﻿1
At the time I made the film, The Exorcist,
I had never seen an exorcism.
More than four decades later,
I witnessed the one you are about to see.
You asked me earlier,
-if I was ever gonna do anything else... -Right.
...about the devil,
-and you seem concerned... -Yeah.
...when you asked me that. Why were you concerned?
People ought to stay away from the subject as much as possible.
The more you open yourself,
to thinking about this stuff
and you start feeling about this stuff,
the more room you allow
for the supernatural
power of evil to come in.
There are more than 60 million people in Italy.
According to two of the leading newspapers,
and the major television channel,
500,000 Italians see an exorcist every year.
This woman is one of them.
Her name is Christina.
She's 46 years old
and lives 200 miles south east of Rome,
in a small mountain village.
She's an architect
that can't work.
She's said to be possessed
by the Devil.
Father Gabriele Amorth,
has been the exorcist for the diocese of Rome
for 31 years.
He has exorcised Christina eight times without success.
This will be her ninth.
In the fall of 1972,
I came to Georgetown,
here, in Washington D.C., to film The Exorcist.
The Exorcist is a novel by William Peter Blatty,
inspired by an event that took place
in 1949,
when Blatty was an undergraduate here at Georgetown University.
Right now we are on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington D.C.
We're on the main campus, right by the front,
and in one of those classrooms,
I listened to a Jesuit Priest.
He was teaching a theology course, new testament.
Father Eugene Gallaghar began to
go off on a case of possession and exorcism and
that's where I first heard about possession.
On this quiet little street,
in this quiet town called, Cottage City, Maryland.
This is the house where the 1949 case began.
Where Luther and family
whose 14 year old son
was said to be possessed.
He was examined by doctors and psychiatrists,
who could not determine the cause of his disturbing afflictions.
And so, priests from the Catholic Dioceses,
in Washington D.C. were brought in to perform a series of exorcisms
at this very house.
The boy was later transferred to Alexian Brothers Hospital
in St. Louis,
where he was eventually liberated.
Bill Blatty believed in the truth of this case when he wrote his novel,
and later, his screenplay
of The Exorcist.
And so did I, when I directed the film.
And lo and behold, I then read it in the Washington Post,
and I was very excited about it.
And I thought, wouldn't it be absolutely marvelous
if one could write a non-fiction account...
of this.
Provided it was authentically something
paranormal and inexplicable.
What a tremendous re-affirmation of faith that would be.
There would be a fantastic...
well, what are we waiting for?
And...
many, many, many years later,
it all came back to me.
And I was determined
to write that story but as non-fiction.
And I finally was able to track down, with great difficulty,
the original exorcist in that particular case.
His name was, Father William Bowden.
He's a Jesuit.
He was very eager to help me.
And apparently, a promise of absolute silence
and confidentiality had been given to the family of the possessed boy.
And he asked that, that be lifted because this was a very very good cause.
It was very apostolic work that was going to be done, and
I went to the family, and they said no, they wanted no part of it.
Now I was more convinced than ever,
since they were not publicity mongers,
going on Heraldo, or whatever,
that this thing really had substance to it.
And, he utterly galvanized me, Father Bowden did, with one sentence in his letter.
At the bottom, after explaining how sorry he was that he couldn't help me,
and after pleading with me, "Please don't write about this case".
"Don't tell anything that I've told you."
He said, "One thing however I can tell you,
"the case which I was involved with was the real thing."
I had no doubt about it then,
I have no doubt about it now.
And that was all I needed.
This is the house at 36th and Prospect in Georgetown
that we used as the exterior of the McNeil house in the film.
Now, the house doesn't look today the way it looked back in 1972,
and that's because we had to build a false front
from the end of this house
to the end of the fence down there,
to bring the house closer to the steps.
Now, on the second floor of that false front
was the exterior of Regan's bedroom,
from which Father Karras could make his final leap.
These steps are just a few feet away from the house.
They are now officially known as, "The Exorcist Steps".
