Image copyright AP Image caption The young man opened his mouth as the Pope laid his hands on his head, then convulsed and slumped in his wheelchair 
 
 The Vatican has denied claims that Pope Francis performed an exorcism, after TV images showed a man apparently reacting to him putting his hands on his head. 
 
 The encounter - during Sunday Mass - was shown on a TV channel owned by the Italian bishops' conference. 
 
 The station quoted exorcists as saying there was "no doubt" the Pope had either performed an exorcism or a prayer to free the man from the devil. 
 
 Its director later apologised for "having altered the truth". 
 
 The Pope's spokesman said he "did not intend to perform any exorcism". 
 
 "Rather as he frequently does with the sick or suffering who come his way, he simply intended to pray for a suffering person," said Federico Lombardi in a statement. 
 
 The footage shows a young man, who is in a wheelchair, opening his mouth and either screaming or breathing deeply as the Pope puts his hands on his head and prays for him during the Mass in St Peter's Square. 
 
 The man then convulses and slumps in his chair. 
 
 On Tuesday, the director of the TV station which broadcast the pictures, TV 2000, apologised for the report, saying: "I don't want to attribute to him a gesture that he didn't intend to perform." 
 
 "I apologise for having altered the truth of the facts and for the people who are involved, in particular I apologise to the Holy Father," said Dino Boffo. 
 
 Religious figures in Rome had insisted the act had been an exorcism. 
 
 They included the Vatican's former chief exorcist, Gabriele Amorth, who was quoted by Italian media as saying the act "was an exorcism alright" and that he had since performed his own exorcism on the young man, who he said was called Angelo. 
 
 Exorcism is the ancient practice of driving out demons or evil spirits from a person or place they are thought to possess. It is practised by some Roman Catholics but treated with deep scepticism by others. ||||| Pope Francis' fascination with the devil took on remarkable new twists Tuesday, with a well-known exorcist insisting Francis helped "liberate" a Mexican man possessed by four different demons despite the Vatican's insistence that no such papal exorcism took place. 
 
 In this image made from video provided by APTN, Pope Francis lays his hands on the head of a young man on Sunday, May 19, 2013, after celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square. The young man heaved deeply... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this image made from video provided by APTN, Pope Francis lays his hands on the head of a young man on Sunday, May 19, 2013, after celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square. The young man heaved deeply... (Associated Press) 
 
 The case concerns a 43-year-old husband and father who traveled to Rome from Mexico to attend Francis' Mass on Sunday in St. Peter's Square. At the end of the Mass, Francis blessed several wheelchair-bound faithful as he always does, including a man possessed by the devil, according to the priest who brought him, the Rev. Juan Rivas. 
 
 Francis laid his hands on the man's head and recited a prayer. The man heaved deeply a half-dozen times, shook, then slumped in his wheelchair. 
 
 The images, broadcast worldwide, prompted the television station of the Italian bishops' conference to declare that according to several exorcists, there was "no doubt" that Francis either performed an exorcism or a simpler prayer to free the man from the devil. 
 
 The Vatican was more cautious. In a statement Tuesday, it said Francis "didn't intend to perform any exorcism. But as he often does for the sick or suffering, he simply intended to pray for someone who was suffering who was presented to him." 
 
 The Rev. Gabriele Amorth, a leading exorcist for the diocese of Rome, said he performed a lengthy exorcism of his own on the man Tuesday morning and ascertained he was possessed by four separate demons. The case was related to the legalization of abortion in Mexico City, he said. 
 
 Amorth told RAI state radio that even a short prayer, without the full rite of exorcism being performed, is in itself a type of exorcism. 
 
 "That was a true exorcism," he said of Francis' prayer. "Exorcisms aren't just done according to the rules of the ritual." 
 
 Rivas took the Vatican line, saying it was no exorcism but that Francis merely said a prayer to free the man from the devil. 
 
 "Since no one heard what he said, including me who was right there, you can say he did a prayer for liberation but nothing more," Rivas wrote on his Facebook page, which was confirmed by his religious order, the Legionaries of Christ. 
 
 Fueling the speculation that Francis did indeed perform an exorcism is his frequent reference to Satan in his homilies _ as well as an apparent surge in demand for exorcisms among the faithful despite the irreverent treatment the rite often receives from Hollywood. 
 
 Who can forget the green vomit and the spinning head of the possessed girl in the 1973 cult classic "The Exorcist"? 
 
