Monthly Archives: August 2011

A merely human exorcist is always going to fallible in a thousand different ways. My stupidities would cripple me even more than I was crippled by a run-away-tourist-bus in Rome, as you see in the picture. That picture was taken in the mid-1990s by an exorcist, now deceased. The fellow I cut out of the picture was an exorcist in the making, whom I was helping to train. That was in Piazza Farnese, just off Campo dei Fiori…

Now, I should hope that there is no exorcist in training or any other exorcists who take what I present in these series without a critical eye. If not, I’d be tempted to give him a black eye. Jesus was an exorcist, and is, of course, the only exorcist still today. If anyone is ever successful in an exorcism, it is because Jesus is there. If an exorcist should pay attention to anyone, it is Jesus, not necessarily to any other exorcist. Jesus and the Church! Don’t make heroes of anyone except Jesus.

I must say that it is frustrating when priests over-romanticize exorcism, putting it in the too hard category to learn something about in a serious way, instead claiming breathlessly that all they need to know is what Father X said (because Father X is famous and they once assisted him). Exorcism is just a sacramental which needs a lot of common sense. The first thing to kill off common sense is breathlessly claiming an authority who is not Jesus or the Church, and this so as to rationalize some stupid thing one is doing.

The most pastoral, reasonable perspective one can have is not to have any special exciting bubbly insight. There’s no time for fluff in exorcism. No time for heroes. Satan will be sure to crush any exorcist if that exorcist has any supposed talents or tricks or insights or heroes. Depending on such things is to invite Satan to find fault with them. He will.

Now, I’m sure Father Amorth will forgive me for what I’m going to do now, for it makes for a great point not taking on any heroes without a grain of salt. I’m sure he would be the first to agree. I don’t think he wants to be anyone’s hero, but thre are countless budding exorcists who take him as a hero. I’m going to make just a little, gentle criticism of Father Amorth. The occasion for this is that Father Cameron, O.P., has included something Father Amorth wrote in the Meditation of the Day in the American liturgical publication called the “Magnificat” (401-402, on 30 August, 2011). Father Candido is cited. That caught my eye, since, for a time, he was my spiritual director way back in the 1980s. I’ve known Father Amorth for about that long as well.

As an aside, before getting to Father Amorth’s comment, I should say that Father Candido was a great exorcist. He was almost alone in those days as an exorcist, and was pretty much self-trained. That’s not good. He suffered a great deal because of that. He speaks of a mistake he made when just becoming an exorcist, which was to go and dig up a cursed object that had been buried under a certain tree. He found it and picked it up with contempt. Never hold the devil and his tools to be nothing more than a joke. Always be acting in the name of Jesus, and you will trounce Satan every time. Father Candido suffered terrible stomach pains after this incident for the longest time, beginning the very instant he picked up the object.

As another aside, I should say that Father Amoth, a canon lawyer, was a friend of Father Candido, and was trained as an exorcist by Father Candido. Father Candido may not have always been well understood by his student. Here’s what’s in the “Magnificat”, written by Father Amorth:

One day Father Candido was expelling a demon. Toward the end of the exorcism, he turned to the evil spirit and sarcastically told him, “Get out of here. The Lord has already prepared a nice, well-heated house for you!” At this, the demon answered, “You do not know anything! It wasn’t he [God] who made hell. It was us. He had not even thought about it.” Similarly, on another occasion, while I was questioning a demon to know whether he had contributed to the creation of hell, I received this answer: “All of us cooperated.”

