New Delhi:
A Catholic bishop in the Colombian seaport of Buenaventura is reportedly set to perform a ‘mass exorcism’ over the city in an attempt to solve gang violence. According to Fox News, Monsignor Rubén Darío Jaramillo Montoya is set to perform a mass exorcism from a military helicopter during the city’s annual patron saints’ festivities. ‘We want to go around the whole of Buenaventura, from the air and pour holy water onto it to see if we exorcise all those demons that are destroying our port,’ he told a Colombian radio station.
The bishop said he wanted to use the mass exorcism to ‘get rid of all the wickedness that is in our streets’ of Buenaventura, which is Colombia’s biggest seaport for the Pacific Ocean and notorious for drug trafficking and gang warfare.
‘In Buenaventura we have to get rid of the devil to see if we can return the tranquillity that the city has lost with so many crimes, acts of corruption and so much evil and drug trafficking,’ he told local media.
Montoyo’s attempt to exorcise the city is reported to have sprung after the horrific murder of a 10-year-old girl. ‘’Where blood flowed, where blood was shed, we are now going to pour holy water as a sign of reparation at the place where those who died were struck down by violence’’ the bishop said.
Talking about driving demons out, last year there were reports that the Vatican held an exorcism training course for priests claiming that ‘demands for deliverance from demonic possession had greatly increased across the world’
