expulsion.

He differentiates between minor exorcisms — a prayer for deliverance, said by anyone — and major exorcisms — official liturgy performed only by priests, trained like Lampert, who have earned special permission.

As a successor to the apostles, the local bishop is the exorcist of his diocese. It’s up to him to “bestow this charism,” or spiritual gift, on a priest. The priest has to remain in his diocese, under the guidance of his bishop.

Fr. Lampert compares the parish priest to a primary care doctor, while an exorcist resembles a highly trained specialist whose services are needed much less often.

Under attack

The job is not without its risks.

“The devil certainly knows those who are working to defeat him,” he tells me in the interview. “Certainly, parish priests are on the front line of that. And then exorcists in the unique role that they play in the life of the church can also be up against really extra attacks by the devil because again he knows that exorcists are working to defeat his plan to bring people into the light of Christ, so he will try to trip us up.”

Exorcisms are free, a service to the world. People who pay for an exorcism, says Fr. Lampert, will likely need one after, even if they didn't before.

Lampert says that most people who contact him have already self-diagnosed themselves or their loved ones, which often fuels hostility if Lampert determines that they are not afflicted.

The afflicted aren’t only Catholics. It also includes people from every faith and religion, including those with no belief at all.

Lampert began his role as exorcist seemingly by fate, filling the role after the previous exorcist (coincidentally a childhood friend) died. The archbishop delivered the news without blinking: The young priest was headed to Rome to study the rite of exorcism.

He had concluded that Lampert had a suitable mindset for the role — an awareness of the ubiquity of evil combined with a healthy skepticism. Also key was that Lampert didn't want the job.

In their final visit before the archbishop died of cancer, the archbishop playfully apologized to Lampert for placing him in the role.

In Rome, Lampert studied under a veteran priest who wasted no time in throwing his charge into the deep end.

Lampert bemoans the rise of individualism packaged as freedom. He stresses that it is obedience that sets a person free; there is no freedom without God. As John writes, “To all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God.”

Letting the light in

Adds Lampert: “I would say to people that the devil's like a cockroach. And if you go into a room where the light's off and you flip a light on and there's bugs in the room, they're going to scurry for every crack and crevice that they can find. And when the church in the ministry of exorcism turns the light of Christ on in the lives of these people who have been deceived by the evil one, then the devil, like a cockroach, is going to scurry back into the darkness.”

The first action for Catholics who believe they’re afflicted is to go to confession: “When we confess our sins, we place them in the hands of God, and once we have given them to God, the devil may no longer use them against us.”

But if that isn’t enough, it’s time for an exorcist, who becomes an instrument of God’s power.

“I think one of the unique things about Christianity is that it's not about our search for God, but it's about God's search for us. So, anytime the human person is lost, God always takes the first step. Think of Adam and Eve in the garden after they had sinned. God moves to the garden and says to Adam, 'Where are you?'”

Lampert is a man clearly devoted to this vocation. His easygoing charm and humor contrasts with the heaviness of our subject matter.

That said, he's quick to point out that the work can be “spiritually, mentally, and physically draining.” It demands a training regime: a total devotion to prayer, fasting, confession, and worship.

Recovery sometimes requires special measures. One of Lampert's first assignments took a year until the demon was finally cast out. People hearing this story often want to know what Lampert did next — celebrate mass? Do a holy hour?

Not quite. Lampert headed to the nearest Dairy Queen for a large chocolate shake.

"It was a very hot day here in Indiana," Lampert says. "It was crowded. And I said to myself, 'If these people knew where I just came from, I would be like Moses parting the Red Sea because they couldn't get away from me fast enough.'"

Assessing The Legacy Of ‘The Exorcist’ 50 Years Later

Nat Segaloff’s The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear makes the case that, half a century later, Hollywood still hasn't made a scarier film.

Jason Whitlock calls for EXORCISM after female rapper's SHOCKING lyrics  glorify abortion



Jason Whitlock found himself momentarily speechless after hearing lyrics from female rapper TNFW Nique's song – “BDF (FNF REMIX).” PDF, an acronym for Baby Daddy Free, is a song about abortion or, as the rapper honestly described it, "murder."

In the video, TNFW Nique appears in front of a Planned Parenthood and showers a paper currency over a dancer who is twerking her little heart out. The song spells out the word ABORT in the chorus.

Jason Whitlock told his audience that the devil has a hold on us, and that the abortion song featured in the video below proves that America desperately needs salvation.

The female rapper's lyrics paint a dark portrait of a 25-year-old woman, saying she has murder on her mind and that she is glad she is "baby daddy-free." Jason asserted that "we need an exorcism" and described rap culture as being in the clutches of satan

Listen to the podcast here.




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'He walked up the wall': The modern demon possession case that rocked the world



"He walked up the wall, flipped over ... and stood there." And if that's not strange enough, another eyewitness description proclaimed that a little boy from Indiana "glided backward on the floor, wall and ceiling."

I remember reading those words in a strange state of shock and wonder. How in the world did a little boy allegedly walk up a wall? I wondered. And why was a mainstream outlet like the Indianapolis Star covering such a bizarre story?

