President Joe Biden speaks during an interfaith prayer service at the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, in New Orleans on Jan. 6, 2025, with the families and community members impacted by the New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans. / Credit: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
CNA Staff, Jan 7, 2025 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
Catholic leaders and U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday attended an interfaith prayer service in New Orleans to pray for the victims of the deadly terror attack in that city on New Year’s Day.
Fourteen people were killed on Jan. 1 by a driver who rammed his truck into a crowd of New Year’s partiers on the city’s Bourbon Street. Officials said the truck had on it a flag of the Islamic State. The driver was subsequently killed in a shootout with police.
Biden was among the dignitaries at the Monday evening event at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. Archbishop Gregory Aymond and Archbishop Emeritus Alfred Hughes presided over the service.
“We know what it’s like to lose a piece of our soul,” Biden told the families of the victims. “The anger, the emptiness, the black hole that seems to be sucking you into your chest, the sense of loss, the questions of faith in your soul.”
“I promise you, the day will come,” Biden told them, “… when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before a tear to your eye.”
“My prayer is that that day comes sooner rather than later, but it will come, and when it does, [that] you might find purpose in your pain,” the president said.
Aymond told the assembly that the attack “was not just a wound to New Orleans. It was a wound to our nation, to our world, and to our search for freedom.”
“For those of you who have lost loved ones, we cannot possibly imagine your pain, your feeling of loss, [or] the wounds in your heart that remain today and will remain,” he said.
“But we can assure you that God embraces you in love in the midst of your sorrow, and helps you to wipe your tears, for you do not do that alone,” the prelate added.
Representatives from Jewish and Protestant communities were also in attendance as well as leaders from other faiths in the area, many of whom also offered prayers and reflections at the event.
Pope Francis last week offered his condolences after the attack, invoking prayers for the souls of the deceased as well as the healing and consolation of the injured and bereaved.
“In assuring the entire community of his spiritual closeness, His Holiness commends the souls of those who have died to the loving mercy of Almighty God and prays for the healing and consolation of the injured and bereaved,” the Vatican said.
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The trailer of the upcoming Russell Crowe movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” indicates that the film might not do justice to the Italian exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth or the rite of exorcism as practiced in the Catholic Church, according to an exorcist organization Amorth himself helped to found.
The International Association of Exorcists on March 7 voiced concern that the film seems to fall under the category of “splatter cinema,” which it calls a “sub-genre of horror.”
The Vatican, the statement said, is filmed with a high-contrast “chiaroscuro” effect seen in film noir.
This gives the film a “‘Da Vinci Code’ effect to instill in the public the usual doubt: Who is the real enemy? The devil or ecclesiastical ‘power’?” the exorcists’ association said.
While special effects are “inevitable” in every film about demonic possession, “everything is exaggerated, with striking physical and verbal manifestations, typical of horror films,” the group said.
“This way of narrating Don Amorth’s experience as an exorcist, in addition to being contrary to historical reality, distorts and falsifies what is truly lived and experienced during the exorcism of truly possessed people,” said the association, which claims more than 800 exorcist members and more than 120 auxiliary members worldwide.
“In addition, it is offensive with regard to the state of suffering in which those who are victims of an extraordinary action of the devil find themselves,” the group’s statement added. The statement responded to the release of the movie trailer and promised a more in-depth response to the film’s April 14 theatrical release.
Father Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of Rome, speaks to CNA on May 22, 2013. Steven Driscoll/CNA
Amorth, who died at age 91 in 2016, said he performed an estimated 100,000 exorcisms during his life. He was perhaps the world’s best-known exorcist and the author of many books, including “An Exorcist Tells His Story,” reportedly an inspiration for the upcoming movie.
Several of Amorth’s books are carried by the U.S. publisher Sophia Institute Press. The publisher’s newly released book “The Pope’s Exorcist: 101 Questions About Fr. Gabriele Amorth” is an interview in which the priest addresses many topics ranging from prayer to pop music.
Michael Lichens, editor and spokesperson at Sophia Institute Press, voiced some agreement with the exorcist group.
“The International Association of Exorcists is right to be concerned and I’m thankful for their words,” Lichens told CNA. “My hope is that audiences will remember that Father Amorth is a real person with a great legacy and perhaps a few moviegoers will look up an interview or pick up his books.”
“This was a man who included St. Padre Pio and Blessed Giacomo Alberione as mentors, as well as Servant of God Candido Amantini, who was his teacher for the ministry of exorcism,” he said. “Father Amorth fought as a partisan as a young man and grew to fight greater evil as an exorcist. His life is an inspiration and I know that his work and words will still reach many.”
Amorth was born in Modena, Italy, on May 1, 1925. In wartime Italy, he was a soldier with the underground anti-fascist partisans. He was ordained a priest in 1951. He did not become an exorcist until 1986, when Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, named him the diocesan exorcist.
The priest was frequently in the news for his comments on the subject of demonic forces. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in 2000, he said: “I speak with the devil every day. I talk to him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been wrestling with him, day in, day out, for 14 years.”
The movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” claims to be “inspired by the actual files of the Vatican’s chief exorcist.” The Sony Pictures movie stars the New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as Amorth. Crowe’s character wears a gray beard and speaks English with a noticeable accent.
“The majority of cases do not require an exorcism,” the Amorth character says in the movie’s first trailer. A cardinal explains that Crowe’s character recommends 98% of people who seek an exorcism to doctors and psychiatrists instead.
“The other 2%… I call it… evil,” Crowe adds.
The plot appears to concern Amorth’s encounter with a particular demon. Crowe’s character suggests the Church “has fought this demon before” but covered it up.
“We need to find out why,” he says.
