While the world mourns the sudden death of Pope Francis, papal experts from around the world are offering differing views about the nature of his pontificate, but there’s one aspect of his papacy they all agree upon – Pope Francis never shied away from warning the faithful about the dangers of the devil, the occult, and the New Age.
Pope Francis was only two years into his pontificate before even the secular media noticed how often he brought up the subject of the devil in his various addresses. Responding to their criticisms, Rev. Thomas Rosica of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation explained that Pope Francis, a Jesuit, was simply following in the footsteps of the founder of his order, the Society of Jesus.
“With his continual references to the devil, Pope Francis parts ways with the current preaching in the church, which is far too silent about the devil and his insidious ways or reduces him to a mere metaphor,” Father Rosica wrote.
He went on to recount: “In several daily homilies in the chapel of the Vatican guest house, the Pope shared devilish stories with the small congregations rapt in attention as he homilized on taboo topics.”
On Palm Sunday in 2013, the newly elected Pope even dared to tell Christians who were facing trials that although Jesus is near, “so is the enemy – the devil” who “comes often disguised as an angel and slyly speaks his word to us.”
In 2015, he delivered a similar bold message to 600,000 young people at a rally in Paraguay.
“Friends: the devil is a con artist,” the pope said. “He makes promises after promise, but he never delivers. He’ll never really do anything he says. He doesn’t make good on his promises. He makes you want things which he can’t give, whether you get them or not. He makes you put your hopes in things which will never make you happy.
“… He is a con artist because he tells us that we have to abandon our friends, and never to stand by anyone. Everything is based on appearances. He makes you think that your worth depends on how much you possess.”
In his 2018 apostolic exhortation, Guadete et Exsultate, the pope was just as bold, urging Christians to reject the notion that the devil is an intangible construct but to see him as “a personal being who assails us.”
He wrote: “We should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea,” the pope wrote. “This mistake would leave us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable.”
The devil need not possess us, he added, because “He poisons us with the venom of hatred, desolation, envy and vice.”
Even while acknowledging that in ancient times authorities were not as educated on the difference between demonic possession and mental illness as they are today, the pope warned that this should not “lead us to an oversimplification that would conclude that all the cases related in the Gospel had to do with psychological disorders and hence that the devil does not exist or is not at work.”
In his warnings about viewing the devil as a metaphor rather than as a personal being, he said this attitude allows him to enter the lives of the faithful through the “superstition” so prevalent in the secularized world which is “teeming with magicians, occultism, spiritualism, astrologers, sellers of spells and amulets, and unfortunately with real satanic sects.”
And yet, in spite of his frequent discourses on the devil, Pope Francis never performed a single exorcism during his pontificate. However, according to an Italian-language book entitled Exorcists Against Satan, published in 2023 by journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, he did admit to being attacked by the devil.
In the first chapter of Marchese’s book, the author tells the story of a nun who was possessed by the devil. During her exorcism, she declared in a demonic voice that the devil despised Pope Francis “Have you seen everything I put that Argentine through?” the devil said to the exorcist. “But he doesn’t go away, he is strong, too much for me.”
Marchese wrote: “I asked the pope, ‘did you know that the devil says that about you?’ And he answered me: ‘Perhaps because I annoy him with prayer and I follow the Gospel. At the same time, he is certainly pleased when I commit some sin. He seeks the downfall of man, but he has no hope when prayer is present.”
The pope went on to admit during the interview that he was personally attacked by the devil. “The devil attacks everyone, but above all those in the hierarchy of the Church. He tempted Jesus and he also does the same with the popes and bishops.”
For this reason, he was always a staunch supporter of the ministry of exorcism in the Church.
In an Angelus address in 2023, the pope taught about the three “powerful poisons” the devil uses to divide Christian communities: attachment to material things, mistrust, and the thirst for power.