For me, the steps and Georgetown
are the spiritual home
of The Exorcist.
I've always been fascinated by the nature of good and evil.
And the possibility of demonic possession.
But the opportunity for me
to witness and film an actual exorcism,
came about 45 years after I had made the film.
And completely by accident.
Or was it providence?
Father Amorth, in his first memoir,
wrote about The Exorcist film
and he said it was his favorite movie.
I guess, of course.
He said that the, um,
special effects were a little over the top,
but he said that it helped people to understand his work.
And so, when I wrote asking if I could meet with him,
he immediately agreed.
At the age of 18,
Gabriele Amorth fought his first battle against evil
when he joined the Italian Resistance
against the fascist dictator, Mussolini,
and the Nazi alliance.
He was awarded the Medal of Liberation by the Italian Government.
But it was 10 years later,
before he found his calling
and was ordained a priest
in the society of Saint Paul.
Thirty years after that, in 1986,
he became the chief exorcist of Rome
and dedicated his life to helping those he believed were possessed.
Each morning, he would respond to the hundreds of letters he received every week
from around the world.
From those with spiritual diseases.
And he became one of the most beloved figures
in his native country.
He performed his first exorcisms
at the Cathedral of St. John Lateran.
At the complex know as the Church of the Holy Staircase.
These 28 marble steps,
now covered in wood,
are the steps that led up to Pontius Pilate's house.
They were brought to Rome in the forth century
and they can only be climbed on your knees.
Marian Luther climbed these steps on his knees
and heard a revelation,
a voice saying,
"The just shall live by faith."
Through this door, Father Amorth entered a small private chapel
where he conducted his exorcisms
until the noise drove away the faithful.
In April of 2016,
I came to Rome to interview Father Amorth
for a magazine.
At the end of our conversation,
I asked him if he might ever allow me
to witness and film an exorcism.
Permission to do this had never been granted by the Vatican.
He took a moment
and then he said,
"Let me think about it."
A few days later, I heard back from him.
He would allow me to film Christina's ninth exorcism
on May 1st,
but, with no crew, no lights,
only a small video camera,
alone.
I had no idea what to expect.
But before witnessing Christina's exorcism,
I met a woman who had been successfully exorcised
by Father Amorth.
This is her story.
[speaking Italian]
I first met Father Amorth ten years ago, when my sister need his help.
She was suffering a spiritual disease.
He asked to see her medical records.
He wanted to be sure it was a spiritual problem, not a psychological one.
I first realized there was something wrong when I went with a friend to a sanctuary.
When they began to celebrate the Mass,
I started having unusual symptoms.
I cried, my body shook...
and I fell into a trance.
She called and asked me to come to her home as soon as possible.
She was out of control.
I started screaming like crazy. Someone called the police.
The police came but they wouldn't come in.
They were terrified to hear me scream.
She showed extraordinary strength.
And her body began to transform into something that was not human.
Paolo told me I was slithering on the floor...
speaking a strange language.
The fact that I was crawling on the floor must have been shocking.
She looked like a wild animal.
And her belly was swollen like a balloon about to burst.
And her strength was not possible for a woman of her size and age.
After many episodes, my brother took me to Father Amorth.
When she first met Father Amorth, she went into an extreme panic state.
He told me to take her to a room where his assistants were waiting.
That's where the first exorcism took place.
Father Amorth was funny and ironic.
He didn't frighten me.
He helped me understand what was happening to me.
It took almost eight months.
The first exorcisms were the most violent.
She had incredible strength. It took four of us to hold her down.
During the second exorcism, Father Amorth had to tie her to a bed.
During the last two exorcisms, the intensity of her strength was decreasing.
After her fourth exorcism, Father Amorth told her it was over.
She was liberated.
The moment he told me I was liberated...
I felt relieved of an enormous weight inside me.
After she was liberated, he wanted to make sure I was okay.
Because sometimes the evil spirit passes from one person to another.
