Vatican Exorcism Summit: Pope Leo XIV Meets Senior Exorcists

On March 13, 2026, in the ornate chambers of the Apostolic Palace, Pope Leo XIV received a delegation that most modern institutions would prefer not to acknowledge exists. The members of the International Association of Exorcists — priests trained in what the Catholic Church considers one of its oldest and most solemn rites — had requested a private audience with the pontiff. Their message was urgent, their data alarming, and their request unprecedented in its scope: every Catholic diocese on Earth, they argued, must have at least one trained exorcist. Preferably more.

The fact that such a meeting took place at all speaks to a shift that has been building quietly within the Church for years. The ancient rite of exorcism, long treated as an embarrassing relic by much of the Catholic establishment, has returned to the center of institutional attention — driven not by theology alone, but by numbers that no one in Rome can ignore.

The Surge

The statistics are stark. In the United States, the number of Catholic priests trained and authorized to perform exorcisms grew from roughly twenty in 2020 to approximately one hundred and fifty by 2025 — a 650 percent increase in five years. Similar surges have been reported across Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Philippines, and parts of southern Europe. Dioceses that had not appointed an exorcist in living memory have found themselves scrambling to fill the role. Waiting lists for consultations with trained exorcists have stretched to months in some regions.

The demand has outstripped the Church’s capacity to respond. Training courses in Rome, once sparsely attended, now draw standing-room crowds. The Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, which has offered a course on exorcism and the prayer of liberation since 2005, has expanded its curriculum and enrollment repeatedly. What was once a discreet corner of priestly formation has become one of the Vatican’s most sought-after programs.

The International Association of Exorcists — founded in 1990 by the legendary Italian exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth and formally recognized by the Vatican in 2014 — brought these realities directly to Pope Leo XIV during their private audience. Their formal petition was clear: the Church must ensure that no Catholic anywhere in the world is denied access to a trained exorcist when one is needed. The current patchwork of diocesan appointments, they argued, leaves vast populations without recourse.

The Warning

Beyond the practical request, the IAE delivered a broader warning. The association’s leadership spoke of what they described as a global rise in occultism, esotericism, and Satanism — a cultural shift they believe is feeding the surge in demand. They pointed to the proliferation of occult content in popular media, the commercialization of practices like tarot and spirit communication, and the growth of organized Satanic groups in Western nations. Whether one interprets these trends as genuine spiritual threats or as cultural phenomena with psychological consequences, the IAE argued that the effects on vulnerable individuals are real and that the Church has a pastoral obligation to respond.

This framing places the exorcism debate at an uncomfortable intersection of religion, mental health, and culture. The Church’s own guidelines, codified in the revised rite of exorcism issued in 1999 under Pope John Paul II, require that natural explanations — particularly psychiatric illness — be thoroughly ruled out before any exorcism is performed. The rite is understood as a last resort, not a first response.

The Ninety-Nine Percent

Rev. Dan Todd, a New Jersey priest trained in exorcism, has spoken publicly about a reality that many of his colleagues acknowledge privately: approximately ninety-nine percent of the cases referred to him involve mental illness, not demonic activity. Depression, psychosis, dissociative disorders, trauma responses — these account for the overwhelming majority of people who believe they are possessed or who are brought to exorcists by concerned families.

This is not, in Todd’s view, a reason to abandon the ministry. Rather, it is a reason to professionalize it. Trained exorcists, he argues, serve a triage function — they can recognize psychiatric symptoms, refer individuals to appropriate medical care, and provide pastoral support that addresses the spiritual dimension of suffering without replacing clinical treatment. The small fraction of cases that do not resolve through conventional means, that defy psychiatric explanation, that present phenomena which trained clergy find genuinely anomalous — those cases are why the rite exists.

The tension between these realities — the ninety-nine percent and the one percent — runs through every serious conversation about exorcism in the modern Church. It is a tension that Pope Leo XIV, by agreeing to the audience, has signaled he takes seriously.

The Cultural Moment

The timing of the Vatican summit was not lost on observers. In 2025, the film “The Ritual” brought exorcism back into the cultural mainstream with a force not seen since William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” in 1973. Starring Al Pacino, the film dramatized the 1928 exorcism of Emma Schmidt in Earling, Iowa — a case that was documented in a contemporaneous pamphlet by Rev. Carl Vogl and that remains one of the most detailed accounts of an exorcism in American Catholic history. Schmidt’s case, which reportedly involved phenomena ranging from levitation to speaking in languages she had never learned, has been a touchstone in exorcism literature for nearly a century.

“The Ritual” treated its subject matter with unusual gravity for a Hollywood production, drawing on historical records rather than inventing sensational fictions. Its commercial success — and the wave of public curiosity it generated — contributed to an atmosphere in which exorcism was being discussed more openly and more seriously than at any point in recent decades. The IAE’s decision to seek a papal audience in early 2026 was, in part, an effort to ensure that the Church’s response to this cultural moment was institutional and considered rather than reactive and haphazard.

What Was Asked, and What It Means

The formal request — one or more trained exorcists in every diocese worldwide — would represent a massive expansion of the Church’s exorcism infrastructure. The Catholic Church encompasses over three thousand dioceses across every inhabited continent. Many of these, particularly in Western Europe and parts of North America, have allowed the ministry of exorcism to lapse into dormancy over the past half-century, viewing it as incompatible with modern pastoral sensibilities.

Reversing that trend would require not only training but a fundamental shift in how many bishops and diocesan administrators understand their responsibilities. It would mean acknowledging that the demand is real, that the faithful are seeking this ministry in unprecedented numbers, and that failing to provide it responsibly risks driving vulnerable people toward unlicensed practitioners, self-styled deliverance ministers, or outright charlatans.

Pope Leo XIV, for his part, received the delegation with what Vatican sources described as attentive seriousness. No formal decree followed the audience — such meetings rarely produce immediate policy — but the signal was unmistakable. The Church’s highest authority had listened to its exorcists, and the conversation, far from being closed, appeared to be just beginning.

The Oldest Battle

Whether one believes in demonic possession as a literal spiritual reality, a framework for understanding extreme psychological distress, or a cultural artifact that persists because it meets some deep human need, the events of March 13, 2026, are significant. The Catholic Church — the largest and oldest Christian institution on Earth — has acknowledged that something is happening. More people are seeking exorcisms than at any point in modern history. The causes are debated, the explanations are contested, and the proper response is far from settled.

What is not debated is that the men who sat before Pope Leo XIV in the Apostolic Palace that Thursday morning believe they are engaged in the oldest battle there is. They came to Rome not to ask permission to fight it, but to ask for reinforcements.

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In the gilded halls of the Vatican, exorcists petitioned the pope for something the modern world thought it would never need: more exorcists. The demand is real. The debate over what is driving it — faith, fear, mental illness, or something darker — has only just begun.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “Vatican Exorcism Summit: Pope Leo XIV Meets Senior Exorcists”
• JSTOR — Religious studies — Peer-reviewed research on possession and exorcism