US Catholic Church reacts to growing demand for exorcisms

[Eldritch]

Wanted: a few good men to cast out devils.

Overwhelmed with requests for exorcists, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are holding a special training workshop in Baltimore this weekend to teach clerics the esoteric rite, the Catholic News Service reported.

The church has signed up 56 bishops and 66 priests for the two-day workshop that began on Friday, seeking to boost the small group of just five or six American exorcists that the church currently has on its books.

"There's this small group of priests who say they get requests from all over the continental U.S.," Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, was quoted as saying.

"Actually, each diocese should have its own" exorcist, he added.

Paprocki did not say why there was increased demand for exorcisms, which he noted were rarely performed.

While solemnly regarded by the Catholic Church, exorcism is a staple of Hollywood fright films -- most notably the 1973 film "The Exorcist" -- and regarded by many as superstition that lends a chill frisson to festivals like Halloween.

Catholic Church law stipulates that only properly trained priests can perform the rite -- and then only with the permission of their bishops.

Possible signs of demonic possession include scratching, cutting, biting of the skin; profound displays of strength; and a strong or violent reaction to holy water.

Link. (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AB4Y620101112)

[Cato]

Doesn't there have to be some kind of detailed investigation before an exorcism can take place?

[Eldritch]

Doesn't there have to be some kind of detailed investigation before an exorcism can take place?

I believe so.







After all, I've seen The Exorcist. :p

[Cato]

I believe so.







After all, I've seen The Exorcist. :p

Psychological and medical evaluation are supposedly able to tell a "false" case of possession from a potentially "true" case of possession. The Catholics probably want to avoid, oh, the obvious- such as calling someone with bi-polar disorder a demoniac.

[Cato]

Well, there is something in the appeal of the old days of the Malleus Maleficarum, withthe inquisitors roaming about looking for heresy and deviiltry to root out.

Still, the best sort of hunter of evil would be a dour Puritan like Solomon Kane.

:)

[SwordoftheVistula]

Well, I suppose it's cheaper than putting them all on Social Security Mental Disability payments

[Sally]

With the Rite of Catholic Baptism, candidates are asked to formally renounce Satan, (with infants this question is posed to the godparents and parents of the child). This might be considered a form of exorcism, but it differs from the Rite of Exorcism, though.

There used to be a prayer (prayers?) of exorcism involved in Baptism, but I'm not entirely sure whether they're used anymore.

[Cato]

I've never understood the obsession that Christians have with devils and demons; it's as if Satan is not only omnipresent but also omnipotent.

[Sally]

I've never understood the obsession that Christians have with devils and demons; it's as if Satan is not only omnipresent but also omnipotent.

While you may scoff at it, Christians have been warned that they have a real enemy, and it isn't necessarily a Muslim, a black or a welfare recipient. ;) There is a very real spiritual battle going on, each and everyday.

1 Peter 5:8-10


Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for (someone) to devour.

Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings.

The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ (Jesus) will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little.

[Eldritch]

Psychological and medical evaluation are supposedly able to tell a "false" case of possession from a potentially "true" case of possession. The Catholics probably want to avoid, oh, the obvious- such as calling someone with bi-polar disorder a demoniac.

It's frustrating that there's no reliable data on this on the net.

But apparently a candidate for an exorcism has to meet at least one of these criteria:


Speaking in tongues

Knowledge of events far removed in space and time that s/he cannot possibly have by normal means

Inhuman strenght

Aversion to holy water, crucifixes and sacred images.

[Nodens]

Speaking in tongues

Knowledge of events far removed in space and time that s/he cannot possibly have by normal means

Inhuman strenght

Aversion to holy water, crucifixes and sacred images.


So, iconoclastic evangelicals?

[Cato]

While you may scoff at it, Christians have been warned that they have a real enemy, and it isn't necessarily a Muslim, a black or a welfare recipient. ;) There is a very real spiritual battle going on, each and everyday.

1 Peter 5:8-10

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isaiah 45:7, KJV.

[Sally]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Isaiah 45:7, KJV.

Yes, God permits evil for the sake of a greater good. :)

[Magister Eckhart]

Doesn't there have to be some kind of detailed investigation before an exorcism can take place?

Any port in a storm. The Church needs to cater to what few believing members it has left.

[Cato]

Yes, God permits evil for the sake of a greater good. :)

I shall not comment, except to say that there's a huge difference between God permitting the devils to make evil in the world and God creating the evil on his own.

[Cato]

Any port in a storm. The Church needs to cater to what few believing members it has left.

