POPE FRANCIS SUCH AN ENIGMA, ONE DAY MOST ORTHODOX THE NEXT DAY WHO KNOWS.....

Catholic charismatic communities often involve themselves in Pentecostal Protestantism's form of exorcism called deliverance. It can lead to spiritual abuse of those being delivered and the lay Catholic(s) who do it do it illicitly and often engage the devil or demons in a dialogue.

Thus Pope Francis gives Catholics classical, orthodox advice on not dialoging with the devil:

“Don’t talk with the devil, he’s a 

rabid dog that bites”

In Santa Marta, Pope Francis warns against the
devil’s “tail strikes”: he has been “defeated,
condemned to death, but he knows how to seduce us.
 And we fools believe him”

Pope Francis

Pubblicato il 08/05/2018

Ultima modifica il 08/05/2018 alle ore 12:59

SALVATORE CERNUZIO

VATICAN CITY

He’s “rabid”, he’s “dangerous”, he is a “ condemned” who has been “defeated” but right for this reason we should not have anything to do with him rather, on the contrary, we should be careful about his “tail strikes”: they can be fatal.Pope Francis in Santa Marta is peremptory: “you must never approach” the devil, “don’t dialogue” with him, do not interact nor have any kind of contact whit him. The devil has been “ condemned” , has been “ defeated”, he is chained and is about to die”, but “he is capable of carrying out massacres”.  

“He disguises himself as an angel of light, but he is “an angel of shadow, an angel of death”.  

Francis comments on today’s Gospel, taken from John: “we can say that [the devil] is dying”, he emphasizes in his homily reported by Vatican News, but he is still “a defeated”. That is why he is even more dangerous. “The hunters, in fact, say they do not get close to the crocodile that is about to die because with a tail stroke it can still kill”, the Pope says. So is the devil who “is extremely dangerous”.  

Certainly, “it is so difficult to understand that he is “a defeated”: “the devil is a seducer”, he has “this ability to seduce”, “he knows what words to tell us” because “he presents himself with great power, he promises you so many things, he brings you gifts - beautiful, well wrapped - “Oh, how beautiful! But you don’t know what’s inside - “But, the wrapping outside is beautiful”.  

He “seduces us with the packaging without letting us see what’s inside. He knows how to present his proposals to our vanity, to our curiosity”. Proposals that “are all lies”, because - let’s not forget - Satan is “the father of lies”, “the great liar” who “knows how to speak well” but only to “deceive”.  

The problem is that we “like to be seduced”. When the right chords are touched, “we buy everything” and “we fall into temptation”. “We, fools believe,” Bergoglio observes. Beware, the risk is very high. This light of the devil that seems dazzling “like a firework” does not last, it fades away, it is not like the light of the Lord that instead is “gentle” and “permanent”.  

We must then “beware of the devil”, the Pope exhorts, just like Jesus in the desert, we must “be vigilant, pray and fast”. This is how one wins the lies, seductions, those beautiful words and beautiful gifts that actually only disguise deceptions. Let’s start by “not approach him” because, as one Father of the Church said, he is like an “rabid” dog, chained and to which, however, it is better not to pat him even once, because he bites. And it hurts.  

“If I know that spiritually, if I approach that thought, if I approach that willingness, if I go to that side or to the other, I’m approaching the rabid and chained dog. Please don’t do it,” Francis says. “I have a big wound...”. “Who did it to you? “The dog”. “But he was chained. “Err, yes, I went to pat him. “But you had it coming. That is how it is: never approach him, because he’s chained. Leave him there chained”. 

Let us also avoid - the Pontiff reaffirms, as on other occasions - any kind of dialogue with him. We risk ending up like Eve, who “believed herself to be the great theologian and she fell”. The example to follow is always and only Jesus who, in the desert, “responds with the Word of God. He hunts the demons away, he sometimes asks their names but doesn’t talk to them”.  

And if Jesus does not do it, much less us: “You don’t talk with the devil, because he wins, he is more intelligent than us”, Francis repeats even more clearly. The only thing to do is “pray, do penance, do not approach, do not dialogue with him”. And in the end “go to the mother, like children. When children are afraid, they go to their mother: “Mom, Mom... I’m scared! “when they make dreams... they go to their mother. Go to Our Lady; she guards us. And the Fathers of the Church, especially the Russian mystics, say: in the time of spiritual upheavals, take refuge under the mantle of the great Mother of God. To go to the Mother - Bergoglio concludes - that she may help us in this fight against the defeated, against the chained dog to win him”.