Fr. Amorth with Marcello Stanzione

This book tries to honor the life and work of Gabriele Amorth, priest of the Rome Diocese in Italy, who spent much of his life ministering fulltime as an exorcist. The book contains a short biography, a theological discussion on the evolution of the Satan and the Devil in scripture and three interviews with Amorth. The book concludes with various effective prayers for deliverance and protection (some from the Eastern Rite). It is a short book at 146 pages. Amorth, now dead, had written two other books on his work as an exorcist.
This publisher is an excellent source of Roman Catholic literature on a wide variety of topics.
Amorth links his own priestly vocation to Padre Pio who Amorth sought out for confirmation on his discernment. Padre Pio ignored him but Amorth continued to visit him over many years. Amorth refers to several instances when Pio gave him situational context for exorcisms that were successful and those which were not. Padre Pio was known in Italy as a confessor, stigmatist, and mystic but his renown made him much sought out on many other spiritual topics.
Stanzione (coauthor) lays out a theological discussion of the devil in scripture which was interesting even if incorrect in my eyes. Most times when an author goes over the role of Satan in the scriptures it comes from a biblical perspective since this the usual procedure in studies with the advent of scripture study during the Counter-Reformation. One begins with the senses of scripture in original languages and translation and then moves on to the theological consequences of what had been presented in Sacred Scripture.
Stanzione says that the devil in scriptures has a role that changes in a chronological fashion in the Old Testament. He says that in the book of Job, for example, Satan is a “heavenly advocate” to later being given more contradictory traits in other books. Satan later in the New testament, he says, becomes fully engaged in obstructing the mission of Christ. Stanzione’s reason for arguing this way about the supposed evolution of the idea of the scriptural devil is to maintain that the scared authors all wish to maintain that devil actually exists in all of these variations. That is not a good theological argument, but it does lead him to confirm a strange assertion later in the book by Amorth. Amorth says that there is a saint who was canonized (Sr. Maria of the Crucified Jesus) even after being physically tormented and was exorcised to show that canonization is possible that “evil can be permitted with the object of sanctifying…” the person and to offer reparations for the sins of humanity (p. 115).
It is much easier to look at the type of biblical literature a particular book happens to be, apply the necessary hermeneutics, and see that the Devil appears in various guises to function in a narrative for a specific purpose. However, they all describe the same devil working to undermine God’s work as in corrupting through temptation men and women throughout salvation history. Even as I appreciate the theological argument presented here by Stanzione, I downplay his desire to merely assert that the sacred authors could only eek out that the Devil exists. This is one of Amorth’s critiques of modernity that sin and the Devil are no longer integral parts of the religious culture. The argumentative foil of the Devil, to me, makes it much easier to understand the full gift of human nature created in God’s image in the scriptures as opposed to merely allowing the Devil’s presence to be reasserted.
There are other good things in this for the general reader but they are so tied up in the idiosyncratic way of speaking by Amorth that I hesitate to recommend it even to Catholics. Only at the end of the book do we get simple straight forward answers. Such as: Living in the Grace of God through prayer and the sacraments protects from all attacks; prayers of liberation (from spiritual oppression) can be said by anyone who is not an actual charlatan; exorcism is a sacramental (with a specific Rite) that can only be administered by a bishop or priest appointed expressly for that purpose; going to mediums, or dabbling in the occult, is never to be suggested to anyone as a way to find insight or meaning for life’s many difficulties.
Limited Footnotes but no bibliography.… (plus d'informations)