A Catholic priest who spent nearly two decades casting out demons in the nation’s capital lost his post this week after he told followers that UFOs might be the devil in disguise.
Cardinal Robert McElroy stripped Monsignor Stephen Rossetti of his role as an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington on June 3, the archdiocese announced. It also severed every tie with Rossetti’s St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal, a Washington nonprofit he led. Rossetti is a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, New York. He had held the exorcist post for 19 years, EWTN reported.
The trouble started with a video Rossetti uploaded May 29, the Associated Press (AP) reported. In it, he warned viewers that unexplained sightings in the sky deserved suspicion. “There’s a danger here,” he said, according to AP News. “As an exorcist I wanted to raise that danger. And that is that demons like to hide.” He presented the idea as his own opinion rather than official doctrine. (RELATED: Faith Organization Offers Surprisingly Simple Way To Get People Back In Pews)
McElroy did not see it that way. He said Rossetti’s claims and the center’s social media activity “gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism,” according to the archdiocese’s statement.
Statement from Cardinal Robert McElroy on Msgr. Stephen Rossetti and the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewalhttps://t.co/TujG4Grzdt
— Catholic Standard (@CathStandard) June 3, 2026
McElroy ranks among the American church’s more progressive voices. In a 2023 essay for America Magazine, he pressed for what he called “radical inclusion” of LGBT and divorced Catholics. He wrote that “it is a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and women have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the L.G.B.T. communities.”
Rossetti is also no obscure figure. The 74-year-old commands a large online following, teaches at The Catholic University of America, and has worked for years to confront the clergy abuse crisis and protect children within the Church, Newsweek reported.
He is also a familiar face at the ballpark. Rossetti has served as Catholic chaplain to the Washington Nationals for roughly a decade, Crux reported, and he celebrated Mass for the team during its 2019 World Series championship run.
Rossetti accepted the decision quietly. “I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium, particularly in the cited video on ‘aliens and the demonic,’” he said, according to EWTN News. His center, he added, will carry on elsewhere.