“[These] are three widespread and dangerous temptations that the devil uses to divide us from the Father and to make us no longer feel like brothers and sisters among ourselves, to lead us to solitude and desperation. This is what he wanted to do to Jesus and what he wants to do to us, to lead us to despair,” Francis said.
In a series of catechesis on vices and virtues that began in December of 2023, the Holy Father spoke about the necessity of understanding the dynamics of evil and temptation and why it is so important to guard the heart against the wiles of Satan. During this talk, he issued yet another appeal to the faithful to avoid dialoguing with the devil.
“One must never dialogue, brothers and sisters, with the devil. Never! You should never argue,” the pope warned. “Jesus never dialogued with the devil; He cast him out. And when in the wilderness, [with] the temptations, He did not respond with dialogue; He simply responded with the words of Holy Scripture, with the Word of God. Be careful: the devil is a seducer. Never dialogue with him, because he is smarter than all of us and he will make us pay for it.”
He repeated this warning a year later in September, 2024 when he said: “With the devil one does not dialogue; one sends him away, (keeps him at a) distance,” he said. “And all of us have had the experience of how the devil approaches us with some temptation against the Ten Commandments. When we feel this, stop — distance! Do not approach the dog tied to its chain.”
Earlier the same year, he spoke about how “the devil always takes away your freedom” and named some of the temptations that the evil one uses to ensnare us.
“I am thinking of addictions, which enslave [so we are] always dissatisfied, and devour energy, goods, and affections; I am thinking of dominant fashions, which push us toward impossible perfectionism, consumerism, and hedonism, which commodify people and spoil their relationships.”
“And other chains: There are the temptations and conditioning that undermine self-esteem, serenity, and the ability to choose and love life,” he said.
Another chain is fear, he said, “which makes one look at the future with pessimism and impatience, which always casts blame on others.”
The “idolatry of power” is yet another “very ugly chain” that creates conflicts that too often lead to developing weapons of mass destruction, the manipulation of thought, and economic injustices.
“And Jesus came to free us from all these chains,” Pope Francis said. “Jesus has the power to cast out the devil. Jesus frees us from the power of evil.”
Pope Francis was just as adamant about the dangers of the New Age and the occult.
In 2015, he said in a homily, “You can follow a thousand catechism courses, a thousand spirituality courses, a thousand yoga or Zen courses, and all these things. But none of this will be able to give you the freedom as a child (of God),” he said.
A 2017 Angelus address found him warning against putting our trust in horoscopes and fortune telling rather than in Jesus Christ. Using the Biblical story of St. Peter attempting to walk toward Jesus on the water who sank when he took his eyes off the Savior, Francis warned that the same thing can happen to us when we put out faith in “false securities.”
“When we do not cling to the Word of the Lord, but consult horoscopes and fortune tellers, we begin to sink,” the Pope said Aug. 13.
He also spoke out against witchcraft, tarot readings and sorcerers, stating that true Christians should reject these things.
As Italian Insider reports, the pope said “Horoscopes and necromancer” are not necessary to know the future, “reading palms and the crystal ball” are useless: the “true Christian” trusts god and lets himself be guided on a path open to the surprises of God. Otherwise, you cannot be a “true Christian.”
There’s no need to go to a palm reader to know your fate, but to look to God rather than resorting to occult practices. Even though we might drive Satan out the door, he can re-enter through a window, usually on the back of superstition. “And if you are superstitious, you are unconsciously conversing with the devil.”
As our Holy Father so adamantly taught, the spiritual battle cannot “be reduced to the struggle against our human weaknesses and proclivities — be they laziness, lust, envy, jealousy or any others. It is also a constant struggle against the devil, the prince of evil.”
The good news is that we can win this fight!
“For this spiritual combat, we can count on the powerful weapons that the Lord has given us,” the pope said. “Faith-filled prayer, meditation on the word of God, the celebration of Mass, Eucharistic adoration, sacramental Reconciliation.”
The surest way to fortify ourselves against an enemy as formidable as the devil is by living “in Christ” through the sacraments he gave us.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.
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