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Witchcraft is practiced in some of the most Catholic countries in the world. In Italy, consulting sorcerers is an industry which generates 8 billion euro each year.
Buona sera! Thank you for joining me in Rome.
”Catholic witchcraft” is an oxymoron – a contradiction in terms. The very juxtaposition of the two words ”Catholic“ and “witchcraft” ought to be as irrational and preposterous as juxtaposing the words “peaceful riot” or “militant pacifist” or “Christian satanist.”
And yet, in the most Catholic country in the world, witchcraft is practiced at an unparalleled level.
Just days ago, Pope Francis visited the most Catholic country in the world. I’m speaking of Timor Leste or East Timor. Nearly 600,000 Catholics attended Pope Francis’ Mass in East Timor, nearly half the population of the most Catholic country in the world.
Francis told his flock that their country is “at the center of the Gospel, because it is at the ends of the earth.” But how can a country that is at the center of the Gospel be also one of the world’s centers of the occult?
Has the Gospel had any impact whatsoever on the Catholicism of East Timor? Remember, 95 percent of its population is CATHOLIC!
Just before he visited East Timor, Pope Francis spent two days in Papua New Guinea. There are two and a half million Catholics in Papua New Guinea. And yet, again, a staggeringly high percentage of the population practice sorcery and even animism – the worship of nature.
In Papua New Guinea, a religious sister, a nun, named Lorena Jenal gave a testimony, speaking about her ministry, the House of Hope in the Diocese of Mendi.
Sister Jenal told Pope Francis that the House of Hope provides shelter and healing for those accused of witchcraft and sorcery.
Pope Francis alluded to the problem during his brief visit to the remote Diocese of Vanimo on Sunday, telling Papuan Catholics to promote love as this will help “to drive out fear, superstition and magic from people’s hearts.”
Are the Catholics of East Timor and Papua New Guinea steeped in witchcraft, sorcery, magic and animism because they are so-called “backward countries?” Or because they are brand new converts? Don’t forget, Portuguese missionaries brought Catholicism to Timor Leste in the 16th century. You'd think five hundred years was enough to catechize Catholics to reject pagan and occult practices, wouldn’t you?
So. let’s look at Catholicism in a First World country – let’s fly back from Papua New Guinea to the pope’s own backyard – right here in Rome – in Italy.
In March this year I wrote an article for the Catholic Herald in which I described how over 160,000 sorcerers are doing brisk business in the occult in Italy. Catholic Italy. Over three million Italians consult these so-called “maghi” every year for advice according to the Osservatorio Antiplagio.
So, what is happening? The occult is a business worth 8 billion euros in Italy. Between 10 to 13 million Italians – almost all of them baptized, and even confirmed, Catholics – have turned to sorcerers or witches at least once in their lives; while 30,000 Italians from all classes of society seek out psychics and visionaries daily.
The epicenter of witchcraft and occultism is in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, with 2,800 occult practitioners and 200,000 clients; clearly outnumbering the priests in the region or Catholics who attend Mass on a weekly basis.
A survey conducted in 2023 by the market research company SWG found that 34 percent of Italians believe or engage in necromancy, 24 percent in black magic, 19 percent in predicting the future with cards, 18 percent in white magic, and 17 percent in psychic or occultic healers.
Last week, there was a 3-day “Occult Convention” organized by – you won’t believe this – the Society of Sulphur! The convention opened with a voodoo ritual and ended with a session on “How to Dress a Magic Candle.”
In 2020, Pope Francis warned Italians not to follow “magicians, fortune tellers, [or] sorcerers” lest “you risk becoming idol-addicts.”
In an Angelus address in July 2023, the pontiff cautioned Catholics to reject beliefs “in superstitions, such as magic, tarot cards, horoscopes and other similar things”, noting that “many, many Christians go to have their palms read.”
Pope Francis is right to link superstition to witchcraft and the occult. Including so-called “Catholic” superstitions like burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down to get help with buying or selling your house. Did you know there are Catholic businesses selling St. Joseph Home Sale Kits?
On its website one such business advises you to bury the statue upside down in your front yard with St. Joseph’s feet pointing to heaven. After the home has sold, the statue should be removed from the ground and given a place of honor in your new home, the website advises.
In his Summa Theologica, St Thomas Aquinas gives us a powerful definition of superstition: superstition is a vice of excess of religion, as impiety was a vice of deficiency of religion, he writes.
Let me repeat that: superstition is a vice of excess of religion, as impiety was a vice of deficiency of religion.
God prohibits witchcraft and sorcery in the Old Testament. “A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death” (Leviticus 20:27). King Saul dies because he consults a medium.
When the Gentiles convert to Christianity after they hear Paul preaching the Gospel to them in Ephesus, those who “practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas” (Acts 19:19).
St. Paul warns against witchcraft in his letter to the Galatians. The Bible ends by warning us in the book of Revelation that “those who practice magic arts” will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur.
And even a valid channel of grace can become idolatrous and superstitious if we think we can use it to manipulate God – simply by performing the action in a strictly formulaic manner.
What’s is the problem with superstition and the occult? The prophet Isaiah puts it beautifully: “When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?”
Here’s the problem, says Isaiah: Isn’t the God of Israel all sufficient? We have the Holy Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To turn to something or someone else for help is telling God – hey, you cannot do this, or you cannot do this alone.
This was the main problem why Yahweh, the God of Israel, was incandescent with the Israelites turning to Baal – the fertility god of the Canaanites. As an agrarian community, the Israelites needed rain for their crops, and fertility for their cattle and wives. So they turned to Baal, thinking that Yahweh could do with some help!
By doing this they were questioning and doubting the all-sufficiency and the all-powerfulness of Yahweh. My God is able to supply ALL your needs, according to his riches in Christ Jesus, writes Paul to the Philippians. NOTE, not SOME of your needs, not MOST of your needs, but ALL your needs.
In the book of Numbers, God commands Moses to make so that anyone who looked at it will be healed. But centuries later King Hezekiah smashes the bronze serpent because the Israelites had begun offering incense to it.
The climax of the trajectory of the bronze serpent in the Bible, is also the ultimate antidote to superstition and witchcraft: it comes just before the most sublime and most famous verse in the entire New Testament: John 3:16.
John’s gospel tells us in 3:14-15: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus is the Son of Man who has been lifted up on the cross; the Son of God to whom we are commanded to look to for EVERYTHING – for healing, for salvation, and for ALL our needs.
Of course, the very next verse reminds us that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Pray for the people of East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Italy; and for all who are tempted to worship created objects, or created persons, rather than worship and seek the Creator alone.
That's the top story for today. For more news that matters to you, please go to SoulsAndLiberty.com. I'm Jules Gomes. God bless you, and thank you for watching.