Demon mocks Pope during exorcism

By Bruce Johnston
THE POPE personally failed during an impromptu exorcism in Vatican City to "drive out the devil" from a teenage girl who began behaving oddly during a public audience.
The girl, who was said to he aged 19 years but not named in local reports, attracted attention when she began "screaming insults in a cavernous voice" during the Pope's Wednesday audience last week.
Yet despite the Pontiff's efforts and those of his chief exorcist, Fr Gabriele Amorth, the girl remained "possessed" with the devil's voice later "sneeringly laughing from within her" at the Pope's attempt to drive him away.
"The devil has arrived in the Vatican," Rome's 11 Messaggem wrote after being told of the incident by Fr Amorth, who said that the exorcism had been John Paul It's third in his 22-year-long papacy.
The paper said that it was not the first time such an event had happened but added that the latest incident had been "spectacular," and that Satan had "flexed his muscles".
It occurred during last Wednesday's general audience in a packed St Peter's Square. Suddenly the girl, who was from a village near Monza, close to Milan, appeared to have been taken by a fit of rage.
Eyewitnesses said that she began shouting obscenities in the direction of the Pope "in a cavernous voice that was obviously not her own".
Constrained by Vatican guards, she was said to have displayed "a super-human strength" as she violently pushed them away.
When Bishop Gianni Danzi, Secretary General of Vatican City, intervened and sought to calm her with a crucifix, she began "insulting him, uttering disconnected phrases, and speaking in unknown tongues".
Made to drink holy water, the girl "in fear and loathing, pushed it aside".
A concerned Bishop Danzi, who later said he soon realised "who was inside the girl", hurriedly informed the Pope's private secretary, Mgr Stanislao Dziwisz, who in turn told the Pontiff.
The Pope later took the girl to one side, exorcised her, and stayed with her for half an hour, praying for her and assuring her that he would say a Mass for her the next day, "to obtain her liberation".
But it appeared afterwards that the Pope's intervention had only a temporary effect on the girl.
Said to have been "possessed since she was 12", allegedly as a result of someone putting a curse on her out of hatred for her parents, she had been taken by her anxious mother and father to the audi
ence in the hope that a papal blessing would be of some benefit.
Fr Amorth, who has performed 3,000 exorcisms in 12 years, claimed that the matter had been hushed up inside the Vatican.
He said: "I exorcised the very same girl on Tuesday morning (the day before the incident) together with another exorcist, Fr Giancarlo Gramolazzo.
"She is a splendid girl in terms of purity and goodness. Her case of possession by the devil is terrible. It moves one to pity to see her suffer so, all bent over and contracted.
He added: "The Pope saw her, he called her over and caressed her for half an hour.
"He told her that the next morning he would say Mass for her. He was assisted in the exorcism by Bishop Danzi. On Thursday afternoon, together with Fr Giancarlo Gramolazzo, and Bishop Danzi, I performed another exorcism on her. It lasted two whole hours."
But he said that both it and the Pope's intervention seemed to have had little effect.
During the exorcism Fr Amorth said that "the voice of the devil in the girl" laughingly alluded to the Pope's failed attempt the previous day to drive hint from her.
"If you only knew how happy the devil was," Fr Amorth said, "and how much he laughed. He drove the poor girl to tell me sneeringly: 'Even your boss was powerless to do anything to me'."