Prayer follows the inverse square law?

It seems the Catholic Church's head ghostbuster has decided that, dispite Hitler's religious background, he wasn't really all that Godly. In fact, he was very devilish because he was in fact, posessed by the Devil. And not only him, Stalin too!

They were just in need of a good exorcism apparently. But according to "secret documents" just now released, the pope at that time, Pope Pius XII, did just this through prayer and it didn't seem to have any effect. So why can God's appointee on Earth not cast out spirits with prayer? After all Jesus promised that if your faith is as small as a mustard seed, you can move a mountain (Matthew 17:20). I suppose the pope really isn't all that strong with the Force faith.

But the chief exorcist gives another explanation:

Of course you can pray for someone from a distance but in this case it would not have any effect.

So apparently prayer power is a function of distance. Pretty wimpy for an omnipresent God.

Yet I'm not sure how much I can expect from the guy that rails against the Harry Potter series, which has turned thousands of kids onto reading, because they "hide the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil." Apparently he doesn't like the fact that they have magic because "magic is always a turn to the devil."

Funny, him believing in magic too...