The trailer shows short dramatic scenes of exorcism, including a confrontation between Amorth and a girl apparently suffering demonic possession.
The International Association of Exorcists said such a representation makes exorcism become “a spectacle aimed at inspiring strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to inspire only anxiety, restlessness, and fear in the viewer.”
“The end result is to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty,” said the exorcist group. “This is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”
CNA sought comment from Sony Pictures and “The Pope’s Exorcist” executive producer Father Edward Siebert, SJ, but did not receive a response by publication.
Amorth co-founded the International Association of Exorcists with Father René Laurentin in 1994. In 2014 the Catholic Church recognized the group as a Private Association of the Faithful.
The association trains exorcists and promotes their incorporation into local communities and normal pastoral care. It also aims to promote “correct knowledge” about exorcism ministry and collaboration with medical and psychiatric experts who have competence in spirituality.
Exorcism is considered a sacramental, not a sacrament, of the Church. It is a liturgical rite that only a priest can perform.
Hollywood made the topic a focus most famously in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” based on the novel by William Peter Blatty.
“Most movies about Catholicism and spiritual warfare sensationalize,” Lichens of Sophia Institute Press told CNA. “Sensationalism and terror sell tickets. As a fan of horror movies, I can understand and even appreciate that. As a Catholic who has studied Father Amorth, though, I think such sensationalism distorts the important work of exorcism.”
“On the other hand, ‘The Exorcist’ made the wider public more curious about this overlooked ministry. That is a good thing that came out, despite other reservations and concerns,” he continued. “Still, I would love it if a screenwriter and director spoke to exorcists and tried to show the often-quotidian parts of the ministry.”
An unhealthy curiosity can be a problem, Lichens said.
“When I work as a spokesperson for Amorth’s books, I am always concerned about inspiring curiosity about the demonic,” he told CNA. “As Christians, we know we have nothing to fear from the demonic but curiosity might lead some to want to seek out the supernatural or the demonic. Father Amorth has dozens of stories of people who found themselves afflicted after party game seances.”
Lichens encouraged those who are curious to read more of Amorth’s writings, some of which are excerpted on the Catholic Exchange website. Sophia Institute Press has published “Diary of an American Exorcist” by Monsignor Stephen Rosetti and “The Exorcism Files” by the American lay Catholic Adam Blai.
“First and foremost, Father Amorth was involved in a healing ministry,” Lichens said. “Like other exorcists, his work often involved doctors in physical and mental health because the goal is to bring healing and hope to the potentially afflicted.”
“Those of us who read Amorth might have been excited to read firsthand accounts of spiritual warfare, but readers quickly see a man whose heart was always full of love for those who sought his help,” he added.
The International Association of Exorcists, for its part, praised the 2016 documentary “Deliver Us,” saying this shows “what exorcism really is in the Catholic Church and “the authentic traits of a Catholic exorcist.” It shows exorcism as “a most joyful event,” in their view, because through experiencing “the presence and action of Christ the Lord and of the Communion of the Saints,” those who are “tormented by the extraordinary action of the devil gradually find liberation and peace.”
Washington D.C., Feb 26, 2021 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Online retailer Amazon is still facing questions several days after it removed a book critiquing the transgender movement.
Ryan Anderson, who was recently appointed president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), said earlier this week that his 2018 book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” was no longer available for purchase on Amazon.com. The book critiques the biological, psychological, and philosophical areas of the transgender debate.
“I first discovered it on Sunday around 3 pm,” Anderson told CNA, adding he is not sure “when exactly it was removed.”
Anderson said that Amazon told him on Tuesday that the book “violates their ‘content policy,’” but, he added, “they won’t tell us what aspect of the policy it violated.”
“They won’t tell us what passage, what page, what sentence is the offending passage,” Anderson said.
An Amazon spokesperson told CNA in an email on Friday, “As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable. That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content as described in our content guidelines for books, which you can find here. All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer and we do not take selection decisions lightly.”
On a webpage regarding its “Content Guidelines for Books,” Amazon states that if the company removes a title, “we let the author, publisher, or selling partner know and they can appeal our decision.”
Anderson said that Amazon “acknowledged that they did not contact us ahead of time, in violation of their own policy to first contact authors and publishers.”
He warned about the precedent that the de-listing could send. “This means that anyone who’s telling the truth that we’re created male and female, whether from a faith-based perspective or from a science-based perspective, can be banned on a whim and without explanation,” Anderson said.
Earlier this week, four Republican senators–Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Mike Braun of Indiana, and Josh Hawley of Missouri–sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos inquiring about the company’s removal of Anderson’s book.
The senators wrote that Amazon has not provided “a sufficient explanation as to how Anderson’s book, which reached the top of two of Amazon’s best-seller lists before it was even released in 2018, supposedly violated a vague, undefined ‘offensive content’ standard.”
“When Harry Became Sally prompted important discussions in the national media and among policymakers in 2018, and remains one of the most rigorously researched and compassionately argued books on this subject,” the senators wrote.
“By removing this book from its marketplaces and services, Amazon has unabashedly wielded its outsized market share to silence an important voice merely for the crime of violating woke groupthink,” they stated.
While Anderson’s book remains unavailable for purchase on Amazon, an ebook called “Let Harry Become Sally: Responding to the Anti-Transgender Moment” remains available on the retail giant’s website. The product description says some of the book’s proceeds will be donated to the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Anderson said that “When Harry Became Sally” may be purchased directly from its publisher, Encounter Books, “as well as from Barnes and Noble, where it is currently the #2 selling book in America.”
Emergency workers search through what is left of the Mayfield Consumer Products Candle Factory after it was destroyed by a tornado in Mayfield, Kentucky, on December 11, 2021. / JOHN AMIS/AFP via Getty Images
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