Monsignor Stephen Rossetti had spent years as one of the Catholic Church's most visible exorcists, based in Washington, D.C., and willing to speak in public about spiritual combat in terms that most clergy avoid. Then he said something about UFOs.
On June 4, 2026, multiple outlets — AP News, OSV News, The Catholic Weekly, and AOL.com — reported that Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington, had removed Rossetti from the Archdiocese's exorcism ministry. The stated reason, consistent across those accounts: comments Rossetti had made on social media linking UFO phenomena to demonic activity. Newsweek, also publishing that day, identified Rossetti by name and quoted his position that "many, if not most" UFO sightings could be explained as demonic activity.
The removal is real. What remains genuinely murky — and what the available reporting does not fully resolve — is exactly which posts triggered the decision, whether McElroy offered a written explanation of his reasoning, and what, if anything, the Archdiocese said publicly beyond the act itself. No official statement from Cardinal McElroy has surfaced in the coverage reviewed here. That silence is its own data point.
What Rossetti Actually Said
To understand why McElroy acted, it helps to understand the theological framework Rossetti was operating within — and how it collides with where the broader UAP conversation has gone.
The demonological interpretation of UFOs is not new inside certain Catholic circles, but it has rarely been articulated this directly by a credentialed archdiocesan official. Rossetti's public position, as reported by Newsweek, was that the UFO phenomenon is largely explicable as demonic activity — a claim that places him at odds not only with secular researchers but with the Vatican's own scientific institution, the Vatican Observatory, whose leadership has historically taken a more open posture toward the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
A related account, reported by Susie Pinto at NewsNation on May 18, 2026 — about two weeks before Rossetti's removal — captured another Catholic priest, Father Carlos Martins, making an argument that tracks closely with Rossetti's framework. "If the devil brings it about," Martins said, "he can put it into the human imagination that there is extraterrestrial life, that there are civilizations out there, then he can cause doubt in the Scriptures." Pinto's piece did not name Rossetti, and Martins and Rossetti appear to be separate individuals making similar arguments independently. But the timing is worth noting: the demonological interpretation of UAPs was getting a public airing inside Catholic media in the weeks immediately before McElroy acted.
"If the devil brings it about"
The connection between Martins and Rossetti in the coverage is circumstantial rather than documented, and it would be a mistake to conflate the two cases. What the proximity suggests is that this theological argument was circulating loudly enough to attract institutional attention.
A Decision With No Public Explanation
Here is where the story gets genuinely complicated, and where the available reporting frays.
The various accounts of Rossetti's removal don't fully agree on their own framing. AP News described McElroy removing "a priest" as exorcist after comments on UFOs and demons. OSV News and The Catholic Weekly were more specific, naming the exorcism ministry and citing social media posts. AOL.com ran two separate items — one headlined "DC priest removed over UFO comments" and one with broader language about the exorcism ministry — that don't quite match each other in scope. Newsweek named Rossetti directly and quoted his position on demonic UFOs.
These are not radical contradictions, but they are genuine inconsistencies in how the story was being told as it moved through the news cycle. Whether McElroy removed Rossetti specifically from an exorcism role, or more broadly from ministry functions, matters for understanding the institutional stakes. Whether the trigger was a single post or a pattern of public statements matters for understanding what kind of line McElroy decided to draw. None of the reporting available here definitively answers either question, because none of it appears to include a primary statement from the Archdiocese itself.
That absence is significant. When a senior American cardinal removes a prominent priest from a visible ministry role, and the Church says nothing on record, the silence invites interpretation. It could mean McElroy acted quietly to avoid amplifying the controversy. It could mean the decision was more administrative than punitive. It could mean something else entirely. What it does not mean is that the question is settled.
What the Church's broader official position on UFOs and extraterrestrial life actually is — as a doctrinal matter, distinct from individual priests' views — remains an open question that the reporting here doesn't resolve. The Vatican Observatory has historically engaged the question of extraterrestrial life with genuine scientific openness. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has never, to public knowledge, issued guidance on UAPs. Rossetti's demonological framework appears to be his own synthesis, not a catechetical position — which may itself explain why McElroy felt empowered to act.
The Wider Noise
Rossetti's removal doesn't exist in a vacuum. The week his story broke, a YouTube channel associated with the UFOs-Disclosure blog — a tier-four source that aggregates fringe and alternative UAP content and should be treated with corresponding caution — was circulating a segment featuring Emery Smith and the late David Wilcock. Smith, identified as a whistleblower in that context, claimed in the segment that military and government forces "shoot down UFOs every single day," and described what he alleged was a tetrahedron craft recovered in New Mexico and cataloged inside secret Vatican archives. Smith also described interagency teams — military technicians, scientists, and, in his telling, Vatican librarians — collaborating to study recovered material.
These claims are unverified. Smith's allegations have not been corroborated by any named official source, any congressional testimony, or any document release reviewed here. The Vatican has made no such admission. The site presenting the content has an explicit advocacy orientation. Readers should weight it accordingly.
But the fact that this content was circulating at volume — alongside a separate account, covered by the UFOs-Disclosure blog, in which commentator Cristina Gomez reviewed Representative Tim Burchett's latest UAP disclosure statements and reported rumors that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had discussed UFOs with the Pope — illustrates the environment in which Rossetti was operating and in which McElroy made his call. The UFO-Vatican nexus is not a marginal internet concern anymore. It is a recurring motif in congressional discourse, in mainstream Catholic media, and now in archdiocesan personnel decisions.
Whether Rubio actually discussed UAPs with the Pope is unconfirmed, and Gomez's account on that point appears to be sourced from rumors rather than verified reporting. The claim about the new Vatican Observatory director weighing in on UAP releases similarly lacks a named source or document in the material reviewed here.
What can be said plainly is this: the Catholic institutional hierarchy in Washington just made an example of one of its most publicly outspoken priests on the UFO question. That is a real decision by a real cardinal, and it happened at a moment when the Vatican's relationship to the UAP disclosure conversation is being scrutinized from multiple directions simultaneously — by UFO researchers citing alleged archive connections, by commentators tracking Rubio's Vatican visit, and now by anyone watching to see whether Rome offers any guidance on what its local churches are supposed to say.
McElroy's move could be read as an attempt to keep that noise from becoming the Church's noise. Or it could reflect a narrower institutional concern about a single priest's credibility. The record, such as it is, doesn't let you choose between those readings with confidence.
The document that would change this picture is simple: a written statement from Cardinal McElroy, or from the Archdiocese of Washington, explaining in the Church's own words why Monsignor Rossetti was removed and what standard his social media posts failed to meet. Until that exists, everything else is inference.