Can lay people cast out the devil? Father Amorth replies

CAN THE LAITY CAN HUNT THE DEMON? AN ANSWER FROM FATHER AMORTH.

Not only many religious but also many lay people do not believe in the devil and do not recognize his devious destructive action in many situations of life.
Yet Don Amorth reminds us that one of the duties of the Christian is to fight him and drive him out in accordance with the explicit mandate of Jesus that we find in Mk 16,17: 18-XNUMX.
In other non-Catholic Christian realities it is a normal part of the ministry of evangelization, and this is done effectively and powerfully.
Unfortunately, it is almost always the lack of true faith and spiritual maturity that underlie this biblical default.

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Q. We now come to the role of the laity in the ministry of liberation: can they drive out demons?

R. “Of course yes! And if they don't, they fall into mortal sin! ”.

Q. Yet there are those who argue that the faculty of exorcising is reserved only to priests with a regular mandate from the Bishop ...

R. “So the misunderstanding is about the term exorcise. Exorcism is a sacramental, a public prayer that can be recited only and exclusively by a priest with the authority of the Church to drive out the devil. Well. The prayers of liberation have the same purpose and the same efficacy as exorcism, with the difference that they can also be recited by lay people. The solution therefore lies in the middle: lay people in the name of Christ order the evil one to abandon the body of the possessed, show images and relics of Saints to whom they are very devoted, invoke the help of the Saints, the intercession of the Madonna, impose the Crucifix on the sick man's head but never his hands; just be careful not to pronounce the phrase: 'I exorcise you'. And always say, continually: 'In the name of Christ, go away, retreat to hell, I drive you out unclean spirit! I am aware of innumerable cases of possessed freed from lay people and not from exorcists, because the exorcists, guilty, acted without believing in the devil and without trusting in God. Then, as an example, there is the life of many Saints: I think of Saint Catherine of Siena, who was neither a priest nor a nun, yet cast out the devil from the possessed. Indeed, it was the exorcists themselves who asked for his help because they, despite being priests, did not succeed ”.

D. A "subtle" difference ...

R. “A difference that only serves to distinguish the roles between priests and lay people. Also because, I repeat, exorcisms and prayers for liberation have the same effectiveness and, after all, they can be considered only one thing. Personally, I consider the help of the laity and their commitment to the ministry of liberation to be decisive. Given the small number of exorcists, without them there would be thousands and thousands more possessed around the world ".

Q. Father Amorth, who has been interviewing you for 13 years, deals with the ministry of liberation: why so much skepticism towards the laity?

R. “For ignorance! Lay people are a fundamental resource in the fight against the underworld. Because it is true that the exorcist priest has the mandate of the Bishop, but the laity have already had the mandate of Christ for 2000 years, who first assured the 12 Apostles, then the 72 disciples and finally to all men: "In my name you will drive away the demons ". But what do you want, if you don't believe in the existence of the devil, you can't even believe in the power of the laity to drive him out. In this regard, allow me to bless from the columns of your newspaper all those lay people involved in the ministry of liberation and, in particular, the brothers of the Charismatic Renewal who work with great results all over the world ".

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(Excerpts from an interview with the journalist Gianluca Barile)