So he exorcised me. It took him fifteen minutes,
and at the end, he told one of his famous jokes:
"Compared to what I usually deal with, you're bursting with health."
Paolo stayed in contact with Father Amorth
and began to assist him with other exorcisms.
It was Paolo who recognized Christina's symptoms
in this church.
We heard screams in the church
during the celebration of the Eucharist,
which possessed people cannot tolerate.
She was in incredible pain
writhing on the floor.
Father Amorth asked me to meet her and bring her to him.
Having moved from the Church of the Holy Staircase,
Father Amorth continued his work at his residence.
The home of the Polene priests.
Where on May 1st, 2016,
he invited me to witness Christna's ninth exorcism.
Christina, why are you here to see Father Amorth?
I wanted to be free of the evil spirit and I was looking for help.
I was treated by another priest, but Father Amorth is the best in hi field.
Do you believe that you're possessed?
Not at first, but then things happened that made me believe it.
I kept putting it off until I came to a point of no return.
Then God brought me to Father Amorth.
Did you ever try to seek doctors or psychiatrists?
The psychiatrists couldn't help me, I had a spiritual disease.
Demonic possession can hide behind other diseases.
I would have attacks, often on dates related to Jesus...
A life of pain and suffering.
Cristina is possessed by the devil.
The devil's power is supernatural.
He speaks and acts through her.
Possessed people have incredible knowledge.
They speak languages they wouldn't know.
How can you be sure
that Christina is possessed?
I can only be sure when I perform an exorcism
and provoke reactions that are unique to a possessed person.
Father Amorth begins every exorcism
by thumbing his nose at the devil.
In the room are Christina's family,
and other priests to assist Father Amorth.
Pray for us Saint Joseph...
Padre Pio...
Padre Candido...
the Blessed Alberione...
In the name of Jesus and the Virgin Mary...
Give us the power to fight against the Devil.
Leave her! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Stop it! No! No!
Hold her tight here, please.
Stay away from her!
Stop holding her.
God, vanquish this ancient enemy.
Lord, repel the Devil's power.
With this holy oil, I anoint your body and soul.
Holy Virgin... Archangels... Saints... Heal Cristina.
May she receive God's grace and be free from the evil one.
Free her from witchcraft, black magic and Satanic Masses.
Break every tie with Satan and his followers.
Free her from sin, envy, jealousy, treachery and disease.
Never! Don't touch her!
She belongs to us!
Send the priest away! I can't stand it!
Cristina, return to the church where you belong.
She belongs to me!
Surrender!
Stop!
I am Satan! Stop this!
The devil is guilty in the eyes of God.
Surrender to the Word of God.
Surrender to the Virgin Mary.
Surrender to Jesus.
-Get out now -Never!
When did you possess her?
Answer me!
When did you possess her?
Evil spirit, you are damned forever.
It's you who are damned!
I command you to leave her!
I am Satan!
Tell me your name.
Satan!
How many are you?
We are legion!
In the name of God, when are you going to leave?
Never!
Leave this daughter of God!
God condemns you, evil spirit!
She is mine! She belongs to me!
We are armies! Armies!
The Virgin Mary will destroy you, Satan!
Set her free!
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, enough!
Do you need something to drink?
How do you feel? Are you still alive?
Let us all thank God.
Neil, what do you make of what you've just seen?
Absolutely amazing.
So, there is a...
major force at work within her somehow.
I don't know the underlying origin of it
but there's an amazing force.
It's interesting to see that she is not
separated from the environment, she's not in a catatonic state.
She's responding to the priest.
It didn't appear to be hallucinations.
She appeared to be engaged in the process but resisting.
Yeah, it really looks something authentic and real.
People who have very severe pain
sin syndromes, total body pain,
for some reason. It can be even cancer, it could be other.
There is a treatment for it, it says, "intervenes in the singulum",
they have still the pain
but they don't care about it.
So they can tolerate it. It's the emotional aspect of pain.
It is probably what she's describing when she tells you, total body pain.
