From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Diary Of An American Exorcist: Demons, Possession & Casting Out Evil Spirits

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

On this episode, Sean and Rachel sit down with author of the book Diary of an American Exorcist: Demons, Possession, and the Modern-Day Battle Against Ancient Evil, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, discussing his experience as an exorcist and psychologist and the best practices to ward off demons and evil spirits.   Later, Monsignor Rossetti shares how he became an exorcist for the Catholic Church, how his background in psychology helps him analyze whether a person is possessed or not, and walks through the ins and outs of performing an exorcism.   Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. It's so great to be back at the kitchen table. And Sean, you know I have been waiting for this moment for a long time because I am obsessed with our next guest and his book, which is called Diary of an American Exorcist,

Demons, Possession, and the Modern Day Battle Against Ancient Evil. This book is better than I even thought it was going to be when I ordered it on Amazon. It is written by Monsignor Stephen Rossetti. He is a priest. He is a clinical psychologist. He's a former Air Force intelligence officer, and he's an exorcist, which is probably the most incredible resume I've ever read out on this podcast or maybe ever. I totally agree with that. And so, Monsignor Rossetti, thank you for joining us at the kitchen table. We wish we were together talking exorcism, but we'll do it over the digital airwaves

here. Thanks for joining us at the kitchen table. It's great to be with you. And I actually looked at your resume, too, and I'm very, very, you're fascinating lives. Not as fascinating as yours. No, not even close not even close so let's get right into it so for you know those are people who are non-catholic especially they have a lot of ideas of what an exorcism is a lot of it is is built by what they saw on television for example or on movies especially that famous movie, The Exorcist, The Conjuring. What is an exorcism and how close is it to what people think they've seen,

think it is based on what they've seen on movies? Yeah, well, most people are not possessed, obviously. It's not that common, but it does happen. All of us are tempted by Satan and the evil spirits. But some people, because of a variety of bad circumstances, are actually physically possessed. And so exorcism casts out the evil spirits. It's not just Catholicism. I mean, the evangelicals have a strong tradition of casting out evil spirits, and it actually predates Jesus. I mean, the belief in evil spirits is something that is across the religions. We have sort of organized it, if you will, and have a special ministry to cast out demons.

And so when you go through an exorcist, there's a lot of stuff we want to get to with you, Monsignor. But when you are doing an exorcism, what actually are you doing? Is it just you, or is there a team of people with you that perform the exorcism, what actually are you doing? Is it just you, or is there a team of people with you that perform the exorcism? How does it work? We do it in a team. In the old days, they walk in with your suitcase, the exorcist by himself with the dark hat.

Those days are over. But I have a great team of lay people, deacons, men, women, and we have a team. And basically, it's not magic. This is the prayers of the church. We're asking Christ to cast out the demons. We cast them out in Jesus' name. And Jesus said that. He said, you know, that when he said, you know, I pass on this ministry to you, I want you to cast out demons, and I give you that authority to do that. Now, normally,

exorcism is pretty intense, of course, you can imagine, but sometimes it does get pretty wild. I mean, sometimes Hollywood gets it more right than not sometimes, but generally speaking, they do tend to inflame these sorts of things, but they can be pretty intense. When you say it gets wild, what happens when you're performing an exorcism? Give us an example of a wild exorcism experience. Well, you know, what happens is if someone's really possessed, one of the ways you know that is when you, I did one yesterday, for example, the person's there, you can see the person's face, it's fine. You start praying over them,

then what happens is the demons manifest. You're no longer talking to the person, the demon, you're talking to demons. You can tell. I mean, their face morphs, changes. This woman's eyes turn black, both completely black. And she starts, and they start, you know, saying all sorts of really ugly stuff, which I won't repeat. And they start saying all sorts of really ugly stuff, which I won't repeat. And all sorts of wild things can happen. I mean, we've had people cough up stuff. I had one person cough up a bolt in a nut.

Variety of reasons why. The person who was a reporter was involved in maintenance, whatever. But they'll cough up things which are physically impossible. This one person coughed up a lot of black stuff. They'll start screaming. And it gets pretty intense. Okay, so let's back up for a minute here because you are a clinical psychologist and you are a priest and an exorcist. You first have to identify, is this person, you must be getting calls.

