Washington archbishop removes priest as exorcist after comments on UFOs and demons

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https://apnews.com/article/catholic-church-washington-archdiocese-ufos-demons-exorcism-6cb3c6d10fdfc1b6263b05f9bfabd85c

Washington archbishop removes priest as exorcist after comments on UFOs and demons
By DAVID CRARY
Updated 6:16 PM CDT, June 3, 2026

The Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert McElroy, on Wednesday removed a well-known priest as an exorcist of the archdiocese after he made public comments suggesting that UFO sightings were the work of demons.

McElroy said the archdiocese also was cutting ties with the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal, a Washington-based nonprofit headed by the priest, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti.

The archbishop said Rossetti’s statements “linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center’s recent use of social media gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism.”

“There’s a danger here,” Rossetti said in a May 29 video posted on his Facebook page addressing UFO sightings and the existence of aliens. “As an exorcist I wanted to raise that danger. And that is that demons like to hide. ... They don’t want us to know what they’re doing because they’re more effective when we don’t realize it.”

“They can kind of get into your head, you know, and manipulate things in the world to influence us to do evil.”

“It’s my personal belief that probably many if not most of these UFO sightings are in fact demons,” Rossetti added.

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