A teenager asked me about the sinfulness of PDOAs! And he used the letters of the acronym instead of the words presuming that I would know what the H that means which I didn’t but do now since he told me!
What would you say?
—FOHHI or Flummoxed on Hilton Head Island !
Even with all the controversies about how Bugnini stripped the Mass of its coherence, as well as of its solemnity and reverence, although it wasn’t truly all his fault what happened with his Mass after it went into effect, most Catholics, clergy and laity, knew what liturgical abuse was and named it as so.
Most of the most egregious liturgical abuses are not to be found in the Liturgical Order of the Mass of Bugnini, but rather heaped upon his Mass by the clergy after it was promulgated. Bugnini’s rubrics are weak and flimsy and may contribute to liturgical abuses, but I don’t think Bugnini desired liturgical abuses.
Not so today. Bishops and lower clergy along with the laity are so accustomed to liturgical abuses, they don’t realize that these are abuses.
For example, it is not foreseen in the Bugnini Mass, even in 1970, that there would be such wordiness and lunacy concerning these words at the “Introductory Rite for the Penitential Act” when in red it says: In these or similar words.
Today, we know that bishops and priests, using not similar words in the Missal, but a whole bunch of many unsimilar words instead, completely break the trajectory of Prayer begun with the Introit to launch into a barrage of words after the Greeting, not to introduce the Penitential Act, but to blab on, welcoming everyone, using secular greetings and giving a secular talk or a mini homily. This is a liturgical abuse, no? But no one, especially the bishops and priests doing it are even aware of it so common is this tripe today.
But here’s something I’ve gotten quite accustomed to doing and don’t realize how dumb and incoherent it is, although it may be a pastoral nicety. I thank Fr. Z for pointing this out.
It has to do with the blessings that bishops, priests and deacons give to those who approach to receive Holy Communion but aren’t able to do so, thus they seek a blessing instead. The Bugnini Mass does not encourage this as there is absolutely nothing in its missal to give directions on it or even suggesting it as a pastoral option! And certainly prior to the council, no one sought a blessing at Communion time, apart from receiving. It just wasn’t done. If you couldn’t go to Holy Communion you did not go to the altar railing. And even small children remained in the pew while their parents went to Holy Communion.
Fr. Z points out the incoherency of giving a blessing to non-communicants who approach the “minister of Holy Communion” at Communion time. The cleric is holding the ciborium in his left hand with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, in which the entire Most Holy Trinity is received, and then uses is free right hand to offer a blessing.
While it isn’t rubrical to bless anyone in the Communion line with the words, God bless you, and with no “Sign of the Cross” gesture from a lay EMHC, or an actual Sign of the Cross from the hand of a bishop, priest or deacons, it happens constantly in the Bugnini Mass and today even in the Ancient Ordo, but at least no lay people are doing it in the AO!
What is rubrical in the Ancient Ordo is for the bishop or priest to make the Sign of the Cross with the Host as he uses the formula said to the Communicant. This is kosher and it is the Lord’s blessing as in Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
While it is not rubrical in the AO Mass, It would be a coherent extension of the AO’s rubrics to bless non-communicants with the Host rather than the priestly hand at Communion time, no?
But liturgical abuses always bring incoherence to the Mass in whatever form, but it is far more prevelant in the Bugnini Mass, no?
Evidently, the new nuncio compared to the old is like the difference between night and day and reflects the comparison between Pope Francis and Pope Leo, a night and day difference too.
Press the title for the excellent and hopeful change in regime and mentality, especially concerning the USA, between the nuncio of the night and the nuncio of the day!
Press the title for the Pillar’s great commentary:
But beyond appearances of personal style, perhaps the most striking difference between the new and old nuncios was the substance of his ecclesiastical vision.
And his final address in November was remarkable for its characterization of the Francis pontificate as a kind of year-zero event in the Church, a point of irrevocable departure in a new, unalterable direction.
Well known for his insistence on synodality as the new, preeminent, perhaps exclusive ecclesial paradigm, Pierre signed off his term in Baltimore last November by telling the bishops that “the synod on synodality invites us to a different way.”
“Even if some are inclined to pursue a path that diverges from the pastoral vision of Francis, we know that the way forward is one that does not diverge but advances on the path of Francis is the way of moving forward in the Church,” Pierre said.
