“Besides the fact that there are people who perform exorcisms without being exorcists, who have no mandate from their bishop and are therefore illegal, there are others who are not yet part of our Association, despite having been legally appointed by their bishops”. Father Francesco Bamonte, President of the International Association of Exorcists (AIE), said this following the conference that brought together in Sacrofano (Rome) hundreds of exorcists for an event that is held every two years. The AIE’s “fundamental and primary goals”, Father Bamonte told SIR news agency, are, among others, to “make the ministry of exorcism ever more ecclesial, both in terms of insertion in the ordinary pastoral care of the local Church, and in terms of a correct understanding and application of the principles that govern the service provided by the exorcist”. On the other hand, he added, “the Church, through her pastors, is becoming increasingly aware of the need to have serious, reliable and well trained exorcists, able, for the sake of charity, to go out, as Cardinal Bassetti said in his report, to those ‘existential peripheries where it is always winter’, in order to help those who are the poorest among the poor for they are truly and severely tormented by the evil one”.

Our Association, the president pointed out, “is increasingly recognised and valued by the universal Church. As for our prospects, they cannot but be the best if our Association remains faithful to the task it has set itself, a task that has been recognised both in terms of collaboration with individual Bishops, the Bishops’ Conferences and the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, and in terms of wise understanding and sound application of the norms that regulate the ministry of exorcism, with the benefits that those who really need it will derive from it”.