By the way, every diocese has an exorcist in them right right assigned to it right and so you're getting calls how do you know that the the story that you're being told the person that they're telling you is possessed or the person who thinks they're possessed is really possessed and not just mentally ill because you can't perform an exorcism unless you know that, right? Right, right. And I was a psychologist before I was an exorcist, so I tend to be skeptical, frankly. And when someone says, I've got demons, my first thought is, you probably don't.

And so we have to be morally certain that they do. And there are some classic signs. For example, one classic sign is occult knowledge. I remember this one young woman came and she had these strange cuts, strange marks, strange things were happening. And the priest said, I think she's possessed. I said, no, I don't. And then she started knowing these things about, she was talking to a priest on the phone. She knew what he was wearing, what he was doing, and she knew all sorts of things she should not have known. That's what we call occult knowledge. So we started

praying over her, and sure enough, up comes a demonic presence. But you're looking for a real sign of not just a crazy person, you're looking for a demonic presence. And when the demonic looks back at you in the face, you can't fake that. That look of evil is something that is stunning, just stunning. So Monsignor, I'm confused a little bit because it seems like you can have a somewhat normal personality and you might not know if someone's possessed or not. And then you say you start to pray, whether it's holy water.

Then all of a sudden the demon rises to the surface. So there's different levels of possession. And does the demon show himself or herself and then retract back into the body and the person takes over again? How does the possession work? Right. Well, first of all, demons try to hide, because when they're visible, when you can tell they're there and the church starts to pray, they have no match for Christ. I mean, that's the thing that Hollywood does not understand.

They make it sound like there's God and there's Satan and they're equal. Nonsense. Satan's a dust bunny compared to Jesus. I mean, you just throw a little bit of holy water on them. You hold up a crucifix. They start screaming because I can't stand anything holy. So they try to hide. But then you see little, but they have a hard time. Then you see little signs. For example, a possessed person, one person said, she just couldn't walk into a church. She said, I can't walk into a church. Another one just couldn't stand being there at the Mass. It just started, it was awful.

And so there were signs that there was this something evil. And they said, I feel this evil thing inside me that I can't pray. I can't pray. I feel this revulsion to a crucifix. And then things start to happen. You know, this person's crucifix flew off the wall. The corpus of the crucifix was bent. The person wakes up in the morning. She had scratches on her back, a huge, it looked like a beast had scratched her back and and that's exactly what happened and or they'll have upside down crosses burned on them you know and no and so you start seeing these

wild signs yeah yeah and then and then when you pray over them then the demons get flushed out they can't stand the prayers so it takes about 15 minutes they can't stand the prayers. It takes about 15 minutes. They can't stand the prayers. And then they start screaming and then they can't take it. So you obviously you were an Air Force intelligence officer. You were a clinical psychologist. You go into the priesthood. I believe you were a monk first. You did your homework. I did. I told you I'm obsessed with you, Monsignor. And so you were a monk, and then you became a priest. First of all, why did you go from a monk to a diocesan priest? Well, I really felt called by it in a deep prayer life. It was my prayer life that Jesus kind of came to me and then touched my life.

And so I felt called. And then monastic life was a great training. But then it was a little too claustrophobic for me. That's where the word comes from, claustrophobia. Yeah, that's right. So at what point did you decide that you're going to be an exorcist? Like, how did that just come to be? Because you can just be a diocesan priest and not be an exorcist.

And typically exorcists are old priests. You know, they're old priests. What happened was, I was a psychologist. The bishop had a psychologist. The bishop had a case and he said, I want you to evaluate as a psychologist. I said, fine. I evaluate this person, this woman. And I said,

this is not a clinical problem. You need an exorcist. So the bishop asked three different priests to do it and they all said no. So I'm sitting there with the bishop saying, well, what do we do with this woman? I said, well, you know, I said, give it to me. How hard can it be? That was a stupid statement.

So that was about 15 years ago, so I've been doing them ever since. So what happened with that first case? What happened with that first case? I didn't do a very good job with it, but thank God there was a senior exorcist not far away. He cleaned up my mess. You know, it was a very complicated case, but it really takes quite a bit of experience. That's why the church designates exorcists and then trains them, because it's actually kind of a complicated ministry. Yeah.