 In his very first homily as pope on March 14, Francis warned cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel the day after he was elected that "he who doesn't pray to the Lord prays to the devil." 
 
 He has since mentioned the devil on a handful of occasions, most recently in a May 4 homily when in his morning Mass in the Vatican hotel chapel he spoke of the need for dialogue _ except with Satan. 
 
 "With the prince of this world you can't have dialogue: Let this be clear!" he warned. 
 
 Experts said Francis' frequent invocation of the devil is a reflection both of his Jesuit spirituality and his Latin American roots, as well as a reflection of a Catholic Church weakened by secularization. 
 
 "The devil's influence and presence in the world seems to fluctuate in quantity inversely proportionate to the presence of Christian faith," said the Rev. Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Rome's Pontifical Holy Cross University. "So, one would expect an upswing in his malicious activity in the wake of de-Christianization and secularization" in the world and a surge in things like drug use, pornography and superstition. 
 
 In recent years, Rome's pontifical universities have hosted several courses for would-be exorcists on the rite, updated in 1998 and contained in a little red leather-bound booklet. The rite is relatively brief, consisting of blessings with holy water, prayers and an interrogation of the devil in which the exorcist demands to know the devil's name, how many are present and when they will leave the victim. 
 
 Only a priest authorized by a bishop can perform an exorcism, and canon law specifies that the exorcist must be "endowed with piety, knowledge, prudence and integrity of life." 
 
 While belief in the devil is consistent with church teaching, the Holy See does urge prudence, particularly to ensure that the victim isn't merely psychologically ill. 
 
 The Rev. Giulio Maspero, a Rome-based systematic theologian who has witnessed or participated in more than a dozen exorcisms, says he's fairly certain that Francis' prayer on Sunday was either a full-fledged exorcism or a more simple prayer to "liberate" the young man from demonic possession. 
 
 He noted that the placement of the pope's hands on the man's head was the "typical position" for an exorcist to use. 
 
 "When you witness something like that _ for me it was shocking _ I could feel the power of prayer," he said in a phone interview, speaking of his own previous experiences. 
 
 The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, sought to temper speculation that what occurred was a full-fledged exorcism. While he didn't deny it outright _ he said Francis hadn't "intended" to perform one _ he stressed that the intention of the person praying is quite important. 
 
 Late Tuesday, the director of TV2000, the television of the Italian bishops' conference, went on the air to apologize for the earlier report. 
 
 "I don't want to attribute to him a gesture that he didn't intend to perform," said the director, Dino Boffo. 
 
 That said, Francis' actions and attitude toward the devil are not new: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently spoke about the devil in our midst. 
 
 In the book "Heaven and Earth," Bergoglio devoted the second chapter to "The Devil" and said in no uncertain terms that he believes in the devil and that Satan's fruits are "destruction, division, hatred and calumny." 
 
 "Perhaps its greatest success in these times has been to make us think that it doesn't exist, that everything can be traced to a purely human plan," he wrote. 
 
 Italian newspapers noted that the late Pope John Paul II performed an exorcism in 1982 _ near the same spot where Francis prayed over the young disabled man Sunday. 
 
 _____ 
 
 Follow Nicole Winfield at http://www.twitter.com/nwinfield ||||| THE WORLD | COLUMN ONE He Sends the Devil Packing 
 
 The Vatican's top exorcist has a full schedule. But not every troubled person is possessed, and evicting Satan takes time, he says. 
 
 As the Vatican's top exorcist, Amorth performs the mysterious, ancient ritual dozens of times a week. A confused world engulfed in tragedy and chaos is turning increasingly to black magic, the occult and fortune-telling, he said, proof that the devil and his handmaidens are having a field day. 
 
 ROME — In a small room, well away from the street so that no one hears the screams, Father Gabriele Amorth does battle with Satan. He is a busy man. 
 
 "These customs open the door to evil spirits and to demonic possessions," Amorth said. "Exorcism is God's true miracle." 
 
 The practice of exorcism -- driving demons and evil spirits from people or places -- has been experiencing a renaissance of late, from Europe to the Americas to Africa. 
 
 In part, the rite owes its popularity to people's need to believe that the devil is real, philosophers say, and that it is possible to get rid of him. 
 
 In Italy, the number of exorcists has increased more than tenfold in the last decade to about 300. This year, one of the country's largest archdioceses established a special task force to handle the growing demand for devil detox. 
 
