From EWTN News:
Washington archbishop Cardinal Robert McElroy on June 3 removed a prominent priest from his role as an archdiocesan exorcist after the priest made remarks linking UFOs to demonic activity.
Monsignor Stephen Rossetti was “removed … as an exorcist of the Archdiocese of Washington,” McElroy said in a statement posted to the archdioceseʼs website. Rossetti is a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, the statement noted.
In addition to Rossettiʼs removal, McElroy said the archdiocese had “ended all affiliation between the archdiocese and the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal located in Washington, D.C.”
Led by Rossetti, the St. Michael Center is a Catholic nonprofit that “conducts spiritual education workshops and trains clergy, religious, and laity,” according to its website.
Rossetti had on May 29 posted a video to YouTube in which the exorcist had expressed his personal belief that “many, if not most, [UFO] sightings are, in fact, demons.” Such entities, he said in the video, “can do things that we canʼt do, such [as] the speed and all sorts of things that human beings canʼt do.”
McElroy in his statement said Rossettiʼs remarks “gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons, and exorcism.” The cardinal also criticized the St. Michael Centerʼs “recent use of social media,” though the statement did not offer any specifics beyond that.
In a statement after the news broke, Rossetti said he was “saddened” by the archdioceseʼs decision.
“I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s magisterium, particularly in the cited video on ‘aliens and the demonic,’” he said.