Yeah, I can imagine. So, Monsignor, how does someone get possessed? then trains them because it's actually kind of a complicated ministry. Yeah. Yeah. So Monsignor, how does someone get possessed? How does that happen? What does, how do you keep yourself from being possessed? And how does someone open to possession? Yeah. Yeah. Sean, I'll tell you, I'll give you a three-step process to get possessed in case you want

to get possessed. I don't, by the way. I don't do it. But there are actually, there are lots of different ways. But here's the basic way. Okay. I love dogs, by the way. Yeah. He's growling. I want you to know I'm not possessed.

We don't do animals. We don't exercise animals. We don't do those. Okay. So here's a three-step process. And I want your listeners to listen to this because you may be in this process and not realize it. Number one, stop practicing the faith. The faith is your number one protection. How is it that I step into actionism again and again and again and it just bounces off me?

The faith of Jesus. So step one, stop practicing the faith, number one. Number two, start committing serious sins. We all know what those are. You know, we're in the Lenten season. We know what the serious sins are. Start doing, you know, serious sins because that creates an inner vulnerability. And then three, do something.

Just start doing the occult. Start practicing magic, witchcraft, Ouija boards, all that kind of stuff. It's a ticket. It's a ticket for Satan's entry. So if if you got those three things, you know, keep it up, and you're going to have a problem. And then, to protect yourself,

reverse it. Stop doing all that occult stuff. When someone comes to us who's possessed, the first thing to say is, okay, let's look at what's going on here. Are you playing Charlie, Charlie? Are you playing Ouija boards? Are you doing magic? Are you doing carot cards? If you are, stop it. Number two, stop committing serious sins. That's a complete vulnerability. And then three, practice of faith. Before you step into an exorcism, we want you to

go to confession. And I would say people, Catholics especially, are listening to this podcast. If you haven't been to confession a long time, now is the time. That's one good, as the famous exorcist Father Morris said, one good confession is worth about 50 exorcisms. Wow, that's probably true. Yeah, no, it really is. Confession is powerful. But there are other tools, which is so interesting. You gave this visual of what we thought the exorcist looked like with the black hat and the suitcase. But there are tools that exorcists use. So talk to me about those tools, but also in the context of how we can protect ourselves in our home.

So Sean and I have, exactly, we have a crucifix in our house. We have an altar. Holy water. We have holy water. That's that number one exactly we have a crucifix in our house we have an altar um holy water we have holy water that's that number one right there the crucifix crucifix is great now it's great to have a blessed crucifix i've got this from italy i was going as in a shrine and i was going to buy a crucifix and i happened to tell the woman behind the counter i said you know sono exorcista i'm an exorcist i said oh she said you want one of these this has relics of saints in the back ah so should i go get one well you could uh they might want to lie and say i'm an exorcist to get it but there might be some problems with that one yeah i won't i won't commit a sin in the act of getting across but

holy water yes rosaries talk to me about the power of the rosary. Mary, we believe that, of course, I was doing an exorcism once, and it was the toughest one I've ever had. It took about two years. And then at the end, I commanded the demons, I said, tell me when you're leaving and by what means. And they said two weeks and told me the date, and it was the date.

And I said, how will you leave? They said, she will come. They wouldn't say her name. They said, she will come. We knew exactly who they meant. And sure enough, on that date, at 1.07 in the afternoon, the person started screaming,

writhing, and the person said, the Virgin is here. The Virgin Mother of Jesus was here. And she stomped him, you know, and kicked him out. When Mary shows up, they can't get out of the room fast enough. We'll have more of this conversation after this. This episode is brought to you by Miller Lite. Miller Lite's all about celebrating friendships, especially during fantasy football season.

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So what about when, really quick, when there's, because as you said, Protestants have a tradition also of exorcisms. But they don't, I'm assuming they don't have holy water, they don't have the crucifix, they don't have the rosary. What are they doing? they don't have holy water, they don't have the crucifix, they don't have the rosary? What are they doing? Well, as you read, the basic way of exercising it in the Christian faith is in the holy name of Jesus, which we all use. And so that's fundamental. In the end, yes, the Blessed Mother is there. Yes, we use the saints. Yes, we use holy water. But in the end, it is the power of Christ and his death and resurrection that have smashed Satan's kingdom. It is the power of Christ. And our Protestant brothers and sisters know that.

