EXCLUSIVE: Antonio Zamudio talks to MundoNOW about ‘The Pope’s Exorcist»

• Antonio Zamudio speaks exclusively to MundoNOW. 
• He talks about The Pope’s Exorcist. 
• The film will be released on April 14.

The new horror movie from Sony Pictures, The Pope’s Exorcist, hits theaters on Friday, April 14. It was inspired by the royal archives of Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist, and stars Academy Award winner Russell Crowe.

This new film tells the story of Amorth as he investigates the terrifying possession of a child and ends up uncovering a centuries-old conspiracy that the Vatican has desperately tried to keep hidden. The founding director of the Mexican Agency for Paranormal Investigation, Antonio Zamudio, gives his expert opinion exclusively to MundoNow.

Antonio Zamudio talks about The Pope’s Exorcist: What do you think of this story?

An expert who’s investigated paranormal phenomena for more than 25 years, Antonio Zamudio, shares his insights into the story of Father Gabriele Amorth, subject of the Sony Pictures horror film The Pope’s Exorcist, and the myths about exorcism. Amorth is one of the world’s most famous exorcists, performing more than 70,000 exorcisms in his lifetime.

“Gabriel Amorth is, as you said, he is the official exorcist of the Vatican. There have been other exorcists in other times, but the most famous is Gabriel. Because he resumes the ministry of exorcism and makes it resurface from among the half-forgotten things at some point in the Church. The important task that an exorcist has is precisely that souls are not lost,” Antonio says.

The work of Father Gabrielle Amorth

“And when I speak of souls I speak narrowly not only of the believer, but the souls of any person who could be lost through possession. So yes, this film is capturing that blog for you. I see it like a blog, but at the end of the day there are stories, guides, anecdotes and research protocols that Gabriel Amorth carried out, because he is not only the ecclesiastic, he was not only a believing father, but he was also a scientist.”

“So that is very complicated in the sense of being able to be certain that a person may not be subject to a psychiatric illness, for example, and a person may be confused (thinking) that they are really being possessed. So that’s where the work of Gabriele Amorth comes in and we’re going to see it in this film. One of these examples is a very strong exorcism of a child that leads to mysterious ties and secrets of the Church.

What could you say in this regard about people who don’t believe in demonic possession?

“For example, I would put many of the cases that we have had in our hands on the table. The possessed was not really a believer, for example. No, he was not a regular, perhaps he did have Catholic parents who were linked to the Church. But this goes further, this has a slightly more interesting depth, based on the fact that a person would not exactly have to have an animosity of the Church or an attachment to it.”

“Many times the demons look for a fissure in your psyche. So there are times when people with a decision don’t realize how it happens and that is where the work of the exorcist comes in. I as a 27-year-old researcher, with just over ten cases that we have had in our hands. We are an intermediary, an intermediation between the ecclesiastical exorcist and us as an organism. Many times people look to us to dispel doubts about it or to find out if he is being possessed.”

Your job as an expert in paranormal phenomena is a ghost hunter type?

“Look, Ghostbusters itself comes from the great 80s movie, but that is how the director expresses it. Obviously it’s fiction, but its base is three scientists in the foreground, who are parapsychologists, who are physical scientists and other experts engaged in research. The concept of ghostbusters doesn’t exist, you don’t hunt a ghost, the concept of paranormal investigation, even I would tell them, is not a belief.”

“The paranormal is something beyond that doesn’t have a scientific explanation. And the research work is that, you investigate, you delve into a possible fact to find out if there is a scientific explanation or not. If there isn’t, then you submit a paranormal explanation.»