It may not be really physical pain that she feels but she experiences
as physical pain.
Always she is, all the time, these paroxysms of aggression.
I don't understand again what she was saying exactly,
it's not necessarily directed toward the priest or is it, I'm not sure
but she is like a caged animal in a sense.
Is this some kind of brain disorder?
It looks like the state that we call
delirium.
Which is an agitated disconnection from
normal behavior and from the environment.
Illogical, often very powerful and energetic.
Often requires restraint.
But delirium, you may see the struggling,
you may see some shouting and yelling but this powerful
guttural voice, that does seem,
that seems like it's coming from somewhere else.
When you tell Cristina what she did while she was possessed,
she says, "That wasn't me."
She doesn't even remember it.
The devil's assaults are not constant. Sometimes they can be brief.
And not recur for weeks or months.
At other times, there can be assaults on a daily basis.
And when these happen, the person goes into a trance.
During the rest of her day, she lives and acts normally.
But she has constant physical or mental suffering.
Because she's still in a frail state.
Even when assaults are absent, her nervous system remembers everything.
and therefore she continues to suffer.
The day of the exorcism,
happened to be Father Amorth's 91st birthday.
He was happy, and so was I,
because it looked like Christina was cured.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. God bless you. I bless you.
Now you can go bless yourselves.
Do you think she could have been better helped by brain surgery,
than this religious ritual?
I would say, unlikely.
-How man surgeries have you performed? Brain surgeries? -Well,
More than 5,000
over the years.
Brain tumors, traumatic brain injury,
ruptured brain aneurysms,
infections affecting the brain
and I haven't seen
this kind of...
this kind of consequence from any of those disorders.
Are you prepared to say that there's such a thing as exorcism and
demonic possession?
Here's the point. You have to believe it
in order to go through it.
If someone does not believe
that they are possessed,
-they will not do this... -Yeah, yeah, but...
...but they will have an MRI, they will see a psychiatrist, they will
possibly, I don't know, an operation...
But people are very much context dependent.
I mean, you probably will not have this in somebody who has no religious background.
-Right. -Meaning that the religion that they absorb,
the things they absorb,
they obviously change their brain.
You're asking me if I believe in exorcism,
I only look at it as a behavioral phenomenon.
If I were a Catholic priest okay, or a Jewish Rabbi,
I may have a different explanation.
Can I categorize it? Maybe.
Can I know how to treat it?
No.
So, something is happening to her, it's clear.
But maybe she puts into it
the religious context in which she grew up.
'Cause they believe obviously they know what's wrong with her.
She's possessed by the devil.
Are you religious at all, yourself?
Oh, come on, you're gonna ask me this type of question?
I thought this was about this, not about me.
no, but what is your thought about god, for example.
I do believe that there is a limit to human understanding.
And there's really a limit behind this limit,
I'm willing to place an entity called god.
Dr. Fried shared with me this three-dimensional, color coded image
of the human brain.
The red section controls movement.
The green controls vision.
The light blue and dark blue sections control language.
That yellow section is a tumor in the left temporal lobe.
This tumor can cause seizures
that result in hallucinations and language problems.
Is it possible that this could be the cause of what we call,
demonic possession?
I've never seen anything like that before.
But I've only practiced neurology for 35 years.
I believe that these are behaviors that are generated in her brain.
How it's done and what it is...
can't say.
In patients who have seizures that emanate from the temporal lobe,
one of their manifestations in between the seizures is that they can become
hyper religious.
Uncertain what the cause and effect is here but that's a,
that is a coincidental linkage between those two phenomena.
You don't think that you could
take this woman into the normal
procedures in neurology
and cure this affliction?
Only if this proved to be some kind of a seizure,
which I don't think it really is.
Do you have any belief in exorcism
as a possible treatment?
I have an open mind about these things
because I have seen plenty of things that have occured
during my career and my lifetime that were not explainable at the beginning and have
rational basis now.
There are plenty of things that we don't understand that are real.