Catholicism is not a spent force just yet, or else so many people wouldn't have such blatant hostility in regards to it.

[Magister Eckhart]

Catholicism is not a spent force just yet, or else so many people wouldn't have such blatant hostility in regards to it.

I would submit that hostility to Catholicism is far more inherited than it is owing to present circumstances. Especially in America, where there are many people who still think Germans are Nazis and hate Japanese, despite World War II ending sixty years ago and both nations being almost completely Americanised.

[Murphy]

Speaking in tongues

Yes and no. When we speak of tongues here we must understand it properly. It is not the gibberish those barbarian Calvinists spout but rather the Gift of Tongues is the ability to converse in any language.. Irish, Polish, Ancient Greek and the like without any prior knowledge of the mechanics of such languages.

Some speculate I believe that when the Apostles received the Gifts of Tongues at Pentecost that they did not speak any language but their own and that rather those who heard them preach heard so in their native languages.

[Murphy]

On the subject of hostility towards Catholicism:

In a society which consists of a people that are driven by nothing but their own selfish material desires, who want everything now because of their own sense of entitlement that arose from their own arrogance, instant gratification and the like.. well when such a society comes face to face with an institution that is older than any nation on the earth, an institution that claims divine foundations in antiquity, and that institution is saying such things as concerning the eternal soul and that man is not the centre of the universe, that ones self is not the be-all and end-all..

Is it any surprise that there is hostility?

[Magister Eckhart]

On the subject of hostility towards Catholicism:

In a society which consists of a people that are driven by nothing but their own selfish material desires, who want everything now because of their own sense of entitlement that arose from their own arrogance, instant gratification and the like.. well when such a society comes face to face with an institution that is older than any nation on the earth, an institution that claims divine foundations in antiquity, and that institution is saying such things as concerning the eternal soul and that man is not the centre of the universe, that ones self is not the be-all and end-all..

Is it any surprise that there is hostility?

True but Orthodox Jewry and many conservative Protestant sects share the Catholic approach to the self and man's place under heaven, and have not received as much explicit hatred for these reasons (well I suppose the Jews, but since the Orthodox Jews are so often grouped in with the rest of the Jewish community by anti-Semites, it's hard to say why they draw attacks).

The extra-national nature of the Catholic Church is certainly a reason for a lot of hostility aimed in its direction; this is a hostility that dates to the Reformation - even before the Reformation, to The Great Schism! But I would say that today the Church draws the most hostility because a) it is the most centralised of religions against which the scientistic liberals have declared war and b) many people have just hated the Papacy because their families have hated the Papacy for going on six or seven generations or more. Hostility to Catholicism, therefore, is not evidence of the Church's strength. This is my main point.

[Cato]

The thread's topic is about exorcisms rather than anti-Catholic hostility. Maybe a thread split would be in order?

[Murphy]

Hostility to Catholicism, therefore, is not evidence of the Church's strength. This is my main point.

I recognise your point and disagree. You do not continually beat at something that is weak, one cannot continue to revile something that becomes less than you except to revile it for not being stronger. But it slowly fades away over time. It's simply the course of humanity.

Revile and hate instead are reserved for what man throws at his equal or his superior. It's what happens when a man feels cornered. He is insecure, he has lost his confidence and faces the jaws of a lion.

So he spits on the lion. He doesn't spit on the mouse though.

[Duckelf]

Yes and no. When we speak of tongues here we must understand it properly. It is not the gibberish those barbarian Calvinists spout but rather the Gift of Tongues is the ability to converse in any language.. Irish, Polish, Ancient Greek and the like without any prior knowledge of the mechanics of such languages.

Some speculate I believe that when the Apostles received the Gifts of Tongues at Pentecost that they did not speak any language but their own and that rather those who heard them preach heard so in their native languages.
Pentecostalists are not Calvinists.

[Murphy]

Pentecostalists are not Calvinists.

Oh, I know when you get down into the fine details they're not Calvinists. And Calvinists tend to look down on Pentecostals who claim to be Calvinist. But in the end, there is the religion of God that is held in the bosom of Holy Mother Church and the religion of the devil.. which is everything else.

Zwingli, Calvin, Luther.. they're all the same person wearing a different mask.

[Eldritch]

Yes and no. When we speak of tongues here we must understand it properly. It is not the gibberish those barbarian Calvinists spout but rather the Gift of Tongues is the ability to converse in any language.. Irish, Polish, Ancient Greek and the like without any prior knowledge of the mechanics of such languages.


Yes, I'm aware of the difference, I guess I should have been clearer about that.