An exorcist who will be teaching a course on exorcism in Rome this week says more and more bishops are becoming convinced of the need for exorcists to help their troubled flocks.

In an interview with The Guardian, Father Cesar Truqui, a Mexican priest based in Switzerland who served as an assistant to the late Father Gabriele Amorth, began teaching at the Regina Apostolorum University in Rome yesterday to priests and laypeople from around the world who want to learn more about the practice of exorcism. The annual course, entitled “Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation” and offered by the Sacerdos Institute is in its 13th year and has drawn hundreds of students every year, including Vatican officials, exorcists, psychologists, physicians, and other experts.

During his tenure as an exorcist, Father Truqui has seen it all. He described subjects whose problems defy medical explanation, such as one victim of a curse who was plagued by constant sensations of daggers piercing her legs and knitting needles stabbing her arms.

In another case, a “satanic nail” appeared atop a table. “There had been nothing on the table and then suddenly it was there, a rusted black nail. We all saw it. I wanted to keep it but then I thought, no, it’s like keeping a radioactive thing,” Father Truqui said.

These victims tend to have superhuman strength and can perform feats that are not humanly possible, he explained.

Sometimes their voices change and they growl or speak in tongues. For example, in one case, a person suddenly said in a deep growling voice, “‘I am the prince of this world, I am Satan’, and the hairs on my arms went up,” Father Truqui said. “When you listen to a satanic growl, once you listen to the devil’s voice, you can recognise it.”

In other cases, a victim will have knowledge of “secret things” like what someone who is not present is doing or wearing. Others are plagued by overwhelming feelings of discomfort whenever they enter a place or worship.

“Normally speaking it is humanly impossible … so that is a satanic thing,” says Truqui.

Full-blown demonic possession is very rare with the vast majority of people who come to him needing psychiatric help, about two to three percent show signs of demonic “vexation.”

“Most of the time, the people who see me are victims,” he told the Guardian.

Thankfully, as demand for exorcism rises around the world, more and more bishops who were once skeptical of the need for the rite are now becoming convinced that it can be a possible solution to their parishioners’ problems, particularly in cases where modern medicine and psychiatry have failed. This is essential because an exorcism cannot take place without the express permission of the bishop.

“Christ was the first exorcist,” Truqui reminds. “The power of casting out demons was one of the signs that Christianity was a true religion.”

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