First of all, what Father Candido has to say cannot be presumed to have been said without the context of the larger exorcism being that he was speaking such things in the name of the Lord Jesus. He even points to the Lord here, alluding to Matthew 25,41 – “Depart from me, cursed ones, into the eternal fire ever prepared (perfect passive participle) for the devil and his angels.” Father Candido is correct in his theology and his actions. The devil responded, however, with typical blasphemy and mistaken theology, claiming that before creation, God did not know that hell would have to be prepared for the angels who would fall. As always, there is enough truth in the devil’s answer to mislead someone. The only thing we can claim as truly our own is our sin, which is, however, not a creation of something, but an un-creation of what ought to be. The sin of the angels brings them profound frustration. This is of their own doing, but it is within the structure of creation wrought by God Himself, including God’s justice, including God’s ready condemnation of their arrogance. It is in this sense that God did, in fact, prepare hell.

Father Amorth is mistaken to think that what he has done on another occasion is similar, though it is not. Father Amorth questioned a demon to know something about the creation of hell and received a similar answer to what was said to Father Candido. Therefore, it has to be true, right? Wrong. Asking the father of lies anything other that what the Church asks us to ask (such as the name of the demon) is to ask for a lie. Such conversations are forbidden by the Church.

Father Amorth obviously felt it was alright to speak to the devil in such a fashion, since he thought his hero had done this. But Father Candido hadn’t done this. The devil’s answer to Father Amorth tried to make it seem as if Father Candido had done this, but such is a lie of the devil. Reporting this far and wide in the ”Magnificat” is not useful to budding exorcists who are wondering what they are or are not permitted to do in an exorcism. They should look to the Church, not to heroes to find out such things. I think I know Father Amorth well enough to say that he would instantly agree with this assessment.

Again, in this series of “tips” for exorcism I’m trying to go out of my way not to have any special insight. I’m trying relentlessly to point to the law and prudence of the Church. The last thing we need in the Church are ill-prepared exorcists.

On the one hand, teachers are helpful, if the student has a critical eye, looking always to the law and prudence of the Church. On the other hand, when it comes to exorcism, heroes are not helpful, except for Jesus!

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us!

From time to time you’ll see the terms “major” and “minor” thrown about by major or minor ecclesiastics regarding exorcism. There has been a great deal of confusion about this for the past 150 years or so. Clarity is a good thing when dealing with Satan. Some don’t want clarity because they want to break the law of the Church and just do what they want. This is common in the field of exorcism. Disobedience is exactly what is not needed for exorcism, but this is where one will find plenty of disobedience, real belligerence.

In summary: If it is a direct command to Satan in the name of Jesus, it is a true imprecatory exorcism for which an express mandate is needed from the local ordinary. If it is not a direct command to Satan in the name of Jesus, it is not an exorcism per se, though it can be called a deprecatory exorcism or intercessory exorcism, though that is not very precise language and only confuses the issues. One doesn’t need any permission to prayer to God for someone.

Those who want to muddy the waters almost always want to do true exorcisms even though they have no permission from the local Ordinary, even though they are not priests. These disobedient souls insist that only a “major”, “public”, “ancient”, “lengthy”, “printed and therefore official”, “Latin as opposed to ‘mere’ vernacular”, “‘serious’ as opposed to what happens in the prayer group” kind of exorcism is what is forbidden to them. They say that they can give direct commands to Satan, holding their hands over all and sundry, as long as, in their opinion, what they are doing is “minor”, “private”, “modern, even of their own composition”, “short”, “oral or at least unofficial in that it has not been put through a process of approval”, “vernacular”, “not so serious, just in a prayer group” kind of thing. This is ludicrous and plays right into the hands of Satan. I have seen such people become very bitter against Church authority, making themselves into saviors of the Church, granting themselves and authority over Satan that they cannot have, and which Satan knows they cannot have.

Feeding into this kind of thing were the sometimes given titles of “Major” or “Minor” exorcism, but this had nothing to do with permission given to all and sundry to use what was called “minor”. Far from it.

