The devilish church practice of exorcism
Independent. UK
17 January 2008
Last year, I met a drawn, defeated 14-year old girl who had been possessed by Satan, until he and his Armies of Evil were tortured out of her.
That is how her priest explained it to me. That is how she explained it to me.
They spoke as if it was all as obvious as her scars. Clarice was a tiny girl wrapped in a big white woollen cardigan. In a church in the middle of Congo's carnage she explained how she had chosen to let the demons enter her when she was twelve.
Since then, Satan had forced her to make her mother fall, breaking her leg.
Satan had forced her to jinx her father, making it impossible for him to get a job. Satan had forced her to kill her little sister, by giving her a deadly fever.
Her Pentecostalist priest, Papa Enoch Boonga, told me with pride how he had driven the demons out. They starved Clarice for four days, whipped her and threatened to burn her, until finally she "confessed."
Then they forced her to admit to everything she had done, and performed a long exorcism ceremony. They only believed it was working when her little body began to judder and howl and curse. I ask Clarice quietly if she really believed she had done all these things. "Yes," she said. "I do." And so we sigh lazily: another example of African primitivism. But no. Exorcism, even of children, is being aggressively promoted today by one of the most powerful men in the Western world, Pope Benedict XVI, in only slightly watered-down form. Presidents and Prime Ministers fawn over this man.
His every word is reported with the respect we are required to show to "religion", lest we are accused of bigotry.And yet he is openly commanding an army of exorcists to tell horrifically disturbed and mentally ill people that demons and devils are within them – because they invited evil in.
This December, Father Gabriele Amorth, official exorcist of the Rome Diocese, and friend of the "Holy Father", announced that the Pope will soon undertake a new campaign to unleash a fresh batch of 400 exorcists on the world, in addition to the thousands already in operation. "Thank God," he said, "we have a Pope who has decided to confront the devil head-on." (One representative of this evil, he added, is Harry Potter.)
The Catholic Church has officially denied having such a plan – but they admit the Church has had official exorcism rites since 1614, and that bishops and priests are encouraged to act on them today "where appropriate."
In practice, official Catholic exorcisms have been dramatically increasing since the mid-1970s, according to Michael W. Cuneo, a sociologist at Fordham University in New York who conducted a four-year study into this topic.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/johann_hari/article3345137.ece
Independent. UK
17 January 2008
Last year, I met a drawn, defeated 14-year old girl who had been possessed by Satan, until he and his Armies of Evil were tortured out of her.
That is how her priest explained it to me. That is how she explained it to me.
They spoke as if it was all as obvious as her scars. Clarice was a tiny girl wrapped in a big white woollen cardigan. In a church in the middle of Congo's carnage she explained how she had chosen to let the demons enter her when she was twelve.
Since then, Satan had forced her to make her mother fall, breaking her leg.
Satan had forced her to jinx her father, making it impossible for him to get a job. Satan had forced her to kill her little sister, by giving her a deadly fever.
Her Pentecostalist priest, Papa Enoch Boonga, told me with pride how he had driven the demons out. They starved Clarice for four days, whipped her and threatened to burn her, until finally she "confessed."
Then they forced her to admit to everything she had done, and performed a long exorcism ceremony. They only believed it was working when her little body began to judder and howl and curse. I ask Clarice quietly if she really believed she had done all these things. "Yes," she said. "I do." And so we sigh lazily: another example of African primitivism. But no. Exorcism, even of children, is being aggressively promoted today by one of the most powerful men in the Western world, Pope Benedict XVI, in only slightly watered-down form. Presidents and Prime Ministers fawn over this man.
His every word is reported with the respect we are required to show to "religion", lest we are accused of bigotry.And yet he is openly commanding an army of exorcists to tell horrifically disturbed and mentally ill people that demons and devils are within them – because they invited evil in.
This December, Father Gabriele Amorth, official exorcist of the Rome Diocese, and friend of the "Holy Father", announced that the Pope will soon undertake a new campaign to unleash a fresh batch of 400 exorcists on the world, in addition to the thousands already in operation. "Thank God," he said, "we have a Pope who has decided to confront the devil head-on." (One representative of this evil, he added, is Harry Potter.)
The Catholic Church has officially denied having such a plan – but they admit the Church has had official exorcism rites since 1614, and that bishops and priests are encouraged to act on them today "where appropriate."
In practice, official Catholic exorcisms have been dramatically increasing since the mid-1970s, according to Michael W. Cuneo, a sociologist at Fordham University in New York who conducted a four-year study into this topic.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/johann_hari/article3345137.ece