 Amorth is arguably the world's most famous practitioner of exorcism and certainly its greatest promoter. 
 
 He co-founded the International Assn. of Exorcists, an organization of priests that meets in secrecy every two years, and he remains its president emeritus. Author of numerous books on the subject, he has had a hand in recruiting, training or inspiring most of today's exorcists. 
 
 Amorth said his calendar is always full. "I have three this afternoon," he said matter-of-factly recently. 
 
 With little prompting, he whipped out his equipment, sheathed in a weathered leather bag that is always at his side: a silver and wooden crucifix, an aspergillum for sprinkling holy water and a container of baptismal oil. 
 
 He acted out simple steps from the ritual, wrapping his purple priest's stole around the shoulders of a visitor and making the sign of the cross on her forehead. (All clear, he pronounced.) 
 
 In an exorcism, that opening is followed by prayers, anointment with the holy water and oil, then a demand to the devil that he state his name and be gone. Anything can happen: If the person is possessed, and that's a rarity, he or she will often turn violent and fight the intervention, Amorth said. 
 
 "I've never been afraid of the devil," Amorth said. "In fact, I can say he is often scared of me." 
 
 Amorth, who will turn 80 Saturday, is a serious but not frightening figure. He has intense, piercing eyes encircled by dark rings, yet his features also relax easily into a smile and chuckle. Oval-faced, balding and dressed in a long black cloak, he's more Uncle Fester than Max von Sydow. 
 
 The devil is a stubborn foe, however, and no patient (as the possessed are called) is cured in a single exorcism, Amorth said. In fact, the "liberation" can take years -- but Amorth always wins, he insisted. 
 
 Help From the Master 
 
 A case in point is Lucia, a 44-year-old mother of two. She had been undergoing exorcisms for 13 years, until her priest finally took her to Amorth. 
 
 Her symptoms were typical; the possessed experience a visceral, utter repulsion from all things holy. Each time the priest initiated the ritual, she'd enter a trance, rant in languages she didn't know and show violent, superhuman strength. 
 
 It was more than they could do to hold her down, her husband, Renzo, recalled. 
 
 At one point, she vomited whole needles, her priest said, a symbol of diabolical torment. 
 
 "I know people say we are crazy," Renzo said. "You can't believe this stuff until you see it." 
 
 Amorth acknowledged that quite a few people -- including senior prelates in his church -- think all of this is more than a little nutty. 
 
 It doesn't help, perhaps, that Amorth sees the devil in many places: A couple of years ago he fought to ban publication of the Harry Potter books because, he said, they teach sorcery to children. 
 
 "I know there are a lot of skeptics," he said. "The presence of the devil is often ignored." 
 
 Lucia, the patient, believes that her troubles started when an enemy -- a man who wanted her as a lover but whom she spurned -- cast an evil spell on her. She fell ill, experienced terrible pains, lost weight. 
 
 Doctors conducted tests and operated on her, but nothing cured her. 
 
 She consulted spiritual healers, but the rituals they subjected her to left her bruised and battered and still in anguish. 
 
 Finally she turned to an exorcist, Father Vincenzo Taraborelli, a protege of Amorth. 
 
 Confronted with what he describes as his most difficult case -- the woman attempted suicide more than once -- Taraborelli eventually turned to Amorth. 
 
 Now, Lucia feels strong and well on the way to full recovery -- ready, as she put it, to live again. 
 
 Lucia does not need additional exorcisms, Taraborelli said, but they continue to pray together regularly. 
 
 The practice of exorcism in Christianity can be traced to at least the 2nd century. It enjoyed a certain popularity through the ages but by the 18th century had fallen out of favor and was largely abandoned by the church, thanks in part to the Enlightenment, rationalism and advances in science. 
 
 The spirit of modernization possessed the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, and church leaders frowned upon clearly medieval, controversial and, in the view of many, backward rites such as exorcism. In the drafting of the Second Council guidelines, emphasis was placed on good, hope and compassion, and discussion of evil and demons was minimized. 
 
 Then the pendulum began to swing the other way. 
 
 Exorcisms made a comeback, spurred in part by the rise of the Catholic charismatic renewal movement, a Pentecostal faction that believes in healing and prophecy, and by the favors of the current pope, who has frequently referred to Satan as a dangerous force in the world. 
 
