n the 19th century, during an exorcism in Italy, two Dominicans urged the demon to recognize the dogma which would be promulgated thirty years later.
On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. On March 25, 1858, on the feast of the incarnation of the Word, the Virgin Mary appeared in Lourdes to Saint Bernadette and confirmed the dogma by saying “I am the Immaculate Conception”. However, thirty years earlier, another surprising supernatural event had already confirmed the immaculate conception of the Virgin, Mother of God. And you would never imagine who confessed it: the devil! The episode is reported by Father Gabriel Amorth (1925-2016), the best-known exorcist in the world, author of numerous works on the question of exorcisms and the figure of the devil.
The year is 1823, in Ariano Irpino (Italy). The devil has taken over an illiterate 12-year-old boy. Two great Dominican preachers recognized and authorized by the Church to perform exorcisms, Father Cassiti and Father Pignatora, were then invited to intervene on the young boy to “dispossess” him. The two monks ask the demon questions, including one about the Immaculate Conception. He declares that the Virgin of Nazareth was not for the slightest moment under his power, because she was conceived “full of grace” and entirely devoted to God.
The devil, as we know, is a liar, considered the “father of lies”, but he can be forced, during an exorcism, to tell the truth, also on questions of faith. The two exorcist priests therefore order him to demonstrate that Mary is immaculate and to do so in the form of a sonnet. Humiliated, Satan finds himself obliged to sing, in the name of Christ, the glory of Mary and her immaculate conception. He does this in a perfectly constructed way, structurally and theologically:
“I am the true Mother of a God who is Son
and I am daughter of Him, although His Mother.
He was born from all eternity, and he is my Son,
In time I was born, and yet I am his Mother.
He is my creator and he is my Son.
I am his creature and I am his Mother.
It is a Divine miracle that my Son is
an Eternal God, and to have me as his Mother.
Being is almost common between Mother and Son
because being was from her Son that the Mother had it,
and being from the Mother was also obtained by the Son.
Now if the being of the Son had the Mother,
either we say that the Son was stained
or without stain we will say the Mother”
It is said that Pope Pius IX was very moved when, after having proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, this sonnet was presented to him that
