Under the guidance of Pope Francis, the Catholic Church took the unusual step of trying to banish demons from an entire country when they held a mass exorcism in Mexico.
Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez and Archbishop Emeritus of Guadalajara presided over a mass exorcism held in Mexico, as Spanish Priest Father José Antonio conducted the ritual himself.
The “Pope Francis effect” has been credited with a recent boom in the demand for exorcisms around the world. The Telegraph reported that the appearance of Pope Francis coincided with a surge in the number of people lining up to claim they were possessed by Lucifer or one of his many lieutenants .
“The Argentinian pontiff’s fire-and-brimstone language and frequent references to the Devil have helped propel belief in Beelzebub back into the mainstream of the Catholic Church, where once it was an embarrassment.”
The Vatican insists demonic possession is very real and under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has trained more and more priests in the ancient art of how to exorcise a demon.
Although in the past many priests have been called upon to exorcise difficult and challenging demons from possessed individuals, until now, no one in the Catholic Church has been called upon to exorcise an entire country.
The Daily Express reports that several other priests, including Archbishop of San Luis Potosí, Jesús Carlos Cabrero, and exorcists were involved in the ceremony at the Cathedral of San Luis Potosí, in the centre of the country.
The mass exorcism was held in Mexico following Pope Francis’s announcement that the county was being punished “by the Devil for its criminal violence.”
Due to the prevalence of drug gangs in the country, Mexico has one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Archbishop Cabrero said that although the mass exorcism was not a common practice, it was held to banish the great evils that resided in Mexico.
“The ceremony included prayers about the problem of divorce and of abortion, which often are favoured by inhuman laws, laws that go against nature itself.”
Cardinal Íñiguez explained that the mass exorcism of Mexico was a collective prayer asking God to drive away the old enemy from the country.
“It was prayer asking God to drive away the Enemy, to drive him away from these places. From San Luis, first of all, and then from all of Mexico.
This violence is nothing else but the Devil who is tearing us apart.
It is a very grave situation we are living through in Mexico, whose root is very deep, beyond human malevolence; it is the devil, who is very connected to death. He is a murderer from the beginning.”
The Mexican Cardinal also addressed Mexico’s 2007 change in their abortion laws. Abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is now decriminalized in Mexico City, and since the change in law, there have been 120,000 abortions performed in Mexico.
“When a country—a Christian country—decriminalizes abortion, it is a tragedy and a very grave sin.”
Pope Francis’s genuine belief in the reality of Satan and his hellish hordes has been reinforced by many in the Catholic Church.
Monsignor Luigi Neri, the archbishop of Ferrara in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna, has blamed atheism and consumerism for the mass outbreak in demonic possession.
“Evil exists and poisons the human experience. It is a challenge and a provocation.”
[Photo By Franco Origlia / Getty Images]