Summary
- The Pope's Exorcist is a fictionalized of Father Gabriele Amorth's attempts to free a Spanish boy from Satanic forces, incorporating elements of the Catholic Church's history during the Spanish Inquisition.
- The movie inaccurately portrays the involvement of the Catholic Church in the Spanish Inquisition, attributing its origins to a demonic priest. In reality, the Inquisition was initiated by King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I.
- Father Amorth, the real-life inspiration for the film, believed that the Vatican was infiltrated by the devil and cited incidents such as the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II as evidence. However, he never had factual evidence to these claims.
The Pope’s Exorcist not only recreated the life of the titular real-life hero but also many other aspects of the Catholic Church’s history relating to the Spanish Inquisition. Focusing on Father Gabriele Amorth’s attempts at freeing an innocent Spanish boy from the clutches of Satanic forces, the 2023 supernatural horror finds Oscar winner Russell Crowe as the late chief exorcist for the Vatican. It was only a matter of time before Father Amorth received a cinematic adaptation of his life considering how he himself claimed to have performed tens of thousands of exorcisms in his lifetime (as per his 1999 book An Exorcist Tells His Story).
Franco Nero plays the Pope in The Pope’s Exorcist even though it’s not revealed which exact Pope this, probably to avoid any faith-related controversies. Despite claiming to be based on a true story, The Pope’s Exorcist isn’t the most accurate portrayal of Amorth’s life as it also incorporates larger elements pertaining to the Church’s connection to the Spanish Inquisition. As per the movie’s narrative, one of the Inquisition’s founders was a possessed exorcist who later infiltrated the Catholic Church and spread the seeds of evil. Actual history offers and answer to whether this evil exorcist justified the crimes of the Inquisition.
The Real-Life History Of The 1478 Spanish Inquisition & Church Connections Explained
Heralding a dark period in the history of Christianity, the Inquisition refers to the tribunal established by the Spanish Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I in the year 1478. Primarily instituted to identify the so-called “heretics” (mostly people who converted to Christianity from Judaism and Islam), theologian Hans-Jürgen Prien’s Christianity in Latin America associated the Spanish Inquisition with many forced conversions to Catholicism and brutal torture methods for anyone who the Inquisitors saw as against their religion. An effective exercise in fearmongering, many men of faith were themselves involved in contributing to the decrees that allowed such torture.
The Catholic Church’s involvement in the Spanish Inquisition is somewhat complicated (as explained in scholar Edward Peters’ Inquisition). Pope Sixtus IV, who did have concerns with the Inquisitions’ brutality, was not intent on backing a monarchy-controlled system to control and torture heretics. But that ideological stance changed when Ferdinand II of Aragon threatened the Pope with military withdrawal if he did not agree to the Inquisition at a time when the Ottoman Turks posed a threat to the Vatican's forces. The Pope issued a proclamation to halt the Inquisition but was eventually forced to retract it. Rendered powerless, Sixtus greenlit the Inquisition on November 1, 1478.
Was Friar Alonso De Ojeda A Real Person & Exorcist? Inspirations Explained
The antagonistic demon in The Pope’s Exorcist is the Biblical entity Asmodeus who is claimed to have also taken over an Inquisition-era Friar’s body and mind. The movie names this demon-possessed exorcist priest Alonso de Ojeda, but there are no records to this claim. Historians do mention a certain Alonso de Ojeda but as a Spanish explorer and conquistador instead of an exorcist. In fact, de Ojeda was born in the year 1466 so that makes him merely a 12-year-old at the time when the Spanish Inquisition started. The explorer started his seafaring career from 1493 onwards and was hardly associated with the activities of the Church.
It’s highly likely that the movie’s fictional take on Alonso de Ojeda as an insidious priest was heavily inspired by the priests who took on the mantle of “inquisitor” after 1478. A particular case in point was the Spanish Friar Tomás de Torquemada who assumed the title of the First Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. A hardened man who backed torture-based confessionals and burning at the stake as a legitimate form of punishment, Toruqemada’s name became very much synonymous with the religious fanaticism of his era. His participation seemed more than evidence considering how he was close to Queen Isabella I as her friend and religious advisor.
The Pope's Exorcists' Spanish Inquisition Being Started By A Demonic Possession Is Fictional
With the real Alonso de Ojeda being an explorer and not an exorcist, it is clear that The Pope’s Exorcist’s claims of the Spanish Inquisition’s origins are fabricated. There is no historical proof whatsoever to establish that a demonic priest kickstarted the reign of terror in the years of the Inquisition. It goes on to add that demon-possessed Friar Alonso de Ojeda personally convinced the Spanish rulers to initiate the Inquisition. In this manner, the priest would succeed in doing Asmodeus’ bidding and give both God and the Church a bad name. All of it ultimately plays out like an outrageous conspiracy theory.
According to The Pope’s Exorcist, the Satanic origin behind the Spanish Inquisition was actually a secret carefully preserved by the Vatican for centuries. While the actual Catholic Church does have a reputation for being secretive, there has been no official statement from the Vatican to ascertain the Inquisition origins of supernatural elements like Asmodeus. Voluminous works like Joseph Pérez’s The Spanish Inquisition: A History clearly suggests that the Inquisition was ordered by Ferdinand and Isabella only because the relentless torture worked as an effective strategy for them to consolidate their royal power in all the territories they ruled.
The Real Father Amorth Claimed The Vatican Was Infiltrated By The Devil
The Pope’s Exorcist does change some of Father Amorth’s real claims with its fair share of creative liberties. However, one historical detail that the movie still accurately portrays is Amorth’s conviction that the Vatican was actually infiltrated by the devil. In a 2010 interview with ABC News, Amorth boldly claimed that devilish forces do take over the Vatican every once in a while. He cites examples like the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II by the Turkish fugitive Mehmet Ali Ağca and the time when Pope Benedict XVI was pushed down a flight of stairs during the 2009 Christmas Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.
In one of the movie’s more introspective moments, Russell Crowe’s Amorth also remarks on the regret he feels for not being able to save Rosaria, a mentally-ill girl who took her own life after being plagued by demonic forces. This is most likely an allusion to the 1983 disappearance of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a prominent Vatican official. Kidnapped on her way to a music class, Orlandi’s disappearance sparked numerous theories on the culprits as well as Vatican’s apparent cover-ups. The Netflix docu-series Vatican Girl delves deeper into her case with all the possible sources of truth behind the mystery.
It’s uncertain if any demonic activity was behind Orlandi’s disappearance but Father Amorth did attempt to investigate the case himself (even though the Vatican didn’t give him official sanction this time). Amorth added in his ABC interview that he does find it hard to prove the devil’s existence, but the devil’s work is more than evident. According to him, church figures like Cardinals not believing in Jesus were directly linked to the devil. Further, he even linked the church’s pedophilia scandals and a Swiss guard’s grisly 1998 murder of his commander and wife as more evidence of the devil’s work. Amorth never had factual evidence to back these claims.
Source: ABC News
