ITALY
Deutsche Welle
A priest and an army colonel pretending to be exorcists have been detained in Sicily. Investigators have said they took advantage of ill women and sexually abused them.
A Catholic priest posing as a “healer” and “exorcist” was arrested in Sicily on sexual molestation charges, Italian media reported on Friday. 59-year-old Salvatore Anello is charged with inappropriately touching four adult women and a 12-year-old girl.
His case follows a similar one a few months earlier in Palermo, wherein Colonel Salvatore Muratore was charged with 10 counts of molestation while a member of the Renewal of the Holy Spirit Catholic community.
According to La Repubblica newspaper, Anello was arrested by investigators from the state police’s child protection unit at a Capuchin convent. Prosecutors claim he took advantage of women who came to him for help when he was a chaplain at a local hospital. He claimed he could free them of demonic possession with “healing prayers”, and took advantage of the situation to molest them.
The Diocese of Palermo has said that Anello is not authorized to act as a exorcist, La Repubblica reported. Indeed, exorcisms officially condoned by the Catholic church have dwindled significantly since the doctrine behind the practice was revised in 1999.
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