“and these signs shall attend those who believe: in my name they shall cast out devils.” mk...
TRANSCRIPT
“And these signs shall attend those
who believe: in my name
they shall cast out devils.”
Mk 16:17
“The kingdom of heaven is at hand!
Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.”
Mt. 10:8
“Then having summoned the twelve apostles, he gave them power
and authority over all the devils
and to cure diseases.”
Lk 9: 1-2
According to Pope Paul VI in 1972, "What arethe greatest needs
of the Church today? Do not think that
our answer is simplistic or superstitious and unreal: one of the greatest needs
today is the defense from that evil that we call
the devil."
And on May 24,1987, Pope John Paul II said, "The
battle against the devil, which is the principal task of Saint Michael the archangel,
is still being fought today, because the devil
is still alive and active in the world.“
In a lecture given on October 24, 1995
during the International Symposium
organized by theVatican Congregation
for the Clergy, the future Pope Benedict
that “preaching is connected with the
“casting out of devils” (1:39):
it is a matter not just of speech but of effective action.
And the preaching takes shape in no bright,
happy world, but in a world tyrannized
by demons, into which it intervenes so
as to liberate.”
And in his latest book, Jesus of Nazareth,
the Pope tells us that “The first task is preaching: to
give people the light of the word, the message
of Jesus … because the world is ruled
by the powers of evil, this preaching is
at the same time a struggle with those powers.”
Cardinal Ratzinger now Pope Benedict 16th stated in an interview (The Ratzinger
Report), “There are already signs of the return of these dark powers, and Satanic
Cults are spreading more and more in the secularized
world”.
Then Cardinal Ratzinger said to a group of bishops
attending a seminar (The Ecclesial Movements in the
Pastoral Concern of the Bishops) in June of 1999
regarding the devil that he “is always at work … instigating
untold cruelties, as unfortunately seen
throughout the twentieth century”
As Fr. Benedict Heron, OSB in his book “I Saw Satan Fall”
tells us, “part of the difficulty of resisting demonic attacks is
that most of them are not recognized as such even by
many Christians … he [Satan] is normally happier not to be recognized but to work in a
hidden and secret way – there is less danger of stirring up
opposition if he is unrecognized.”