In the General Audience this Wednesday, September 25, the 500th since he began his pontificate, Pope Francis asked the faithful not to dialogue with the devil, warning especially about pornography and superstition.
After having suspended the audiences last Monday due to a “mild flu”, the Holy Father read his catechism without showing any major difficulties, although at the beginning he coughed on several occasions, before the crowd of faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
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The Pontiff reflected on the help that the Holy Spirit offers as an ally in the fight against evil and recalled that, when Jesus was taken to the desert, the initiative was not Satan’s, but God’s.
He specified that “by going to the desert, Jesus obeys an inspiration from the Holy Spirit, he does not fall into a trap of the enemy” and for this reason “he freed himself from Satan and now he can free himself from Satan.”
“If you are superstitious, you unconsciously dialogue with the devil”
He then highlighted that “today we are witnessing a strange phenomenon related to the devil”, since at a certain cultural level, “it is believed that he simply does not exist”, which would be a symbol of the collective unconscious, or of alienation, in short, a metaphor.
However, he stressed that “the devil’s greatest trick is to make us believe that he does not exist,” since “he is cunning, he makes us believe that he does not exist, and thus he dominates everything. He is smart.”
However, he pointed out that our technological and secularized world “is full of magicians, occultism, spiritualism, astrologers, sellers of amulets and spells and, unfortunately, true satanic sects.”
“Expelled from the door, the devil has re-entered, one might say, through the window. Expelled from the faith, he re-enters with superstition. If you are superstitious, you are unconsciously dialoguing with the devil. There is no dialogue with the devil.”
The Catholic Church “is very prudent and strict in the exercise of exorcism”
According to the Pontiff, the devil is present and active in certain “extreme and inhuman forms of evil that we see around us.”
“In this way, however, it is practically impossible to reach, in particular cases, the certainty that it is indeed him, since we cannot know precisely where his action ends and where our own evil begins,” he noted.
That is why the Catholic Church, the Holy Father continued, “is very prudent and strict in the exercise of exorcism, unlike what happens, unfortunately, in certain films.”
He then explained that the strongest proof of Satan’s existence is found in the saints, since in their lives the devil is forced to come to light, to stand “against the light.”
All the saints and great believers, he specified, “bear witness to their struggle against this dark reality, and it cannot be honestly assumed that all of them were deluded or mere victims of the prejudices of their time.”
Pope Francis asks to pray to expel demons as Jesus did
Later, he explained that the battle against the spirit of evil “is won like Jesus won in the desert: with the blows of the word of God.”
“Jesus does not dialogue with the devil, he has never dialogued with the devil, he either expels him or condemns him. But he never talks. In the desert he does not respond with his Word, but with the Word of God. Brothers, sisters, never dialogue with the devil,” he exhorted.
He then advised the faithful what to do when they are tempted: “Stop, lift up your heart to the Lord, pray to the Virgin and expel it as Jesus has taught us to expel it.” Furthermore, he invited them to be “vigilant.”
He stressed that “with the devil, distance, you don’t talk to the devil, you expel him. Distance. And all of us, all of us, have experience of how the devil approaches with some temptation, temptation against the Ten Commandments. When we feel this, stop, distance, do not approach the dog tied with a chain.”
“Pornography is a language of the devil”
Pope Francis later noted that technology “offers countless means to give the devil an opportunity,” and many fall into his trap.
“Let’s think about Internet pornography, behind which there is a very flourishing market. We all know it, it is the devil who works there. This is a very widespread phenomenon that Christians must, in any case, guard against and strongly reject.”
Any telephone, the Pontiff continued, “has access to this ugly brutality, to this language of the devil, online pornography.”
“With the Grace of God we are smarter” than the devil
The Holy Father pointed out that the action of the devil in history “should not discourage us” and that the final thought should be “of trust and security.”
“Christ has defeated the devil and has given us the Holy Spirit to make his victory ours. Be careful, the devil is smart, but we Christians, with the Grace of God, are smarter than him,” he concluded.
“I am following the situation in Lebanon with concern”
At the end of the General Audience, Pope Francis expressed his sadness at the escalation of the war in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon.
“I am pained by the news coming from Lebanon, where in recent days intense bombings have caused many victims and destruction.”
For this reason, he called on the International Community to make “every effort to stop this terrible escalation” of the conflict.
“It is unacceptable. “I express my closeness to the Lebanese people, who have already suffered too much in the recent past,” she added.
Likewise, he invited us to pray for all the peoples who suffer because of the war, such as “the martyred Ukraine”, Myanmar, Palestine, Israel and Sudan.
Almudena Martínez-Bordiú
I am a graduate in Journalism and Advertising from the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. Specialized in religious information in Spain since 2015. I have been a senior correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in the Vatican for two years and I am currently a European correspondent based in Spain.