✣ In 2017, there was a brief furore when the superior general of the Jesuits, Fr Arturo Sosa, opined that “We have formed symbolic figures such as the Devil to express evil.”
At the time, Fr Sosa’s spokesman said that the Jesuit “does not hold a set of beliefs separate from what is contained in the doctrine of the Catholic Church”. But the spokesman may have some explaining to do after Fr Sosa’s latest interview, in which he told the Italian magazine Tempi that the Devil “exists as the personification of evil in different structures, but not in persons, because he is not a person like a human person, he is a way of acting evil. It is a way of evil to be present in human life.”
Fr Sosa’s remarks were condemned by, among others, the International Association of Exorcists. But it at least prompted some amusement online, with the Catholic musician Matt Jude advising: “Everyone remember to say a prayer to your Guardian Symbol tonight.”
✣ In more cheerful news, the “pilgrim grandmother”, 95-year-old Italian Emma Morosini, has completed her latest walk.
Morosini walked more than 600 miles to make her pilgrimage to the Polish shrine of Jasna Góra.