And they say, in the name of Jesus, I command you to leave. And I want you to know the demons can't stand it. One day during an exorcism, we're talking about the name of Jesus, casting him out in the name of Jesus, and the demons go, stop saying that name. They can't stand the name of Jesus. Stop saying that name. So what did we do? We said

it all the more. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Yeah. Let's talk about demons. Because I think some people would say, are they real? Do they exist? Is the devil real? And Rachel and I will always say that that's the greatest

trick he's played on humanity is that he doesn't exist right and um we're with you on on the demon front we're catholics yeah um but i read that you tried to you tried to ascertain information from the demons and there's a hierarchy of demons um and it's harder to get the higher level demons out versus the lower level demons. Can you talk to us about that and how you experience the different demons? And what are they even? Yeah, what are they? Yeah, well, you know, first of all, in the history of humankind,

people have always believed in spirits, you know, spirits. We say angels are just pure spirits. Like we're spirit, but we're also body. They're just pure spirits. Like, we're spirit, but we're also body. They're just pure spirit. And then, sadly, some of the pure spirits, the good angels, fell. And we believe that Lucifer, because of Scripture, led the rebellion. And those beautiful angels then became transformed by their own sin into ugliness. And we have some people who have special charisms,

and we're careful about discerning that, but I am told that demons are incredibly ugly. You can't, you can't, see, the Hollywood doesn't come close to how ugly demons are, See, Hollywood doesn't come close to how ugly demons are because sin is so ugly because it denies the beauty and the grace of God. So it turns that light and that beauty into ugliness. And so they're so ugly. I heard a story once. I want it secondhand, but I think you can find it. There was a woman supposedly who prayed to see the demon over this huge city in the Midwest.

And God granted her her request. She saw the demon, just a quick flash of it. She had a heart attack. She went to the hospital. Wow. So you've never seen a demon? I've seen the manifestations of it. But I, thank God, do not have the grace of actually seeing them.

Very few people actually have a real grace of faccia, faccia, face-to-face seeing demons. That takes a special charism. So you talked about how people can invite demons into them by sinning, by the occult. But in my own family, it's sort of like, I say it's family lore, but it's not lore. It's true.

My grandmother, who was a very holy woman, very holy woman, had demons come and they would come at night and they would attempt to choke her. I know she, it wasn't that she was not a holy person because she was. And by the way, I love that in your book was the first time I got an explanation in my, you know, 50 years of life of why they choke. So one, explain to me why demons attack people who are holy or good and what the choking is about, because I thought that was fascinating. Well, there's a long tradition of demons attacking holy people. They don't like holy people and what they're doing, because they're smashing Satan's kingdom. Famous saints, Padre Pio, Catherine of Siena, all of them, when you actually look at the lives of the great saints and mystics, they almost always were beat up by demons. The demons were because they want to attack these

holy people. And number two, two god allows it part of the sanctification which is hard for us to understand but god allows this this trial and trauma for their own sanctification for the sanctification of the world as jesus himself died on the cross for the for the salvation of the world and the choking here's the thing you know uh demons try to control and possess you know god doesn't try to control or possess us god gives us free will and lets us wants us to love him you know demons don't they don't watch they don't know what the word love means they try to control and possess and what's the one way animals and beasts try to control other demon or animals they grab by the throat you ever seen animals? They grab them by the throat.

You ever seen that? Wolves will grab them by the throat, whatever. So they try to scare you. They try to control you. And so they grab you by the throat. And it's a very common thing in an exorcism. The person will start choking. But God won't allow them to kill them.

But they'll choke them. Monsignor, in your book, you talk about, and you mentioned here that you'll have crucifixes fly off the shelf, but also that you talk about technology and how demons can use technology and how things will just appear that weren't there. If I was a drug addict, I might have a bottle of whiskey or some cocaine that might show up. Can you talk about the things that happen around an exorcism that are very paranormal? Yeah, they will materialize things. They can, and they do. I mean, as you suggested, we've had bottles. They're attempting a guy who was dry, who was a recovering alcoholic, and the bottles were up here.

They'd had needles up here. This guy was a drug addict who was clean, but still they were attempting him. We have all sorts of things materialize or disappear. And they will mess with technology. People don't believe this, you know. But I know it's going to sound strange to you, but I get texts from demons. I mean, you know, it just happens. Really? Oh yeah. You can tell, you can tell by reading them. Whoa. You know, so they're really nasty. I mean, they're really ugly.