Archbishop Caccia’s first address to the conference was, in this context, received as something of a night-and-day contrast. Apart from not mentioning synodality at all, while Pierre was known to season his speeches with quotes from Gaudium et Spes, the pastoral constitution of the Second Vatican Council, Caccia offered the bishops the gift of a pocket edition of Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum, the council’s dogmatic constitutions to, he said, “remind us who the Church is, and how the Church listens to the Word of God. They bring us back to the sources of our communion and mission.”
The choir and music are spectacular!
The chasuable that the pope wears isn’t! It is too big and stiff for the pope and uncomfortable looking and ugly. But many would say that about La Familia Sagrada—not me, I think it is spectacular, but whimsical, almost or completely Wizard of Ozzy!
Someone was not on top of making sure that the charcoal for the incense at the the beginning of Mass was hot. The Holy Father put the incense into the thurible and guess what? NOTHING, NO SMOKE, NO NOTHING—I hate when that happens!
As beautiful and the Mass was, please be sure to watch what happens after Mass outside with Pope Leo blesses the new Jesus spire and cross. Please note the spectacular and sparkly papal stole. It must be a gift and it is truly stunning.
But after the brief blessing of the completed spire and Jesus Cross, what the grand finale. It is truly stunning, the music unbelievable the organ and lights in the the Church and seen from the outside is theatrical! Then the fireworks at the end and the drone image of Gaudi looking down on his work—it will bring tears to your eyes!
I just learned how to use ChatGPT photo enhancements and I am blown away! The enhanced photos are from very old photos I then took a photo of with my iPhone. What do you think?
My ordination to the priesthood, along with two other candidates, June 7, 1980 at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Savannah:
Same priest and same chasuble 46 years later at Holy Family Church, Hilton Head Island, June 7, 2026, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, no changes to either:
Where Peter Is, AKA, Where Pope Francis Was, actually has a great commentary on Catholics committing mortal sins against charity on social media.
You can read the long read there:
A rumor used to travel slowly. Someone would mention something after Mass, at work, or over dinner, and maybe it reached a few people by the end of the week if it was juicy enough. Now it takes one post. One clip. One caption written confidently enough to sound true. Suddenly, thousands of…
Press:
THIS IS A MONEY-BYTE AND A MONEY-BYTE IT IS:
Of these physical postures, kneeling most clearly reveals what we believe about God and our relationship to Him. The Church invites us to genuflect, if we conveniently can, at the end of our pew, as we greet or farewell Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament on our way into and out of church. In Australia it directs us to kneel for the entire Eucharistic Prayer, when the Church recalls her history and our destiny, intercedes for many needs, offers the great sacrifice of Christ to the Father, and witnesses bread and wine become Christ’s Body and Blood. The Church calls us to kneel again, in adoration as we “Behold the Lamb of God”, in thanksgiving after Communion, in Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction.
We are also called to make a sign of reverence before we receive Holy Communion at Mass (GIRM 160). In most cases this reverence is shown by bowing deeply, however many people choose to genuflect, or even to receive Communion kneeling. This is a perfectly valid option envisaged in the current Missal. Kneeling was the default position of receiving Holy Communion in the Latin church for many centuries. Altar rails, which still exist in many of our churches, are a reminder of this reverent custom. So, too, we genuflect before the mystery of the Incarnation as we recite the Creed on certain feasts, recall Christ’s death in the Gospel of the Passion, or venerate the Cross on Good Friday. We may well kneel to propose Marriage, for Confirmation, for Absolution, for Ordination, for Religious Profession, for the Litany of the Saints or for some blessings. In the Tantum Ergo, sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that where our senses and intellects fail before so great a mystery, our faith and very bodies must supply by bending our knees.
My most humble commentary:
Wow! Wow! Wow! This is an Archbishop with common sense about the Mass. He allows for all the options for receiving Holy Communion in the Bugnini Mass but does not exclude the ancient custom of kneeling for Holy Communion and at an altar railing. Thank you Archbishop!
He also asks that all churches restore the kneelers to their pews. Evidently, some churches, as was common in the USA after the Council and until Pope Benedict, removed kneelers and demanded that the laity stand for the Eucharistic Prayer. Mother Angelica, Pope Leo’s favorite evangelizer, use to sell portable kneelers for people to take to churches without kneelers. What a saint!