I had a slew of immediate questions about the 2014 story that had come out of Gary, Indiana, about a so-called demon house that was filled with terrifying tales, but the claim about a little boy walking up a wall was the hands-down, most offbeat detail amid the plethora of strange phenomena surrounding Latoya Ammons and her family.

It's just one of the compelling stories I tell in my new book, "Playing With Fire: A Modern Investigation Into Demons, Exorcisms and Ghosts."

FormerStar journalist Marisa Kwiatkowski opened her now famous 2014 article on the Ammons case titled "The Exorcisms of Latoya Ammons" by reporting that Ammons and her three children "claimed to be possessed by demons."

The lede was anything but buried, as there were many elements that boldly distinguished the story from other paranormal claims. Among the intriguing facets was the series of prominent people — including a family case manager, a nurse, and veteran police captains — who all seemed to corroborate various pieces of the bizarre puzzle.

So, what exactly unfolded in Ammons's Gary, Indiana, home? According to her own media account, Ammons said she and her family began experiencing strange phenomena just one month after moving into the rental home.

It was December 2011 when large black flies reportedly started swarming the family's porch, coming back again and again even after they were killed. Ammons and her mother, Rosa Campbell, told the Star that they also started hearing footsteps coming up from the basement every night — and that it sounded as though the door was repeatedly creaking open.

By March 2012 — just four months after moving into the home — the strangeness kicked up a notch. Campbell told Kwiatkowski about a night when the family found one of Ammons's children unconscious and levitating. Overwhelmed by the events unfolding in the home, the family sought the help of clairvoyants and local churches.

They purportedly burned sage, drew crosses on the hands and feet of the children using olive oil, and attempted various acts recommended to them in an effort to rid the home of the supernatural forces they believed were infesting it.

None of this worked, though, with the family claiming that their problems only worsened. Ammons and her three kids (at the time aged 7, 9, and 12) all reported experiencing what they described as "possession," with the purported effects reading like a horror novel.

Ammons and Campbell reportedly told Kwiatkowski that "the kids' eyes bulged, evil smiles crossed their faces, and their voices deepened every time it happened." Additionally, the 7-year-old reportedly spoke to another child whom no one else could see.

Ammons soon turned to her children's doctor for help. Her kids' bizarre behavior while in the doctor's office teamed with the family's claims of paranormal activity led medical professionals to call emergency services. "Twenty years, and I've never heard anything like that in my life," Dr. Geoffrey Onyeukwu, the physician involved in the incident, told the Star. "I was scared myself when I walked into the room."

An official report details what some medical professionals claimed to have witnessed. The document reads, in part: "Medical staff reported that while the children were at their primary doctor's office the medical staff reported they observed [one of the children] be lifted and thrown into the wall with nobody touching him."

Still, not everyone was convinced something supernatural was at play. In the midst of that chaos, a skeptical individual reportedly called the Department of Child Services to file a complaint, which sparked an investigation into Ammons's mental state (an evaluation by a hospital psychological found "there were no concerns about her mental stability at this time").

That's when DCS case manager Valerie Washington entered the picture — and reportedly saw much of the bizarre behavior for herself. Washington's own account of her interaction with the family included seeing the seven-year-old boy's eyes roll back in his head and watching him growl. At one point, the boy reportedly said the following to his brother, "speaking in a different deep voice": "It's time to die. I will kill you."

This brings us to that pivotal point in the story: the claim that the boy walked up a wall. Washington's official DCS report — an account reportedly backed by Willie Lee Walker, a registered nurse who was in the room, says the following about the encounter with the family: "Child became aggressive and walked up the wall as if he was walking on the floor and did a flip over the grandmother. The episode was witnessed by the psych counselor and DCS worker FCM Washington."

This is a strange line to include in government documentation, but it's an account Walker later confirmed to Kwiatkowski, telling the reporter that the boy "walked up the wall, flipped over and stood there." The nurse added, "There's no way he could've done that."

Washington later indicated that the situation profoundly impacted her. "It's taken me a while to move past that," she said of her claim of seeing the boy walk up the wall. "I believe that it was something going on there that was out of the realm of a normal living person."

As I cover in "Playing With Fire," other compelling sources have corroborated these elements, among many others.

Despite the fact that some psychologists and skeptics have reportedly felt the story was inauthentic and had more rational roots, the compelling details and unwavering witness testimony had enough legs for mainstream media and the public at large to at least entertain what was claimed, and that's notable.

Regardless of where you stand on stories like this, there are two essential realities we must remember. The first is found in Ephesians 6:11: "Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." This means holding close to the Christian faith, which translates into daily prayer and a healthy relationship with God.

There's one other reality, though, that is found in the subsequent verse (12): "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

It's easy to forget that there's a spiritual battle raging — but a failure to acknowledge this reality can prove dangerous. Still, there's hope. Yes, there's a spiritual battle, but there's also a solution that is freely available: Christ. Explore these realities more in "Playing with Fire: A Modern Investigation into Demons, Exorcism, and Ghosts."

Excerpted from PLAYING WITH FIRE: A MODERN INVESTIGATION INTO DEMONS, EXORCISM, AND GHOSTS. Copyright © 2020 by Billy Hallowell. Published by Emanate Books, a division of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.