Well, but it makes sense. Before cell phones, I'll give you an example of a case. Guy calls me up, not a believer. He and his wife, they move into this house. The house would belong to, sadly, a child molester and a guy practicing the cult. They move into the house. Literally all hell breaks loose. TVs turning on and off. Doors opening and slamming. Lights turning on and off.

Cold spots over here. The dog is howling and whistling and noises. The whole thing was just out of control. And the demons were messing with all technology. They had a bunch of adolescents messing with technology. So they're messing with the technology, trying to scare people. They're trying to control

and to scare people. That's why they do it. And so we had a priest, I had a priest go in and exercise the house, took two times. After that, nothing. They were thrown out, and the house was fine. And by the way, when I was in Congress, Monsignor, I tried to exercise my office. Yeah, there was a really bad guy.

Before Sean got in, there was a really weirdo guy. And Sean brought in holy water. We had an exorcist who brought the priest in there to go, okay. You should have your house blessed. And by the way, yeah. Bless your house. Bless your businesses. Yeah, you should.

I mean, it not only casts out the evil spirits, but also there's kind of a holy feeling. You can tell. I'll bet, Rachel, in your family, that story about your grandmother, I'll bet there's a little spiritual sensitivity on your side of the family. I'll bet you can have a sense sometime when things are good and things are not good. I do have. Listen, we have a conversation all the time about following my gut. I get feelings about things. And the older I get, I've learned to trust that feeling.

Also, a really weird experience. So Sean and I met on reality television, and it was a crazy, weird travel adventure show. And one of the things they had us do, you will find this so fascinating, Maltinior, we had to spend the night in a haunted, insane asylum. With Ed and Lorraine. With Ed and Lorraine from The Conjuring. We had no idea who they were when we met them, that they were, like, famous. And I'm sure you, I mean, you think they're legit, right?

Yeah, that's my impression. Yeah, that was our impression. But in any case, we spent the night in the same insane asylum. I know what I sensed there. I sensed an evil spirit there. Sean laughed. He made fun of me. He didn't sense anything.

But I know that I sensed it. And also when you were in India, Rachel also, she's in a very old, like couple hundred year old house, right? And she was sleeping on the couch and could see the spirit.

I saw stuff. I saw dead people. I did. Actually, I have a couple of photographs of demons sometimes they'll actually show up on a photograph but anyway, Rachel that was my impression I suspect that you have a bit of a

spiritual sensitivity which Sean is probably becoming more aware that she does have and I would say if I were you I would kind of pray about that and maybe the Lord will keep working with me is calling me to be an exorcist. Join the team.

It's a good thing. When you go into a place and you say, this is not feeling too good to me, put your crucifix up, throw some holy water around, ask the holy angels to be there. Ask the powers that have the holy angels to be in that room. No, you go ahead. I don't want to be political, but i'm going to be a little political in the sense that it seems like so many more people are are moving away from the faith

there's so many more people who are engaging in a lifestyle that i think would be what you say opens them up to to demonic activity have you seen more possessions? Yes. Has there been an increase of possessions that have been happening around the country with maybe some of the things that we see happening, again, the lifestyles that are not consistent with the teachings of the church?

Or even because there's so much more interest in the New Age stuff. And even Christians talk a lot about Harry Potter and kids doing magic, you know, engaging in magic because they think it's just fun. Well, you know, the famous case that were that movie, The Exorcist, the movie from the 70s was scary to everybody. It was based on a real case. I don't know if you have the book.

It's available, the notes. It's very interesting to read the notes. And when I read the notes from The Exorcist, I said, yeah, this is a real case. I don't know if you have the book. It's available, the notes. It's very interesting to read the notes. And when I read the notes, the next one said, yeah, this is a real case. The kid is a young lad, by the way, the 12-year-old boy. He got possessed by using a Ouija board for about many months.

So people don't realize that. They say, well, I'm a good witch. No, there's no such thing as good witchcraft. Magic is magic. And you're not invoking God's spirit. You're invoking the evil one, whether you know it or not. So I am concerned. Hundreds of thousands of people. This is one person on Instagram, a witch, and she's got half a million followers.