 Even the success of "The Exorcist," the 1973 horror classic starring a foreboding Von Sydow in the title role, which was re-released in 2000, helped stir interest. (Amorth loves the movie.) 
 
 Pope John Paul II is reported to have performed at least three exorcisms, most recently in 2000 when a 19-year-old woman burst into shouts, spewed vulgarities and writhed violently during a papal Mass at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. 
 
 The pontiff prayed over the woman for half an hour but failed to rid her of the demon, said Amorth, who also examined her. 
 
 For the first time since 1614, the Vatican in 1999 revised the rite of exorcism. Most prayers and exhortations were left largely unchanged, but the document included a new warning against confusing psychiatric illness with possession and urged priests to use "maximum circumspection and prudence" in deciding to exorcise. An exorcist must be so appointed by his bishop. 
 
 The growing popularity of these rituals, as well as of black magic and witchcraft, comes from the need of many people to believe that Satan is real, said University of Florence philosopher Sergio Moravia. It helps explain unspeakable tragedy and helps a suffering mankind cope. 
 
 But belief in the power of the devil to possess people, and of priests to free them, is too often a crutch that masks serious psychological and physiological disease, Moravia said. 
 
 "I don't think it's crazy. It's worse," he said. "An exorcism is the residue of a medieval practice completely devoid of any foundation of reason. 
 
 "It's a scam. You promise something to someone who is very sick and at best you offer a temporary cure." 
 
 Alternative to Medicine 
 
 In the Roman Catholic world, he said, people turn far too readily to exorcists out of desperation when medicines and other therapies don't seem to work. 
 
 And in Italy, superstition remains a powerful force. An estimated 10 million Italians -- 17% of the population -- use the services of fortune-tellers, faith healers and magicians who cast evil spells, according to a 2002 study by the Eurispes research institute. They pay nearly $6 billion a year to about 22,000 purveyors of such wizardry, Eurispes said. 
 
 Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the archbishop of Genoa, said a society bereft of values and moral codes is creating a fertile field for evil in the world. 
 
 Bertone recently set up a task force of exorcists and doctors to handle the overload of troubled Italians seeking the church's help, some of them possessed and some of them just "disturbed." 
 
 "The devil is real, he is at work, and he is agitating," Bertone said in an interview. 
 
 Doctors have proved an important asset in assessing the state of mind of potential patients, Bertone said. Surprisingly (or not), the practice of exorcism gets some endorsement from Italy's medical establishment. 
 
 Salvatore DiSalvo, a psychiatrist in the city of Turin, has been counseling priests in how to recognize the symptoms of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. He sees a valuable role for the exorcist. 
 
 "Science can't explain everything," he said. "I believe the exorcist is the last resort." 
 
 DiSalvo credited Amorth with working to bring scientists into the mix and said there had been a regular exchange of information and experience between devil-battling priests and doctors for years. 
 
 Amorth stressed the importance of screening the scores of people who solicit his help or that of any exorcist. 
 
 The failure to discern serious illness has led to tragedy and a number of deaths in exorcisms gone awry in the United States -- where hundreds of non-Catholic exorcism ministries have sprung up -- and Mexico. In 1996 in Los Angeles, for example, a Korean Protestant woman died of beatings in a six-hour exorcism. 
 
 "In the majority of cases, the people who come to me are not in need of an exorcism but of medical care," Amorth said. "But when some people, after having gone through extensive medical treatment, have had no benefits, they begin to think their problems are not natural. 
 
 "And the reality is, medicine is limited and often incapable of supplying diagnoses and cures," he said. "The idea of evil spirits is a universal idea, one that belongs to all cultures, all religions, all times."
– Pope Francis was merely praying in a video that some claim shows him performing an exorcism on a Mexican pilgrim, the Vatican says. In the video—broadcast on a TV station owned by the Italian Bishops' Conference—the man convulses and then goes limp after the stern-faced pontiff places his hands on his head, the BBC reports. Exorcists say that no matter what the Vatican claims, the pope was clearly expelling the forces of evil from the man. "The Pope is also the Bishop of Rome, and like any bishop he is also an exorcist," says Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's former chief exorcist. "It was a real exorcism," he says, claiming that the pilgrim was possessed by no fewer than four demons. The pope's frequent references to Satan have fueled suspicion that the incident was an exorcism, but a Vatican spokesman says it was at most a "prayer for liberation," the AP notes.