For example, radio activity.
Right, we can't see it, we don't know what it is.
Once it was revealed that this exists
and the good and the harm that it can do,
that was a whole other field of science.
Are you open to the possibility that an exorcism could relieve this?
Well, let's make it analogous to a person who believes in psychiatry.
Works with a psychiatrist.
Takes the advice, suggestions, input,
no medications, nothing else, it's just
two individuals working on
a problem that one of them has.
If the patient is open and willing to participate,
I think the benefit can be realized by that person.
Through exorcism?
Through that process of interaction.
If we don't understand it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Given our scientific and medical backgrounds,
do we count it as the possibility
of there being something that's
spiritual or supernatural in nature.
It takes the form of disturbed behavior.
When someone says your supposed to do something, the right thing to take care of yourself,
so she's doing
the right thing by her family and everyone else
to try to get herself better.
...hurting her, it could be helping her.
Would it better for her to see a psychiatrist in Rome?
The question is, what kind of psycho-therapy
or intervention does she need.
And they have a certain idea that the way you deal with this
is by getting rid of that completely negative
side of her experience.
Perhaps in the case of some people,
getting rid of it completely in this ritualistic way is quite good.
Well, what do you think this is? Unconscious fraud?
No. No. No...
So... Okay, this is called the dissociative reaction or
-culturally... -Dissociative Trance Disorder.
-DSF and trance in possession disorder in ICD.
So, it's a recognized...
It's a recognized diagnosis worldwide.
It has some cultural variation
but it's basically the same thing.
She is doing something and everybody is participating
in a ritual that they all agree is
the right way to look at the world.
Part of what may work particularly well for some people in that setting
is that everybody in the room,
they actually believe this is the framework of reality.
This is what is it and we must do this.
The Placebo Response.
The gaining of the idea that if you believe something to be likely to work,
the more likely to work.
I have a issue right now on my unit,
who's similar to this in some ways.
She says she's possessed by the devil. She speaks in a bizarre voice,
she hasn't attacked anyone but
she comes from a religious background.
It's Protestant, rather than Catholic.
But it might be more the Charismatic Pentecostal Protestantism.
So it would be fit, she has a history of trauma,
and I can say what we're doing for her on the unit, is
we're treating it with medication. We're
giving her psycho-therapy, creating a safe environment.
We're seen her before, this runs its course
and she gets better.
And we don't take a position on during the treatment on,
is this really Satan bothering you,
or is this you really being tormented by your illness.
The person is expressing a pathology
that is understood as possession.
She understands it as possession.
She group understands possession.
Our field of psychiatry can understand it a possession
just on the virtue of what she is presenting.
The phenomenon,
without having to take any kind of stance
on whether there actually are
demons, spirits, because
this kind of possession is attributed to
Arabic spirits, Jewish dead people
Christian dead people,
forces, animals...
all over the world, there are many different kinds of possessions.
She just has a certain belief in the origin of the possession.
It was a revelation to me,
that the psychiatric diagnosis
of Christina's condition
is recognized
around the world as demonic possession.
I've never met anyone that I would say, "Oh that person needs to be exorcised."
I think that phenomenon exists.
I think it's extremely rare but I think it exists.
And I'll say this, speaking of auxiliary Bishop of this region...
I get people writing to me,
concerned about a loved one, concerned about a son or a daughter.
Somebody concerned about himself.
I got these strange things going on,
what should I do?
So, I get those letters in this very place.
So, I acknowledge the reality of it.
Would you have any misgivings about
recommending a person in extreme spiritual disease to an exorcist?
Or would you recommend they see a psychiatrist?
I think in our case today, we would want to eliminate
the physiological, the psychological and in fact
what happens in a church, we have teams of people that will look in a particular case
and that team will involve usually a physician,
usually a psychologist, psychiatrist, etc. and a priest.
But, the natural has to be eliminated before we get to the supernatural.
If I started crawling up the walls...
