Cardinal Burke to Newsmax: Exorcism Prayer at St. Peter’s a Sign of Spiritual Battle

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who presided over a traditional Latin Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica last week where 97-year-old Cardinal Ernest Simoni delivered a prayer of exorcism, told Newsmax on Sunday that the action was a powerful reminder that “the forces of evil are on a rampage in the world, even within the Church itself.”

The decision to include the rite came after recent desecrations at the Vatican City basilica, Burke told Newsmax’s “Sunday Agenda.”

Cardinal Simoni is known as the “living martyr of Albania” for surviving decades of persecution under communist rule. He requested permission to recite Pope Leo XIII’s 1884 “Exorcism Against Satan and the Apostate Angels.”