A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: This side - Exorcists, rapists and friendly ministers (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Could what happened in the small town of Altavilla Milicia, not far from 
Palermo, in the first ten days of February be considered the tip of an 
iceberg? Maybe not, but only the emerging part of a mountain submerged 
in waste and religious rubbish certainly does. ---- The bricklayer 
Giovanni Barreca, assisted by his seventeen-year-old daughter and his 
two "brothers" tortured and then killed his wife and the other two 
children aged 5 and 16, convinced as he was that they were possessed by 
the devil, and that they went to all costs (even of their lives) 
released, because this was the "will of God".

It's not our job to dig into the scandalous story, which the rubbish 
press and television outlets have morbidly launched into (but look at 
what a coincidence). It's true, there was a very small religious sect of 
"brothers" convinced of demonic presences and determined to purify the 
world from Satan; it is also true that they were strongly and 
exaggeratedly religious, to the point of fanaticism. But, ultimately, 
what are we talking about? Aren't Satan, the will of God and other such 
nonsense part of the cultural baggage of anyone who professes a 
religious faith in a slightly less superficial way? Didn't they 
represent the nightmares of millions and millions of children and 
teenagers who grew up with the darkest and bloodiest biblical stories 
and were educated (so to speak) in the "fear of God"?

Barreca and his brothers appear to have performed an extreme exorcism; 
but what was not noted are the declarations of the true official and 
authorized exorcist of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church - Diocese of 
Palermo, who explained to the media, in complete tranquility (and in 
complete tranquility listened to) how true exorcisms are done, as the 
Devil is truly cast out. In short, the violent and purifying act of the 
small group of fanatics towards the poor victims was not such an 
exceptional fact; the exceptional was once again found in the 
illegitimacy of the action, in the fact that everything took place 
outside the sacred skirts of Holy Mother Church. Priests and individuals 
have appeared on television and in the press who have told of their 
misadventures with Satan, exorcised people who have described the 
divisions of devils who attacked them and how they had been freed from 
them. Here is a small taste of an interview that appeared in La 
Repubblica Palermo on February 22nd:

«He starts to say a prayer, then I wake up in another room. The exorcist 
and my friends told me what happened. During the priest's prayer I 
literally jumped from my chair, I was beside myself. They told me that I 
hit other people, the priest, my friends, I growled and screamed, so 
they took me to another room and laid me on the floor. I continued to 
shake violently, they held me, the priest prayed and called me by name, 
he continued to call me, but I didn't answer. After about 40 minutes it 
was all over, but I didn't remember anything, just as I don't remember 
anything at the end of every session." How often do you go to the 
exorcist? «Initially I went once a week, now once a month. More than ten 
years have passed, but I still feel the need to continue the journey. 
It's a deep internal struggle, even if today I manage to have more 
self-control." So in your opinion the devil really exists... «Yes, but 
don't ask me who or what he is. You can't describe him, because he 
dresses up. The devil is in everyday life, even in society." And what 
would the devil want from her? "He wants to deprive me of my femininity. 
Convince myself that I'm not meant to be with a man, especially on a 
sexual level. Make me believe that he is incapable of love." Ah.... «He 
wants my life. My damnation. He wants me to deny God, the fact that I am 
his daughter. When the devil realizes that he is losing you, he tries to 
insist on entering your life. He makes me believe that I'm worthless, as 
a person and as a woman." Excuse me, but didn't you think about 
resolving his problems with a psychologist or a psychiatrist? «Yes, but 
he was of no use. The internal struggle remained and only the help of an 
exorcist priest filled my anxiety."

This is the humus, the manure on which fanaticism flourishes; and even 
if not everything comes out in a sensational way like in Altavilla 
Milicia, these people carry frustration, fear, death inside them or 
express them only in the dark sacristies; sex is always king, the 
maximum expression of religious taboos, and the first victims are, as 
always, intelligence and rationality.

Returning to "normal" things, two alleged victims of the Jesuit Marko 
Rupnik, the world-famous theologian and artist, resigned in June 2023 
from the Society of Jesus, have come to light for the first time.

In the mid-1980s Rupnik and Sister Ivanka Hosta had founded the Loyola 
Community. And it was precisely from the former nuns of this community 
that the first reports of psychological and sexual abuse against the 
Slovenian artist, who was a chaplain at the time, came from.
They were made internally by the mother superior as early as 1993. 
Rupnik broke with Sister Hosta, was dismissed by the archbishop of the 
time Alojzij Suàtar and moved to Rome to found the Aletti Center. The 
second investigation by the former congregation for the doctrine of the 
faith into the artist's alleged violence arose precisely in the context 
of the ongoing visit to the Loyola Community following reports made by 
some consecrated women. At the beginning of 2022, the Society of Jesus 
concluded its internal investigation by recommending that the Dicastery 
for the Doctrine of the Faith prepare a criminal trial against Rupnik 
after having established "the actual consistency of the accusations". 
But the former congregation did not institute the trial because the 
statute of limitations took over and, although it was able to do so, it 
did not give up. At the end of 2023, the order to close the Loyola 
Community and to reopen the investigations came from the Vatican leaders.

Now Gloria Branciani and Mirjam Kovac, former members of the Ignatius of 
Loyola Community, have forced the investigation to continue, and not 
only at an internal church level. «We met in the community - explains 
Mirjam in a press conference with Gloria at her side - we were all young 
girls, full of ideals but precisely these ideals together with our 
training in obedience were exploited for abuses of various kinds: of 
conscience, of power, spiritual, psychic, physical and often even 
sexual. We found ourselves in front of a rubber wall, may the wall crumble."

In recent weeks, meanwhile, the Minister of Public Destruction Valditara 
has signed an agreement with the president of the CEI, Msgr. Zuppi on 
the basis of which thousands of precarious religion teachers will be 
hired; the only condition is that they have taught for at least 36 
months; thus another of these patronage misdeeds is committed, children 
of the 1984 concordat signed by Craxi and Casaroli but voted for by the 
entire left and by the communist party of the always praised Enrico 
Berlinguer. Those recommended by the bishops, who entered the world of 
school via the sacristy, will become permanent teachers in just three 
years, bypassing millions of temporary workers who have been involved in 
crime for years and years.

We will return to the topic in the next issue of the newspaper.

In faith

Brother Doubtful

http://sicilialibertaria.it
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