So I'm thinking, boy, if you're an exorcist, you don't have enough time and holy water to take care of half a million people. Yeah. If you practice witchcraft long enough, you're going to have a problem. And I've got a few people who did, and their lives are very dark, and it takes a long time to drag them back. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Oh, interrupting their playlist to talk about Defying Gravity, are we? That's right, Newton. With a Bronco in Bronco Sport, gravity has met its match.

Huh, maybe that apple hit me a little harder than I thought. Yeah, you should get that checked out. With standard 4x4 capability, Broncos keep going up and up. Now get up to $6,000 in rebates on eligible 2024 Bronco family models. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca. Do you feel like our country is in a spiritual battle, or do you think that that's just what we all think? We all think that the period of time we're in is the worst. Well, I know, and I don't want to be an old, crabby old guy.

We're there, Monsignor. Let me say this. I'm fundamentally an optimist. You know, Jesus is Lord. People say, you should see our team. We have lots of fun. We're a great group, and we're very buppy and positive. And if you're not, you know, that means you're not really getting the good news because there's joy and peace in it.

not really gotten the good news because there's joy and peace in it. But I would say this, when I was a kid, you know, a million years ago, people didn't go into schools and shoot kids, you know, shoot innocent people. People weren't doing drugs like they're doing today. People were more or less practicing their Christian faith in some way. So there are markers and depression's up, So there are markers and depression's up, suicidality is up, isolation is up. So all these sort of basic markers of a spiritual and psychological health are, frankly, they're going down in this country. You're so optimistic. I think that that, like, I agree, like all the things that you said. And yet one of the most interesting things that I notice about you is your cheerfulness. interesting things that I notice about you is your cheerfulness. And yet you've seen things that other people would see as, you know, feel so scary. How do you maintain that optimism when you literally see evil almost every day? Yeah, I don't maintain it. Jesus does it for me.

And that's the whole thing. I mean, lots of times the demons will say, oh, Rosetti, you're a this, you're a that, you have no power over thing. I mean, lots of times the demons will say, oh, Rosetti, you're a this, you're a that, you have no power over us. I said, you know, I said, you're absolutely right. You shouldn't be worried about me. You know what your problem is? Your problem is Jesus. And in Jesus' name, I command you to leave. Right. You know, your problem is... They don't like that. Going back to the exorcists and the process, do you do it in one sitting or can an exorcism take days or weeks or months? How long does it take to go through the process?

And by the way, Muncy, I'm not supposed to do two-part questions, but I'm going to. What happens to the person who was exorcised? What happens to them after? Are they open more to more demons? Are they more saintly? What's the afterlife of a person who's exorcised? Well, every case is different. Now, most people are not fully possessed. Most people have what we call partially possessed or oppressed or something

like that. And I would say for most of them, I'd say about five to eight sessions, you know, they'd be pretty good shape. And they might need more. But an oppression case, you know, after a few months, as long as they're living a good Christian life and not sinning and all that kind of stuff, they'll be okay. If someone's fully possessed, if I get it done in six months, that's fast. Normally it's about two years. I'd say I've got two to three or four years, I would say, would be typical. With someone who's fully possessed,

it can take two to four years to get the demons full. And how often are you meeting with them over that period of time? Usually once a week, once every week or so. But I would say the encouraging thing is that even though it's difficult, I'd say 80% or 90% of the people come to us after a certain amount of time, their lives are a lot, they get their lives back, essentially. So it's an exciting ministry and it's gratifying because, you know, when you're oppressed like that by a demonic presence,

you know, your life is going down the drain. And they get their lives back and they're very grateful people, you can imagine. You know what I did? So I got your book and I started reading it. And I just, like I said, I just love it. But I sat the kids down. We have prayer time with them at night. And I sat them all around and I read, I don't know if it was the introduction or the first chapter, I can't remember, but I read to them the beginning.

And I said, I said, I just want you to know, we're not praying. We're not doing prayer time at night because it's just some ritual. Like this is real. And, you know, and it reminded me, I said, I've turned into my mother because I can remember watching the exorcist for the first time, you know, in the seventies with my mom and my family around and it scared the, you know, what out of me. And I was so petrified. I was probably like 12 years old, and I looked up at my mom, and it's like late at night, and I know I have to go to bed now, which is frightening to me after having watched this.

