Posted on 03/10/2010 10:17:50 AM PST by Wontsubmit
Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.
Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".
He added: "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia."
He claimed that another example of satanic behaviour was the Vatican "cover-up" over the deaths in 1998 of Alois Estermann, the then commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife and Corporal Cedric Tornay, a Swiss Guard, who were all found shot dead. "They covered up everything immediately," he said. "Here one sees the rot".
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Hmmmmmmm
If the Easter Bunny is possessed, I think the possessor is demon consortium from Hershey, Mars, Cadbury et al.
Plausible.
I wonder what possessed Drudge to put this headline on ...
For later read.
lol...what the devil?
good book, I have it and think I will find it and reread it.
I am so sorry to hear that about your friend, what he did was a holy act, I will put him in my prayers.
That is a very good book my husband just bought it on amazon for a good price. We had read the book a few years back and never forgot it.
Most people do not discern between the mind, soul and heart, let alone even amongst believers, able discern the soul from the spirit or soulish things from spiritual things.
A believer who falls out of fellowship, be a known or unknown sin, is capable of committing the most heinous sins imaginable or even be the most antichristian person conceivable, although the mind and heart, if begun to be sanctified, are able to place a check on the soul by conscious recognition of sin by the law and our memory and ability to recollect proper behavior and thinking. Such sinful thinking and behavior might and is likely the result of human failing, rather than any other. Besides, why should the fallen angels interfere when believing humans who fall out of fellowship cause so much more bad testimony without their involvement?
The believer who continues to remain out of fellowship, by refusing to return to God by faith in Christ, and by refusing to confess known and unknown sins to God through faith in the Cross, simply remains unforgiven for those post-believing sins, and is not being further sanctified, but might very well continue to degenerate in his/her spiritual condition, as well as degenerate in his/her mind and heart until they return to God and confess their sins to Him.
Most believers, even those who attend church regularly, or study theology, when out of fellowship, scar their souls by studying any number of things soulishly, but not through faith in Christ for the spiritual work in the new man by God the Holy Spirit.
Conversely, there may be many a possessed unbeliever, who appears very benign and rational. Just as there are many animals in the zoo, there are many different angels. We might realize how dangerous lions are, but cute and cuddly cougars might appear benign until a very real time of wild behavior. There are elect and fallen angels. Possession of the human soul, the mind or the heart, is known to occur and some of the more obvious situations in Scripture report of quite wild persons manifest from such possessions.
The simple discernment of possession of a human’s soul by another person occurs when the thinking of the possessed person doesn’t originate from the possessed person’s soul, but from the spirit of another.
Only if it’s white chocolate.
Interesting question.
NO idea.
Let me know if you find out or have some interesting conjectures.
One thing I don’t understand . . .
Vatican affiliated blokes . . . seem to go through all manner of horrendous . . . ritual, effort, travail etc.
Pentecostal blokes rarely do. The best of them tend to be prayed up, fasted up, repented up, have good prayer support . . . great anointing for the task and merely speak the word and it’s done—as when Jesus or Paul spoke and it was done. They don’t tend to suffer retaliations afterwards . . . at least nothing like I read of the Vatican folks often suffering.
I don’t know why.
From what I know of the differences, the Pentecostals rely wholesale on the Blood, authority and words of Jesus and the assistance of His Spirit. They take such Scriptures as Christ having put satan under our feet in terms of authority to be real . . . and they speak and act accordingly to great effect.
Just curious...are you saying that exorcists don’t have friends? Or that, like CIA operatives, they don’t “bring their work home?”
Plausible.
I agree with most of what you are saying, but your last bit is much easier said than done:
“The simple discernment of possession of a human’s soul by another person occurs when the thinking of the possessed person doesn’t originate from the possessed person’s soul, but from the spirit of another.”
You can’t ‘see’ souls, so discerning where the thinking is coming from is, in my opinion, difficult.
What I think I’m seeing more often now is the substitution of thought with feeling. This intern did a bang up job with me in showing that there was ZERO Biblical basis for the ELCA’s decision to allow homosexual pastors in committed relationships serve. Didn’t matter, she still believed that the ELCA made the right decision somehow.
“I just feel . . . . “ is always the way it starts.
To me, the salvation of Christ is purely logical. It makes sense, and its what a loving God would do. Even the act is logical, and not emotional, and I mean the act of believing in your heart, professing with your lips, understanding with your mind that your salvation comes from Christ, and Christ alone.
The EMOTIONAL part is when, in the aftermath, you finally fathom the suffering of Christ, and you finally grasp the realization that Christ could have, at any point, decided it wasn’t worth it, and could have returned to Heaven. It was always a possibility, and He even asked God to ‘Take this cup from me.”
It’s then that your heart breaks and you are laid bare as the unworthy filth that you were, and how you were adopted and were made clean through no act or merit of your own. For some this may come after a lifetime.
I know priests, and am witnessing priests that are up to their necks in fellowship, and yet are actually carrying out Satan’s will on Earth. Paul proves your point about the very persecutor of Christ’s church was saved and converted into one of the most important of His Apostles. That is ever God’s style.
Luther saw that many years ago...
Belzebama!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.