The U.S. Catholic Church stripped a priest of his exorcist post after he interpreted reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) as the devil's pranks.
According to the Associated Press, Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, D.C., said on the 3rd (local time) that Father Stephen Rossetti would be removed from his role as an archdiocesan exorcist. The Washington, D.C., archdiocese also severed its official ties with the nonprofit Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal, which Rossetti had run.
Earlier, on the 29th, Rossetti mentioned UFO sightings and the existence of aliens in a video posted on Facebook. He said there was a risk and noted that, as an exorcist, he wanted to raise that risk.
In the video, Rossetti said, "Demons like to hide," and noted, "They don't want us to know what they are doing because they are more effective when we don't notice what they do." He added, in effect, that "they can get into our heads and manipulate the affairs of the world to commit evil." Rossetti also shared his personal view that a significant number of UFO sighting cases are in fact the devil's pranks.
Cardinal McElroy said Rossetti's remarks and the Saint Michael Center's recent social media activity had seriously undermined the Catholic Church's teachings on demons, the devil, and exorcism.
After the dismissal decision, Rossetti said in a statement posted on the Saint Michael Center website that if his comments regarding aliens and the devil were not faithful to the Catholic Church's magisterium, he asks for forgiveness. The magisterium refers to the authority of the pope and the college of bishops to teach doctrine.
Rossetti is known as a psychologist and exorcist with 148,000 Instagram followers. The Saint Michael Center has been described as an institution that provides spiritual healing to Catholic priests facing various problems.