The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia dismisses this story as "pure invention", but praises Scherer's "boundless energy" and "rugged strength of character".
Scherer vigorously opposed the Tübingen professors who meditated a union with the Greek Schismatics, refuted Lutheran divines like Osiander and Heerbrand, and roused his countrymen against the Turks.
Believing like his contemporaries that the State had the right to put witches to death, Scherer maintained, however, that since they were possessed, the principal weapons used against them should be spiritual ones, e.g. exorcisms or prayer.
[1] 70-year-old Elise Plainacher of Mank, Lower Austria, a Lutheran, had raised her granddaughter Anna Schlutterbauer ever since the girl's mother died.
Anna and Elise were brought to Vienna, where Scherer conducted a rigorous "investigation" (exorcisms combined with interrogation) at St. Barbara's Church in Fleischmarkt.