Exorcists are overwhelmed by requests to evaluate claims of possession.

As of late 2008 the two most requested articles at our website were “The Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare” (Dec. 1994) by Bobby Jindal and “A Case of Demonic Possession” (Mar. 2008) by Dr. Richard E. Gal­lagher. Both articles are real-life accounts of their authors’ experiences with supernatural phenomena; Jin­dal’s case involves untrained college students and Dr. Gallagher’s highly trained professionals. As we wrote in a New Oxford Note in our November 2008 issue, “One is, at first blush, inclined to dismiss the popularity of these two articles” as being the result of “a type of voyeuristic curiosity.” But upon further consideration, we wrote, “we see in the enduring popularity of these articles a more reaching need.” In a word, “Catholics have an intense hunger for proper catechesis on how to ‘fight the good fight.’”

And so we published more articles on exorcism, the nature of evil, and related topics, each of which was well received, including “Peering Into the Abyss” (Oct. 2008) and “Perfect Possession” (May 2009) by Maria Hsia Chang, “The Primeval Struggle” (Jul.-Aug. 2009) by Terence J. Hughes, “Why Is There Evil in the World?” (Dec. 2009) by Arthur C. Sippo, and Fr. Thomas J. Eute­neuer’s six-part Líbera Nos a Malo column series, which ran from December 2009 to June 2010. All this time we were virtually alone in identifying and trying to counteract the Church-wide silence on the topic of demonic evil and its presence in our world. No longer. Finally, someone of rank in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has also identified and is trying to address this “more reaching need.” That someone is Bishop Thomas Pap­rocki of Springfield, Illinois, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance. Bishop Paprocki sponsored the Conference on the Liturgical and Pastoral Practice of Exorcism, which took place in Baltimore on November 12-13, just prior to the U.S. bishops’ annual fall meeting.

Only a tiny number of American priests are trained in the rite of exorcism — reportedly only five or six nationwide — and these few have been overwhelmed by requests to evaluate claims of possession. Exorcism training falls under the jurisdiction of Bishop Paprocki’s canonical affairs committee, which he says has been receiving increasing numbers of inquiries from priests about the rite. Paprocki explained that the conference was organized primarily to provide guidance for bishops because, according to canon law (specifically can. 1172), exorcisms cannot be performed without the express permission of the local ordinary. The two-day conference consisted entirely of closed-door sessions — one of which was open only to bishops — that touched on the spiritual, theological, and practical dimensions of the rite. Speakers included Daniel Cardinal Di Nardo, archbishop of Houston-Galveston; Fr. Dennis McManus, assistant to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan; and Fr. Jeffrey Grob, associate vicar for canonical services and the official exorcist of the Archdiocese of Chicago. At the close of the registration period, sixty-six priests and fifty-six bishops had signed up. It is not Bishop Paprocki’s intention to regularize the use of exorcisms in the life of the Church. Demonic possession is “rare, it’s extraordinary,” he told The New York Times (Nov. 12), “so the use of exorcism is also rare and extraordinary.” But, he maintained, “we have to be prepared.” Preparation is the first step toward victory. The goal, said Bishop Pap­rocki, is to have a priest in each diocese who, at the very least, can competently screen requests for exorcisms.

Due to its closed-door policy, there is no information available to the public about the goings-on at the conference. The organizers and participants surely were wary of the dual threats of the sensationalism that surrounds the topic of exorcism and the ridicule they might receive not only from the secular media, which associates the rite with spinning heads and pea-soup vomit, but from some members of the Church who see exorcism as a relic from an unenlightened, superstitious era they’d prefer to forget. Leave it to good ol’ Fr. Richard Mc­Bri­en to pan the conference a full four monthsbefore it took place. In a July 12 column in the National Catholic Reporter he dismissed the notion of a conference to educate priests and bishops on the nature of exorcism as “embarrassingly dumb” in this day and age. Fr. McBrien wasn’t alone in his embarrassment over one of the Church’s most ancient sacramentals: Fr. Richard Vega, president of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils (a liberal group that has fostered an adversarial relationship with the USCCB), told the Times that when he first heard about the conference, “My immediate reaction was to say, why?” He claims that in his capacity as president of the priests’ council he has never heard of any request for exorcisms. “This is another of those trappings we’ve pulled out of the past,” he concluded.

But according to R. Scott Appleby, professor of American Catholic history at Notre Dame, the timing of the conference makes perfect sense. “What they’re trying to do,” he told the Times, “is to strengthen and enhance what seems to be lost in the church, which is the sense that the church is not like any other institution. It is supernatural, and the key players in that are the hierarchy and the priests who can be given the faculties of exorcism. It’s a strategy for saying: ‘We are not the Federal Reserve, and we are not the World Council of Churches. We deal with angels and demons.’” In that sense the conference is consistent with Pope Benedict XVI’s program of restoring traditional practices to the modern Church, and ultimately of re-establishing the Church’s unique identity and clarifying her unique mission in the world.

“For the longest time, we in the United States may not have been as much attuned to some of the spiritual aspects of evil because we have become so attached to what would be either physical or psychological explanations for certain phenomena,” Cardinal Di Nardo told the Associated Press (Nov. 12). “We may have forgotten that there is a spiritual dimension to people.”

Spiritual warfare is real, and as the eminent Fr. John Hardon, S.J., once said, “Whether we like it or not, whether people even believe it or not, we are all conscripted. And, we better know the enemy.” Knowledge of the Enemy — nay, mere belief in the reality of the Enemy — is something the Church has let slip through her fingers in recent decades. Could the Conference on the Liturgical and Pastoral Practice of Exorcism signal a renewed recognition of our role and responsibilities as the Church Militant? Let’s pray that this is the case.

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/note.jsp?did=0111-notes-soldiers January/February 2011