-Yeah. Yeah. -And, or, moving around on the ground like a snake...
-What would you do? -I'd call the police.
If I tell you that someone has within them...
they are possessed by a demon,
what goes through your mind?
I think what goes through my mind is that there are
more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of in your philosophy.
This is a strange world that we live in
and to a degree we can know it and control it and we can analyze it,
but there's a dimension to this world that is strange.
And beyond our capacity to control.
This person's possessed by a demon.
Does that make sense in scientific terminology?
Probably not.
But having walked through the scientific, all the way,
do I come to a limit where I say,
maybe there's something beyond what I can manage here.
And I should be open to that if it manifests itself.
Can you accept the idea
of demonic possession of a...
a demon, a devil, Satan
taking over the soul of another human being.
That's not the devils taking over your soul,
that's the devil, or whatever you wanna call it...
seizing your body.
The way they take over the soul
is by tempting you to sin.
That's how they get you 'cause you're using your freewill to do evil.
What is the conslusion you came to
finally when you completed your last book.
How do you have the universe that we've got with so much evil in it?
When you got a good god and a magnificent god,
then how does this evil occur?
I believe that a trans-human...
power of evil exits.
Do you believe that there is inherent evil
in all of us, let's say.
Evil is like a shadow, it's like a parasite.
So, it is never inherent evil.
The devil is good
that's to say in his being, in his intelligence, in his will,
in his...
ontological integrity, the devil is good.
But the goodness is become warped.
If a person does not believe
and yet they manifest these symptoms,
can they be exorcised?
Well, I wouldn't say in the full sense of the term, doing a full exorcism.
Someone is really possessed by a dark power,
their own personality has been kind of,
put on hold with sermon suspense.
And what's being addressed is the demon within them.
Speaking to the devil, I mean, heck,
people like Father Amorth, maybe can do that.
I would never dare to do it.
I'm not there spiritually.
I think that's a very dangerous thing.
What did you say?
-I wouldn't do it. -Wouldn't do what?
Speak to the devil.
-I mean, if I-- -As in, an exorcism?
I don't think I'd be any good at it. I wouldn't wanna do it.
-And... -Why not?
I think it's dangerous ground.
You gotta be really really holy.
It's in the scriptures.
-I know but Jesus... absolutely. -Jesus exorcised demons.
But that's why the church is very careful to choose very holy people.
-And... -And you're not?
I don't think I'm ready for that.
I'd be afraid.
How much higher can you be than the Bishop...
No, I'm not joking, I'm...
I'm really impressed with your saying that.
-But, you mean there's a higher level of spirituality? -I do.
Yeah, you wanna find someone who is really at a higher level of spiritual attainment
and that's a dicey business.
I mean, getting in close quarters with the devil.
-This why... -Why?
-Well, because he's the devil... -You have the power of Jesus.
I do indeed, but,
the church wants someone who is really personally holy
to wield that power most effectively.
So you think it would have been possible for the demon to enter you?
Sure it's possible.
I think the much more likelier...
Is it a part of your belief system?
Sure. I mean it's possible. Yeah.
Has it ever occured to you that all of this work that you've done
could expose you to possession?
The year I was finishing off, The Prince of Darkness,
I had a attack of serious depression.
and it seems to be that the fact that all the evil forces you know...
it wasn't possession, it was just...
one of the causes of depression.
But it was certainly very depressing to work with evil all the time, you know.
So, I had this very serious depression and um,
that's why I say to people don't concentrate on the devil, I did it and I
probably wouldn't do it again.
Concentrate on the good, concentrate on god,
concentrate on the positive
and don't think that much about the evil side.
What you said to me is one of the most interesting
statements I have ever heard from a man of your
position and standing.
Which is, I don't think I'm ready to deal with the devil.
No, I'd be afraid of it.
I'd be afraid of it. I need a lot more spiritual
training and a lot more spiritual maturity.
No, and I don't mean that in some flip way.
-I understand... -I'm already a material person but
I don't think...
