“In previous eras, those who practiced evil kept to the shadows and remained hidden,” Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, research associate professor of practice at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., told Our Sunday Visitor. “Today, our society has gotten so dysfunctional that evil freely operates in the open and society accepts it, even condones it. Someone needs to say: ‘The Emperor has no clothes.’”

Msgr. Rossetti, who also leads the St. Michael Center For Spiritual Renewal, a non-profit that prays with those spiritually suffering and in need of healing and deliverance, has served as an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington for more than 15 years. The licensed psychologist has written several books, including “Diary of an American Exorcist: Demons, Possession, and the Modern-Day Battle Against Ancient Evil.”

He made his comments after Cosmopolitan, a women’s magazine, described a “satanic abortion ceremony” step-by-step in a story online and in an Instagram post published in November. …

“Satanists will often take Catholic rituals and sacraments and do what we call a ‘Satanic inversion,’” Msgr. Rossetti said. “They will take that which is holy and desecrate it such as in a Black Mass. Evil takes the truth and then inverts or distorts it.”

[Worth reading just for the question posed by Msgr. Rossetti: “Do you really want to be aligned with Satanists?” I’ve never understood that either. Accepting the existence of Satan means accepting his place as the evil antagonist in God’s creation. It’s one thing to be an atheist and simply disbelieve in any spiritual realm at all, or to believe in another religion where one Creator and one antagonist don’t exist. Satanists, however, have to accept the common monotheistic construct … and actually choose evil rather than goodness. Bizarre. — Ed]