An international organization of Catholic exorcists said Thursday that the existence of Satan as a real and personal being is a truth of Christin doctrine.
“The real existence of the devil, as a personal subject who thinks and acts and has made the choice of rebellion against God, is a truth of faith that has always been part of Christian doctrine,” the International Association of Exorcists said in an August 22 press release.
The organization’s release came in response to recent remarks on the devil from Jesuit superior general Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ, which the organization called “grave and confusing.”
The exorcists said they released their statement to provide “doctrinal clarification.”
Sosa made headlines earlier this week when he told Italian magazine Tempi that “the devil exists as a symbolic reality, not as a personal reality.”
The devil “exists as the personification of evil in different structures, but not in persons, because is not a person, is a way of acting evil. He is not a person like a human person. It is a way of evil to be present in human life,” Sosa said.
Citing a long history of Church teaching on the nature of Satan, including several citations from Pope Francis and his recent predecessors, the exorcists’ organization said that Catholics are bound to believe that Satan is a real and personal being, a fallen angel.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
A devil of a Sunday
An interesting story at the Catholic Herald, about the head Jesuit upsetting Catholic exorcists:
If he exists it would mean he was in cohoots with more powerful forces .... Gods loyal opposition, or that he was particularly stupid, being engaged in evil when he was outgunned, or more likely it would mean that Mani was right. Manichaeism being a religion, that believed we were caught in a fight between good and evil. And that this was a fight wherein good will not necessarily win. I'm basically Manichaen in my outlook. We have a tough gig ahead. Because even if we could defeat the oligarchy we would then face serious Malthusian realities. So it would not be easy under any circumstances to get things right. We cannot even begin to get things right without defeating the oligarchy first and preventing excessive accumulations of wealth leading to political power.
ReplyDeleteThe Manichaens saw the world as it really was. So you know. The rest of us had to kill them off because of their realism. Just the way it goes.