Pope Francis is denying that he performed an exorcism on a young man in St. Peter's Square.
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The astonishing footage, taken immediately after Pentecostal mass on Sunday 19th May, shows the Pontiff approach the second of two wheelchair bound people, whose face is pixelled out.
After a priest leans across the boy or young man to tell Francis something, the Pope's expression becomes more serious, the voice-over notes. He then grips the top of the subject's head firmly and is seen pushing him down into his wheel chair. As this is happening the Pontiff recites an intense prayer, and the boy's mouth drops wide open and he exhales sharply, Italian press reports added this morning.
Francis's usual smile then returns and he continues with the traditional – and more gentle — Sunday greetings for sick or disabled visitors to St Peter's.
Euronews adds:
Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said it had merely been a normal prayer for a sick or disabled visitor. "Pope Francis did absolutely not intend to perform an exorcism on this occasion. As he frequently does with the sick and the suffering who come his way, he intended simply to pray for a suffering person who had been brought before him."
The allegation came from the director who had been filming Francis at the time. In his commentary he had said the boy's shouting as he was being blessed looked like an exorcism.
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