And I looked up at my mom, and I said, Mom, this isn't real, right? It's just like a movie, right? And my mom's like, Oh, no, this is real. I'll never forget that moment, wantingurance that the devils weren't that you know demons weren't real but they are and it's it's almost liberating to accept they are as you said real they exist but that just knowing how much more powerful jesus is we should not be worried exactly and that's what say. People ask me how I can do this ministry. I say, how can you sleep at night?

Actually, I sleep very well. I do sleep with my rosary beads in my hand. I'm going to do that too. I have a crucifix, you know, whatever. But yeah, trust me, that's one of the things you learn and have to have, of course. But you learn that as an exorcist. You watch the power of Christ. You watch the demons being tormented by anything holy.

And you realize you're on the winning team. You know? Right. It's kind of like, I'm also, by the way, one thing you didn't get, by the way, Rachel, is I'm also the Washington Nationals chaplain. Oh, really? Yes. I was there during the World Series win in 2019. But be that as it may, this is like going to a baseball game

when you know the results. Imagine going to a baseball game in the number one, and you know you won the game by a 50 to nothing. You're pretty confident. You walk in confident, say, relax, hey, we got this.

That's what we say in exorcism. We got this. Jesus won. You guys are toast. In the end, we win. We're talking to Monsignor Roschetti, the author of Diary of an American Exorcist, Demons, Possession, and the Modern Day Battle Against Ancient Evil. Monsignor, have you had any that you said you sleep with your rosary?

Have you had any demons attack you? Yes. I was a seminarian. I was lying in bed. I was not asleep. And all of a sudden, I was attacked by this spiritual force. It was incredibly powerful and incredibly fast. And demons and angels move with the speed of thought, and they're much more powerful than we are. So, wham! And by the grace

of God, I knew what it was. And so, I remembered, again, by an inspiration, at the bottom of my bed were my rosary beads. So I leaped out of my bed. I grabbed the rosary beads. And the instant I touched them, boom, it lifted. And so I tell people, I learned in about two seconds what every exorcist needs to know. Number one, demons are incredibly powerful and incredibly fast. And by myself, they'll overcome me within seconds. But compared to the mother of God and her intercession, they're nothing.

So that's what an exorcist does. Exorcist relies on the power of Christ. And then we're confident that he's going to throw the demons out. So, okay, so that was like an instinct. So that happened, some sort of grace came over you, and you grabbed your rosary beads, and boom, it was gone. As you're going through exorcisms, I'm curious how your experience being an intelligence officer, for example,

and a clinical psychologist have actually helped you be a better exorcist. Well, first of all, I think I work with people better. You know, I can, I think I'm a better, a sense of when people are suffering a major mental illness and when they're possessed. And a lot of people who are suffering have schizophrenia or manic depression or a DID, multiple personality, whatever. And they're, they're, they're convinced they have demons. I've got demons father and you need to exercise me so i'll start talking to them and going through their history and i'll say no i'm sorry but you know you really have a mental illness you may think you have demons

but but you don't but when it when a demon's presence really manifests is quite remarkable and it's not a mental illness you you you gotta go whoa what about the what about the intelligence officer part of that well you you use clues an intel officer never you never get all the information you get pieces of it and so you take a piece of this and then you you you figure out the rest of it's kind of like they say you know a blind person putting a hand on an elephant saying okay what is that thing? I feel the rump, whatever. So, you get a little piece of information,

then you have to guess what's going on. So, in the beginning of a discernment, you have bits of information, you piece it together and try to discern what's going on. Montina, I'm sure that we don't have any possessed people probably watching that because they couldn't stand seeing you and your collar on this podcast.

And the crucifix. The crucifix, yes. But if someone's watching and they're wondering, hey, I have someone in my life that this could be going on with, is this mental illness or should I be reaching out to my local parish to find out who the diocesan exorcist is? What should they be looking for with that person in their life that should cause them to reach out? Well, we provide a lot of resources. So first of all, say we have a website, catholicexorcism.org. Really? The Catholic Church has an exorcism website? We've got it. And we have an app, Catholic Exorcism.org. Really? The Catholic Church has an exorcism website. We've got it.

And we have an app, Catholic Exorcism. Catholic Space Exorcism. And we actually are on social media. We have 74,000 followers on Instagram. Wow. You're going to have more after this podcast. You're influencers. Well, I'm seeing the influencers of social media.