I think you need to be really at a high level of spiritual attainment
to enter into the list with the devil.
Before everyone left,
Christina's family asked for her father
to be blessed by Father Amorth.
It's okay now. Let's pray for your papa.
It was a shocking moment.
Christina was not cured.
Once again she fell into a trance state.
When her mother sat for her blessing,
it only got worse.
The man in the foreground is Christina's boyfriend.
Davidge.
Wait!
It seemed to me that her reactions were even more violent than before.
This is an actual exorcism.
It's different from all the movies.
This is not fiction.
It was harrowing to witness.
There are many people who suffer like Christina.
From what they believe is the same affliction.
But where does this come from?
Is this really the random invasion of an external evil force?
And then suddenly it was over.
But for how long?
Father Amorth had taken sick,
and was in the hospital.
But I made an appointment
to meet with Christina in Rome.
To do a more in-depth interview with her.
She called my line producer Francesco,
and rescheduled the meeting
to a small town.
200 miles south-east of Rome
called Alatri.
Alatri is an historic village
perched on a hill
overlooking distant mountains.
The central part of the village
is surrounded by massive Etruscan walls,
pieced together without morder.
Like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
The narrow alleyways and Cobblestone streets
are lined with small houses.
Many of them are adorned with oil paintings of the Saints.
This is a religious town
in an old-world way.
We had to walk about a mile
upto the top of the hill.
To the acropolis where the meeting was to take place.
Within it is the Cathedral.
Considered a sacred place.
We were to meet Christina in the park,
in front of the 12th Century basilica.
We arrived on time.
But Christina wasn't there.
And so we waited.
It was a 120 degrees in the shade.
Francesco called Christina on her cell phone.
She answered quickly sounding angry.
"Where are you?" She screamed.
"We're at the park," Francesco answered.
"Where are you?"
"I'm where I told you I'd be."
"At Santa Maria Maggiore.
The church in the town square."
I didn't take my camera inside.
So this is my memory of what happened.
On July 4th, 2016.
When Francesco and I entered the church,
it was freezing cold inside
and we were trapped in a living nightmare.
Christina was screaming.
She slithered on the floor in a cheap plastic chair.
Pulling her boyfriend Davide with her.
He tried to hold her around the waist and throw.
"Give us back your film!" He shouted at me.
"No! I want it shown," she screamed
in the voice of the demon.
I was terrified.
Davide stared at me, "If you don't give it back to us,
we'll kill you.
We'll find your family and we'll kill you all!"
It was the first time anyone had threatened my life.
Francesco and I left the church.
Left Alatri.
For a half hour, neither of us said a word.
The sweat and the fear were clinging to us,
all the way back to Rome.
At the end of July, 2016,
before he could perform Christina's 10th exorcism,
Father Amorth contracted pneumonia while he was in the hospital.
Two months later, he died.
Thousands of people came from all over Italy
to his funeral.
We are grateful to Father Amorth for the good he did in the name of Christ.
In 1991, Father Gabriele gathered a group of exorcists from around the world to Italy.
Some of them are with us today.
He once told me he could not wait to reach heaven,
so he could beat the devil with a cane.
When he passed away...
I had a lot of different feelings.
I wouldn't call it pain. It was like when you lose someone close to you.
But I didn't feel bad that this person who helped me so much is gone.
It's like he's still here.
I don't think he's gone.
I hope to see you.
Will you tell, Father, "I hope to see you on the 30th."
He was the most spiritual man I ever met.
Like everyone who knew him, I'll never forget him.
He enriched my life.
But what about Christina?
As of this moment,
Christina's suffering continues.
I've reached out to her without success.
Friends in Italy tell me,
she's continued to pursue exorcism
with local priests.
But Father Amorth was in a class by himself.
Like the doctors,
I can't tell you exactly what's wrong with Christina.
My own belief,
is that there is a far deeper dimension to the universe.
We know there is evil.
There is also good.
And if there are demons,
there must be angels.