And the good archbishop asks that people remain after Mass to make a prayer of thanksgiving—I guess that means that the nave of the church should return to a no-talking zone again—good luck with that!
God bless this good Archbishop!
The Corpus Christi Procession for almost a mile was spectacular, well organized and much appreciated by the faithful. Many threw flowers towards our Eucharistic Lord as the Holy Father carried the Monstrance. The choir was excellent. It was a sun-drenched day in Madrid—quite beautiful…
All three are Georgia boys, homegrown. One is from the Atlanta area, the other from Brunswick and the third from Augusta. In the last 40 years or so, Augusta has produced by far more vocations to the priesthood and/or religious life than any other city in our Diocese including the See-City of Savannah!
The Diocese of Savannah includes Augusta, Macon and Columbus and everything south in the state. The Archdiocese of Atlanta begins above these cities. Savannah is the mother diocese of the now Archdiocese of Atlanta.
For fifty years it’s been the rumor in traditional Catholic circles: the reverent Novus Ordo. Not a guitar Mass with felt banners. Not a rushed vernacular Low Mass where the Propers are replaced by “Gather Us In.” The one that looks, sounds, and prays like the Roman Rite actually survived 1969.
People call it a “unicorn” because they’ve heard it exists but never seen it. Ad orientem. Latin Ordinary. Gregorian chant for the Propers. Communion rails. Roman Canon whispered at the high altar. Asperges me on Sundays. The Missal of Paul VI, celebrated with the ars celebrandi the Council fathers knew.
Klaus Gamber said the post-conciliar reform had become a “fabricated liturgy” because that unicorn went extinct. Joseph Ratzinger spent his life insisting it wasn’t extinct — only exiled — and that the whole point of Summorum Pontificum was to teach the Novus Ordo how to be Roman again.
And then you walk into Alt St. Peter’s on the Marienplatz.
The Roman Rite on the Petersbergl
Walk into Alt St. Peter’s on Sunday morning and you step into the liturgical argument Joseph Ratzinger and Klaus Gamber carried on for decades: What does it mean for the Roman Rite to remain itself?
The setting hasn’t changed.
Munich’s oldest parish never installed a freestanding “people’s altar” after Vatican II. The 1730s Baroque high altar by Egid Quirin Asam still stands unobstructed. “Every one of the five weekday and six Sunday Masses in this church continues to be celebrated versus Deum upon this splendid high altar”. The communion rails remain, fitted with a white linen cloth. The tabernacle is central. Pius VI offered Mass here in 1782. Joseph Ratzinger did as Archbishop of Munich and Freising.
The 1970 Missal, celebrated as the Roman Rite
At 10:30am the Hauptgottesdienst begins. This is the Pauline Rite — the Missal of Paul VI — but done with what Ratzinger called the “hermeneutic of continuity.”
1. Asperges / Vidi aquam
Before the principal Sunday Mass, the rite of sprinkling opens the liturgy. Outside Paschaltide the schola intones Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo; in Eastertide it’s Vidi aquam. The celebrant in cope processes from the sacristy, sprinkles the high altar, himself, ministers, choir, and people as he walks the nave. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s the Ritus aspersionis of the 1970 Missal, sung in Gregorian chant because the Graduale Romanum is still the Church’s book of music. The people stand, make the Sign of the Cross, and the Mass flows straight into Gloria.
2. Ad orientem, Latin, and the Roman Canon
The priest faces liturgical east, with the people, toward the crucifix and tabernacle. The Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei are routinely sung in Latin — Missa de Angelis on ordinary Sundays, Mozart or Haydn Missa brevis on feasts. The Roman Canon / Eucharistic Prayer I is preferred, said ad orientem in a low voice. Readings and homily are in German, but the ars celebrandi is unmistakably Roman.
3. Communion at the rails
No standing lines. The faithful kneel at the communion rails to receive. Acolytes hold the communion paten. The schola sings a motet — Palestrina, Lassus, Bruckner’s Locus iste — while the organ improvises on the chant.
The musical tradition: Benedict XVI’s Bavaria
Alt St. Peter’s maintains Munich’s kirchenmusik tradition. The parish choir and schola cultivate three layers:
Gregorian chant: Propers from the Graduale Romanum — Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, Communion. Not replaced by hymns.
