Monsignor Stephen Rossetti’s claims about aerial phenomena and demons ‘gravely undermined’ the Church’s teachings, Cardinal Robert McElroy said.
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 Msgr. Rossettiʼs removal, Cardinal McElroy said the archdiocese had “ended all affiliation between the archdiocese and the Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal located in Washington, D.C.”
Led by Msgr. Rossetti, the St. Michael Center is a Catholic nonprofit that “conducts spiritual education workshops and trains clergy, religious, and laity,” according to its website.
Msgr. 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