There is a historical reason for all this, with the rise of various christian sects which encouraged practicing displays of charismatic gifts, sects which were imitated by some Catholics. They claimed that their gifts included being able to exorcize demons apart from the authority of the Church. This was, admittedly, a terribly difficult time, when a vast majority of bishops absolutely would not appoint any exorcists. Extremely few were to do so after Vatican II. The charismatic crowd felt they therefore had the right to fill in the void left by such true lack of pastoral solicitude. They had the right to request help, but they did not have the right to usurp the authority of any (Arch)Bishop. Some were, in fact, nervous about their disobedience, and set out to rationalize their activity with the sort of word games mentioned above.

Satan is not impressed with word games. He’s better at them. He will trounce the disobedient.

In Latin, the only word that’s ever been used for being harassed by a fallen angel is ossessione. English speakers have a difficult time with this word, and pedantically transliterate os-sessione (ob-sessione) as obsession, and then, getting rid of the preposition “ob-”, we add “pos-” to get possession, as if that made things all the more serious.

Now, in Latin, “ossessione” has nothing to do with our post-Freudian psychologized perspective on obsessive-compulsive disorder. No. Instead, in Latin, “ossessione” refers to being held hostage, to being under siege. It is quite an exact fit, that. As in the picture of Massada under siege by the Romans, where those inside the walled fortress were safe and self-willed, as least for a while, just so is the soul of the person who is under attack from a fallen angel. They have their free will intact, and cannot be forced to agree to what Satan is doing against them. Of course, such souls, like those in Massada, are under a great deal of pressure. Some, like those at Massada, commit suicide if they are without help, or if they are treated like a nuisance. Not good. Always be good and kind, ever so gentle with those vulnerable people who have come to you for help, who are often on their way to committing suicide, but decided to come see you first. Think long and hard on that. See things from their perspective.

It is very true, of course, that many of those who will ask for your help are merely psychologically obsessed with the devil, that is, even though Satan has never once bothered them, they are convinced that he is after them all the time and in every way. These people do not need an exorcist for exorcism, but it would be good to give them words of encouragement and to know how to send them on their way for the help they need. But, again, you may be the last stop also for them before they go off and commit suicide. Always be gentle with such vulnerable people who come to you for help. It’s good to know yourself, what bothers you. For instance, I know that I dislike it when people say they are harassed by the devil, but are saying that only to make themselves seem important, to get attention for themselves. They are plenty of such people. But, again, always be good and kind. This disarms even such people as this.

At any rate, the Church has never admitted of various categories of harassment by the devil. Instead, it just has to be serious enough whereby you judge that such a case is appropriately treated by exorcism. Forget about saying that this or that person is merely obsessed with true harassment, while this or that other person is truly possessed, so that only the later will gain the benefit of the sacramental of exorcism. The definitions of words start to get fuzzy, which is not helpful. One’s person spiritual harassment may be a thousand times worse for his soul than another person’s unwilling walk on the ceiling because that’s what Satan has him do. The latter activity gets the attention of film makers and some less experienced exorcists. Whatever. Don’t leave the others out of your purview. If you think that this makes it harder for you, that you’ll all of a sudden be under pressure to use prudential judgement after looking much more closely at the details of the case, well, you’re right. That’s part of your mandate from the bishop. Don’t forget that Christ only expects what is possible. Don’t forget that Christ chose us, fallen human beings. He knows more than we do just how inept we are for everything, not only exorcism, but offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, acting in Persona Christi.

Some exorcists wrongly set out on some kind of esoteric study of levels of harassment by this or that devil, so that they have everything categorized and under control… in their own minds. Now they are safe and secure because they have everything figured out! As if Satan were obedient to such rules of conduct! Not! Sure, Satan will act in this way if the priest is so arrogant as to think he is on top of the situation. And then Satan will break the rules he tricked the priest into making, so that he will no longer be noticed by the exorcist, for what is happening will be outside of the rules he so stupidly made. Satan is not a pet dog of the exorcist. There. I said it. It had to be said.

We’ll have to do more posts on terminology, such as about exorcisms which are called major or minor, and so on. I’m thinking there are going to be some hundreds of posts to this series.