Renaissance/Baroque polyphony: Mass settings and motets by Lassus, who worked in Munich, plus Palestrina and Victoria.
Classical Viennese Masses: On solemnities, the Hauptorgel and orchestra sound with Haydn’s Nelsonmesse, Mozart’s Spatzenmesse, or Bruckner. This is the Festmesse tradition the Baroque altar was built for.
Congregational hymns from Gotteslob are used at Offertory/Recessional, but they don’t displace the Proper. The acoustic of Zimmermann’s rebuilt interior was made for chant and polyphony, not guitars.
Gamber and Ratzinger in the pews
Klaus Gamber, in The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, argued that the post-conciliar reform became a “fabricated liturgy” because it broke organic growth: tables replaced altars, versus populum became ideology, Latin and chant were exiled. He would point to Alt St. Peter and say: “Here is what was not abrogated.” The altar, the rails, the orientation, the Asperges — all preserved, so the 1970 Missal could be grafted onto the living tree instead of planted in a pot.
Joseph Ratzinger, as Cardinal and Pope, made the same point with a different conclusion. In The Spirit of the Liturgy he wrote that ad orientem, Latin, and Gregorian chant aren’t museum pieces but the natural language of the Roman Rite. As Archbishop of Munich he celebrated in this church. As Pope he taught that the Novus Ordo and the 1962 Missal are “two forms of one rite.” At Alt St. Peter you see his thesis: The Pauline Rite is capable of continuity, if celebrated with the spirit of the rite.
The rupture Gamber feared — and Ratzinger labored to heal — never happened on the Petersbergl. The Baroque altar wasn’t wrecked. The Asperges wasn’t dropped. The Missa de Angelis didn’t become “pre-conciliar.”
Sunday at St. Peter’s, then, is an argument in stone and sound: The Roman Rite did not begin in 1969. The Missal of Paul VI, when celebrated versus Deum, with chant, with rails, with Vidi aquam in Eastertide, is still the Roman Rite. Gamber would call it proof that the old was never abolished. Ratzinger would call it proof that the new can be celebrated in continuity.
And the bells — some cast in 1327 — still ring it in.
The unicorn isn’t quite a myth. In Munich, it’s on the Petersbergl. And it’s been there every Sunday since the Council, waiting for the rest of the Church to remember how to ride.
I emphasize what the pope says in red:
ADDRESS OF POPE LEO XIV
TO GERMAN CATHOLIC STUDENT ASSOCIATIONS
Audience Hall
Freitag, 5 June 2026
_______________________________
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Peace be with you!
Dear brothers and sisters, welcome! Herzlich willkommen!
I am told that Germans are very punctual! Ich bin ein Ausländer.
Dear friends,
I am pleased to greet all of you, members of the German Catholic student associations, who are gathering for a joint conference, the Cartellversammlung, for the first time outside of Germany. Your decision to come here to Rome, ad Petri Sedem, is motivated by the Catholic faith that defines you, by the communion that binds us as disciples of Jesus and by the cultural activities you undertake. I would like to reflect briefly on these three aspects to strengthen the bond of fraternity that unites you and your shared dedication to the Church.
Regarding your Catholic identity, your firm commitment to the faith is reflected in the four principles that guide your association: religio, scientia, amicitia and patria. In the face of the despotism and ideologies of the past, the Catholic faith has never been merely a veneer or a label, but rather a way of life to be shared in university and in work settings. Like evangelical leaven, your fraternity continues to grow within scientific and political contexts as well as across various academic, professional and social circles. This communal dimension of your activities benefits not only your country, but also all of Europe, of which Germany is at the center.
To this geographical centrality, you rightly add the cultural centrality of the human person, a creature of God and the architect of his or her own life. Faced with the challenges of the technological revolution, you should devote particular attention to the study and the promotion of our common humanity. In his or her irreducible expression as male or female, the human person is in fact always relational and limited, and therefore called to become a task for oneself and a gift to the other. Just like the exercise of reason, so too does the light of faith illumine the promises and deceptions of the present time, calling on each person to do their best to help build a just and peaceful society.
