Exorcism, Satanic panic, and a sex scandal involving a Catholic exorcist and anti-abortion activist

Given the popularity of the latest exorcism movie The Rite, and given all the talk about how the exorcism trend is scaring people back into the Catholic Church, I've written several posts about exorcism and related topics on various blogs:

• Exorcism and religious intolerance, Talk To Action, February 1, 2011


• Catholic exorcism and NYPD “experts on occult crimes”???, LiveJournal, February 6, 2011


• The Catholic exorcism trend and Italy’s Satanic panic, Wordpress, February 9, 2011.


• Bill Donohue boasts: exorcism now mainstream, LiveJournal, February 11, 2011


• Preliminary response to Michael Cuneo on exorcism, Wordpress, February 12, 2011

Amanda Knox and Italian Satanic Panic

At some point I should write a post about the trial of Amanda Knox, an American who (together with her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito) was convicted, in Italy, of the murder of her English roommate, Meredith Kercher, allegedly as part of a "a premeditated ... sexual and sacrificial rite." The verdict is highly controversial, with many commentators saying there was no evidence.

Recently the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, was convicted of abuse of office. according to the Independent (U.K.) story Knox prosecutor tainted by 'satanism' case by Peter Popham, Sunday, June 6, 2010.

Another new development: Amanda Knox is innocent, jailed Italian mobster says his brother killed Meredith Kercher by Sean Alfano, New York Daily News, June 9, 2010, and Jailed mobster claims he can prove Amanda Knox is innocent by Hada Messia and Mallory Simon, CNN, June 11, 2010.

I'll dig up more of the background of this story sometime later.

Blaming "Satanists" for Catholic clergy sex scandals???

The recent flurry of Italian Catholic public pronouncements about "Satanism" might be, in part, a response to an October 2007 sex scandal involving a Vatican official, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, director of one of three Vatican departments that make up the Congregation for the Clergy, the Vatican “ministry” for the clergy.

An undercover TV reporter caught Msgr. Stenico, on video, propositioning a young man. When confronted, he tried to excuse himself by claiming that he himself was really just doing another undercover investigation. He claimed he was investigating an alleged conspiracy of "Satanists" who were out to seduce clergy.

More details, plus links to news stories, in a post Blaming "Satanists" for Catholic clergy sex scandals??? on my LiveJournal blog.

More about Satanism and the Catholic Church in Italy

I just now came across Satanic Cults in Fashion in Rome, Says Priest by Jennifer Riley, Christian Post, Tue, Apr. 22 2008. Nothing new, really. Mostly just a shorter version of the CBN article I wrote about in my previous post.

Again we have the claim: "The overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation of Italy has an estimated 800 satanic cults, with more than 600,000 followers." This article then melodramatically adds: "But Rome, home to Vatican City and the pope, is where the fiercest spiritual battle is taking place."

Some news from Italy, about Satanism and about the Catholic Church

I recently came across an interesting article on the CBN website, part of Pat Robertson's empire: Is the Devil Gaining a Foothold in Rome? by George Thomas, April 21, 2008.

First, I'll skip ahead to and quote in full the most interesting part, about Marco Dimiti, the leader of a Satanist group in Italy:

But Marco Dimiti says that the Catholic Church's portrayal of Satan is part of the problem.

To many Italians, Dimitri represents the devil. He heads the Children of Satan, a group that reportedly has more than one-thousand members.

"We don't have a cult of devil worship, that would be absurd because the cult of the devil would be the cult of evil - but for us, good and evil are subjective to each individual," says Dimitri.

In 1996, Dimitri was accused of raping a 2-year old boy and a teenage girl in satanic rituals. He was jailed for 14 months before being exonerated by the Italian courts.

"True Satanism puts man at the center of the universe - and is a noble expression," Dimitri said. "I want to say to Father Amorth what I say to all exorcists. Leave people in peace!"

The rest of the article features claims by Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's Chief Exorcist; Father Pedro Barrajón, a Catholic priest who serves in Rome; and Silvano Lilli, an evangelical pastor in Rome.

One claim is: "There are an estimated 800 satanic cults operating in the country [Italy], with more than 600,000 followers." Yeah, right. I wish.

And then Lilli says: "The devil's diabolical influence is growing in so many areas of our society. ... He needs to be driven out." He doesn't explain what he means by "the devil's diabolical influence." If he's a typical religious right winger, that means things like feminism and gay rights, I guess.

Then Amorth talks about how he does exorcisms.

After that is a discussion of the "Beasts of Satan" case, about which see this collection of news stories on my Against Satanic Panics site.

See also Italy's recent Satanic panic - and its impact on the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, and see also the collection of news stories about Exorcism, the Vatican, and the recent Italian Satanic panic on my page about Exorcism, "spiritual warfare," and anti-occultism.

Next in the CBN article are several paragraphs bemoaning the rise of "magicians, fortunetellers and faith healers" as rivals to the Church.

After that are the several paragraphs I quoted earlier about Marco Dimiti.

The article ends with more exorcism-talk by Amorth.

Full-blown alleged SRA case in Italy

For at least the past few years, there has apparently been quite a bit of hysteria in Italy about "Satanism". But I was not aware of any full-blown "Satanic Ritual Abuse" allegations over there until just now:

• "Grandmothers arrested over 'satanic sex abuse'"
  by Richard Owen
  Rome, April 25, 2007
  Times Online (U.K.)

Like nearly all such cases, this one is blatantly fishy. The above article starts off as follows:

Three women teachers were among six people arrested today accused of sedating and sexually abusing children as young as 3 at a school near Rome.

The teachers — two of whom are grandmothers who had taught at the school and at Sunday school for decades — are said to have taken part in the repeated abuse of 15 children aged 3 and 5 for a year, filming them in sexual acts with satanic overtones at the teachers’ homes and in a wood.

Had there ever been any complaints about these teachers before, during their many decades of teaching? If not, it is conceivably possible that one old grandmother could suddenly start molesting kids in her old age, but two of them at the same school? I suppose that's possible too, but seems very unlikely to me.

The alleged abuse — in the town of Rignano Flaminio, 25 miles (40km) north of Rome — came to light when some of the children began describing their “games” to their parents. They drew pictures of a “man in black” who wore a hood and drank his own blood, and said they had played a game in which “a wolf chases a squirrel and eats it”.

So far, this sounds like a game that the kids could perhaps have come up with on their own, depending on what kinds of TV shows they had been watching. Kids can indeed have very gruesome imaginations.

However:

They were warned that if they told their parents about the “games”, they would be “taken away from their mothers by devils”. If the truth were to come out and they were asked who had taught them to perform sexual acts, they were to say “my father”.

How was this information elicited from the kids, I wonder? Was care taken to avoid asking the kids too many leading questions? In many alleged multiple-victim, multiple-offender (MVMO) child sexual abuse cases, there have turned out to be serious problems with the way the kids were questioned.

The parents also reported bruising and swelling around their children’s genital areas and that they had returned home from school in a confused state. Police say that the children were given tranquillisers and told they were sweets.

Assuming this is accurate, this does sound as if someone abused the kids. But it seems to me most likely that the questioning got out of hand, implicating innocent people as well as the truly guilty.

The article quotes a local priest and a former teacher at the school voicing skepticism about the charges against the teachers. But, amongst many other people in town, a lynch mob mentality is prevailing.

Thanks to iteration_x for mentioning this story in the "Satanic news" community on LiveJournal.