Father François-Marie Dermine, promoter of an annual international course on exorcism in Rome, discusses his recent popular work about the devil, offering keys to discernment on this controversial and sensitive topic.
The “death” of the devil in people’s minds is accelerating the “death” of God in de-Christianized Western societies. For this reason, Dominican Father François-Marie Dermine decided 20 years ago to recatechize Catholic people through different initiatives.
A Canadian by birth, Father Dermine has been an exorcist for several Italian dioceses since 1994. In 2003, he contributed to the creation of the “Course on Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation,” a weeklong interdisciplinary workshop on exorcism. This annual event, held in Rome, gathers priests, women religious and lay experts from around the world to focus on Satanic activity and the formal ministry that the Church established to respond to such activity.
Amazon Brand - Goodthr...
Check Amazon for Pricing.
Father Dermine is president of the Italian Catholic association GRIS (Social-Religious Information Research Group) and professor of moral theology at the Theological Faculty of Emilia-Romagna; he is also the author of several books about the ministry of exorcism and the dangers surrounding the obscure and dangerous beliefs and practices of the occult.
His latest work, Ragioniamo sul demonio. Tra superstizioni, mito e realtà (“Let’s Reason About the Devil: Between Superstitions, Myths and Reality”), was written in a question-and-answer format and seeks to inform the public — believers and nonbelievers — about the nature and scope of Satanic activity at a time when the devil’s very existence is being increasingly questioned, even by Catholic leaders.
While discussing the content of his book with the Register, Father Dermine warned the Catholic faithful not to neglect religious education, which is the first bulwark against the advance of the devil and Satanism in society.
Why did you write this book, which addresses a wide audience?
First of all, I wrote it because there are a lot of prejudices, ignorance and confusions to be addressed. Indeed, I am an exorcist, and it really hurts me to hear people in general and priests in particular deny the concrete action of the devil in our lives. I couldn’t stand this situation anymore. It is the fundamental reason why I wrote this book. Faith deprived of the belief in the existence of the devil is not genuine because the existence of angels is a truth of faith, and the devil is a fallen angel. I am very clear from this point of view. Whoever denies the existence of the devil is a heretic. Obviously, the devil is not at the center of the faith, but his figure is indispensable to understand the mystery of faith.
Amazon Brand - Goodthr...
Buy New $30.00
(as of 04:16 UTC - Details)
I sometimes wonder how a priest can remain faithful to his vocation without believing in the devil. It makes him a kind of social worker, but nothing more.
Why do you think the questions surrounding the devil are so “snubbed” by theological circles nowadays?
We live in a period of great rationalism nowadays. We try to find an explanation, a demonstration to everything, but as I recall in my book, the existence of the devil is not to be demonstrated — it is to be believed. Even if there are good reasons to believe it on a rational level, it is not enough. After Vatican II, the desire to rationalize the faith, especially in regions where Catholicism was very traditional, was sometimes too radical, and we threw the baby out with the bathwater. Many members of the clergy seem to want to emancipate themselves from concepts that seem too medieval, backward or even superstitious to them, while the belief in the devil is still quite widespread in the rest of society, especially among the youth. When I go to give lectures in schools, the children listen to me in a religious silence. It is our duty to explain what the devil is in a way that is neither superstitious nor extravagant.
A controversy erupted within the Church after a Jesuit priest suggested that the devil was nothing more than a symbol of evil. In your book, you also mention the exegete Alberto Maggi, who denied the existence of demonic possession on the basis of the teachings of the Old Testament. Why are these statements false?
Amazon Brand - Goodthr...
Buy New $35.00
(as of 04:16 UTC - Details)
Because they are simply not faithful to the Holy Scriptures. It is true that there are fewer references to the devil in the Old Testament, even if he is mentioned from the first pages of the Bible, in the Book of Genesis. But while approaching the fullness of time, and thus the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the Bible mentions it a lot more. Jesus himself insists on the figure of the devil. He could have sided with the Sadducees, who did not believe in the existence of angels as purely spiritual beings; but, not only did he not do that, he also wanted to reaffirm this reality against which he himself had to fight. We have no reason to think that the devil is a symbol of evil that exists in the world. The symbol has the function of manifesting a reality that is not yet visible, concrete or present. And evil is so omnipresent, unfortunately, that we certainly do not need a symbol to represent it.
The death of the devil precedes the death of God, as you write in your book: Can the death of the devil in people’s minds strengthen the demonic presence and field of action?
Certainly. I once heard some people say: “I have come to the awareness of the existence of God through the awareness of the existence of the devil, because I have seen it.” This statement has a relative value, but it is true that, if the figure of the devil is missing, one also loses sight of the figure of God itself. In this sense, the death of the devil can accompany or precede or favor that of God because it makes the concept of God very abstract. It makes faith arid and intellectualistic and makes us forget that we really need to be saved, helped and protected by the Lord. We must bear in mind that our faith consists in the effective presence of a loving God, and reasoning is not always the best way to reach God. In our course on exorcism and theology, we teach the so-called theodicy, which focuses on a rational study of the relationship between God’s justice and the presence of evil in the world. This rational theology is valid, but it is a very different reality from the faith in a concrete and present God who acts in my life each day.