Regarding the spirit of communion that animates this initiative, I am pleased to recall your motto: In certibus unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. These words attest to the true foundation, the critical dialogue and constant dedication that characterize your association. The relationship among members of many associations is not limited to sharing knowledge, but matures into reciprocal esteem. It is not confined to ideas but becomes a collaborative practice. As all of you follow Christ, the only Lord and Master of life, you represent Catholic values in society not as those who carry partisan flags, but as representatives of the common good of humanity. In Germany, in Italy and throughout the world, the same Catholic faith strengthens our cooperation, without compromising with the trends of the moment, without placing individualistic preferences ahead of the common Tradition of the Church. In the joy of fraternity, I therefore encourage you to promote the evangelization of culture: your university organizations continually draw in new young people because they bear witness to passion, competence and authentic Christian friendship.
With regard to the diverse cultural activities that you undertake across various fields of study and work, you have come to realize that it is not merely a matter of pursuing a profession (Beruf), but of following a vocation (Berufung). Indeed, the search for truth is a good worth desiring and passing on. As we pursue it methodically, we come to understand that no field of study can be reduced to mere speculation. Precisely because it involves the exercise of both intellect and will, study is rather a commitment, requiring self-discipline and conversion: a transformation of the mind, which we cultivate like fertile soil by honing our tools of the trade. By doing our very best, we become responsible stewards in society without being seduced by careers focused on money. Let us rather recognize that culture is the good of humanity: truth sets us free, while falsehood distorts names and things. In the face of what dehumanizes people – especially the least among us, the poor and the sick – I ask you to be witnesses to Christian humanism. In this regard, I invite you to reflect deeply on what Pope Benedict XVI, a distinguished former member of your association, said: develop a coherent “ecology of man. Man, too, has a nature that he must respect” (Address to the Bundestag,, 22 September 2011). Integral ecology, so dear to Pope Francis (cf. Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ 10–11, 62), sheds light on the fact that the world is full of meaning, and not an inert entity to be shaped arbitrarily or by the thirst for power. We, in fact, are not random aggregates of particles, but bodies open to transcendence: by directing our thirst for life and justice, for wisdom and love, we discover together the truth in knowing, doing and believing.
After all, human beings are always seeking God, and he has revealed himself to us as our Saviour. It is not in spite of our activities, then, but precisely through what we do that we develop a relationship with God, which becomes a path to holiness. Yes, the cultural mission of Christians is to direct society and history toward this pinnacle of a God-centered life. Through the intercession of Saint Boniface, evangelizer of Germany, may you be witnesses to this wisdom of the Gospel in German and in European society. With esteem for your associations, I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing upon all of you and your loved ones. Danke sehr!
Let us pray together: Pater noster …
It’s one of those words that everyone, except liturgical elites, forget what that French word means.
Let me make it simple.
In 1969, you take a fully loaded Lincoln Continental sedan and you strip it down and return it to the Model T Ford from which it evolved and grew organically.
That’s what the 1970 Roman Missal or, truthfully, Bishop Bugnini did to the 1962 Roman Missal, organically developed over centuries. He tried to return it to the way the early Church celebrated the Mass in a Model T fashion.
So, from the Mass, you take away automatic transmission, power brakes, electric windows, cruise control, V-8 engine, computers and safety features and strip it down to what it was originally without all those accretions.
Yes, that’s what the 1970 Missal tried to do, or better yet, Bishop Bugnini did.
I had a Ford lightbulb moment when Pope Leo was giving His Holiness’ Wednesday catechesis on Sacrosanctum Concilium. SC was not talking about some future stripped down, contrived Mass like the one Bugnini came up with, but rather it was talking about the Mass of the day during the Council and for centuries before.
Yes, in not the most unambiguous way, SC called for some conservative reforms. Most of these, in my most humble opinion, had to do with the complexity of Pontifical Masses celebrated by the Bishop of Rome and all other bishops. It was not aimed at the typical parish Low or High Mass. Maybe more to the Solemn Sung Mass with deacon and subdeacon.
Noble simplicity doesn’t mean stripping the Mass down to a Model T Ford. It means making it easier to celebrate the Mass with vernacular rubrics and taking away some of the odd additions to the more solemn celebrations of the Mass, like the server kissing the priest’s hand, the taking of the paten in a solemn way away from the altar, the oddity of the paten not used on the corporal until right before the priest’s “Domini non sum dignus”.