I love it. I do, too. see, you're the influencers of social media. I love it. I do, too. I always wonder all the positive of social media. This is the most positive social media story I've ever heard. Yeah. Well, there are a lot of people who want to know and need more information. Go to our website. We have prayers, deliverance prayers.

We have videos, books, tapes, everything. And also, by the way, you might not know this, but once a month we have an online deliverance session from people all over the world. And last month we had 15,000 people sign up for our live session. And so we do it once a month. And Bob, we get about 15,000 people sign up. What is a deliverance session? Well, it's not a solemn exorcism.

If you need an exorcism, go to your diocese and ask for the priest to be the exorcist for you. But this is for people who have lesser forms of oppression or looking for some healing in general. And basically, it's a webinar. You see my face, sadly, whatever. And then I start praying over people. We invoke the power of Christ. We say deliverance prayers, healing

prayers, generational healing prayers, all sorts of prayers. So we're praying for people online and by the grace of God the power of Christ comes through these sessions and people have been touched in very powerful ways. So it's quite remarkable

what the Lord does during these online sessions. Well, Senior, what day of the month do you do those? We do those on Mondays. One Monday a month. If you go to our website, you can register and get the link. So our website has the link. So before we let you go, again, I like that. So in our house, when you walk into the door, we have a little altar.

We have a crucifix there we have holy water there um we store our rosaries in a little box that's there we should probably take them out actually yeah but you know we take them out when we when we pray the rosary as a family yeah but we should i'm starting now i think i want to sleep with my rosary now um but what what should people what can they have in their homes just as a protection? Is it Bible? Does the Bible work as well? Yes, all those things. All those sacramentals, the word of Christ, all those things you mentioned are great.

I think when, I love it when, of course, when families pray the rosary together, I guess, a very powerful. Going to mass together is so important. It's a wonderful thing. So practicing the faith together as a family, I would tell people, I told one guy, you know, he's falling away from the faith. I said, I'll make you a guarantee. I said, you start practicing the faith. I guarantee you, you'll be happier about yourself and your life. So do something good for you and your family.

Pray together, practice the faith. You'll be happier people because of it. Once a year on the feast of epiphany it's sort of a tradition in our family sean takes holy water he'll cut off the last you know the last branch of our christmas tree because after epiphany we take it out he'll cut off a branch of our christmas tree and then he'll get holy water and with that branch um he'll go around and bless every room in our house. It gets to be a bit of a circus once a year. Yeah, the kids love it.

He blesses the bathroom and the kitchen. I bless the dog. But we go through our house. And again, it gets to be a little circus-y. It's raucous. But we're serious about what we're doing. Yeah. And yeah, we bless our house once a year.

That's a wonderful thing. I encourage everyone to do and follow what you're doing. It's great. Well, we want you to know that we find you absolutely fascinating. We're so grateful that the church has men like you who have devoted themselves

to such an important task and that you've been given this blessing of this gift to do this. What I love is, I love that you wrote the book. And sometimes there's a mystery around exorcists and exorcisms. And I think especially at this time, and maybe you want to keep some veil of secrecy around

it, but to bring it to light and let people know that this actually exists, that we can actually engage and get rid of the demons, you can get your life back, I think is so important. And I'm just grateful you wrote it. And I didn't get to read the whole book. I've been able to go through a lot of it, though, which I loved it. I couldn't put it down. It's amazing. I know, it's so good.

Again, The Diary of an American Exorcist, Demons, Possession, and the Modern Day Battle Against Ancient Evil. By Monsignor Stephen Rossetti. Monsignor, thank you for joining us. You mind if I give you a blessing? Oh, I was going to ask you to do that. So thank you. I'd like to bless all you, all of your loved ones,

all of those who are listening and their family members. May I bless the mother who spread her mantle over you. The holy angels surround you. The blood of Christ wash you all clean, give you his peace. May almighty God bless you all. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in God's peace. Monsignor, thank you for that. Thank you for

joining us at the Kitchen Table and thank you for writing a great book and thanks for saving lives and kicking demons out. Yeah, you rock. It's great to see you. It's great to fight wars that you don't lose. You never lose that war. I love it. Thank you for joining us for the Kitchen Table with the Duffies. We've enjoyed the conversation.

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