A useless repetition would be the double prayers at the PATFOTA, the double “non sum dignus” at Communion time, one for the priest the other for the laity and the Confiteor again recited prior to the people’s non-sum dignus.
But what in the Name of God and all that is Holy is wrong with the priest and ministers at a sung Mass saying the PATFOTA while the Entrance Chant (Introit) is chanted?
What in the Name of God and all that is Holy is wrong with all of the other silent and private prayers of the priest that Bugnini completely stripped away?
What is wrong with all the sign language used by the priest during the Roman Canon, like multiple signs of the Cross, genuflections and bows???
What is wrong with the Last Gospel and in fact with the Order of the Mass where the Dismissal comes first and the Final Blessing last, with those pesky private prayers of the priest in between?
Fidelity to SC’s call for certain changes in the Mass would be the 1964 Roman Missal that allowed for quite a bit of vernacular but also mandated Latin for the Roman Canon or any Eucharistic Prayer developed, although SC did not call for additional Canons!
Preserving Gregorian Chant and Latin could be accomplished by mandating that in a sung Mass the Propers be in Latin and perhaps the fixed parts of the Mass.
SC did not call for a reorientation of churches and the wreckovation of church sanctuaries. It did not mandate that the Mass always be said facing the assembly.
It did not call for standing for Holy Communion, the removal of altar railings and extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.
I hope Pope Leo realizes as he teaches us about the true meaning of SC that His Holiness needs to reform the reform and make it what SC actually sought for the Mass of the ages.
Hint: It isn’t the 1970 Roman Missal or any other version of said missal since 1970.
Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington attends a press conference at the North American College in Rome, Friday, May 9, 2025. (Credit: Gregorio Borgia/AP.)
In my most humble opinion, Cardinal McElroy made the right decision. I’ve seen some of Monsignor’s videos on Facebook and some of these raised questions in my mind.
I have been to many talks given by Monsignor Rossetti in my diocese and elswhere, especially when I was vocation director. I thought he was very articulate. My only complaint back then and I made it known to him personally in a question and answer session in my own diocese with him, was about reintegrating priests guilty of molesting minors back into the ministry. He and the rehab facility in Washington, DC where he had worked had advocated for this in the 1990’s before this scandal overwhelmed the Church when made public.
Of course Rossetti made it clear that he wasn’t speaking about true pedophiles who prey on young children, but rather those who abuse teenagers. He felt these priests could be rehabilitated and returned to ministry. But he also promoted transparency in do so, that everyone should know that the priest was returned to ministry, kind of like alcoholic priests who are in recovery, making it known they are to their congregations.
But! But! But! I complained, what about the victims or potential future victims? He had no good answer to that question but, of course this was in the 1990’s!
My other comment about Cardinal McElroy’s point about calling out Monsignor’s heterodoxy about demons as it is taught by the Church is that one could say this about the good Cardinal and his desire for women’s ordination and sex outside of Holy Matrimony:
“The question of the ordination of women to the priesthood will be one of the most difficult questions confronting the international synods in 2023 and 2024,” Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego writes in an essay for the Jesuit periodical America. “The Church should move toward admitting women to the diaconate, not only for reasons of inclusion but because women permanent deacons could provide critically important ministries, talents and perspectives.”“The effect of the tradition that all sexual acts outside of marriage constitute objectively grave sin has been to focus the Christian moral life disproportionately upon sexual activity,” he added. “Sexual activity, while profound, does not lie at the heart of this hierarchy [of truths]. Yet in pastoral practice we have placed it at the very center of our structures of exclusion from the Eucharist. This should change.”
The Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy, on Wednesday removed a well-known priest as an exorcist of the archdiocese after he made public comments suggesting that UFO sightings were the work of demons.
McElroy said the archdiocese also was cutting ties with the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal, a Washington-based nonprofit headed by the priest, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti.
The archbishop said Rossetti’s statements “linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center’s recent use of social media gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism.”
“There’s a danger here,” Rossetti said in a May 29 video posted on his Facebook page addressing UFO sightings and the existence of aliens. “As an exorcist I wanted to raise that danger. And that is that demons like to hide. … They don’t want us to know what they’re doing because they’re more effective when we don’t realize it.”
“They can kind of get into your head, you know, and manipulate things in the world to influence us to do evil.”
