****** EXORCISM ******

An Article on Exorcism

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The dark shadows of skyscrapers are falling across New York as an elderly white-haired priest leaves the reassuring comfort of his home and heads through the streets towards the apartment block where the others are waiting. He walks quite slowly, carrying a small black case filled with the essential paraphernalia of the ritual he is about to perform. The room has been prepared to his precise instructions: cleaned, sprinkled with holy water, and stripped of movable objects. Of those now gathered inside, only the priest - his face drawn solemn - has any idea what to expect. Or rather, who to expect. After 30 years as an exorcist, Father Malachi Martin has learned to recognize the nature of the demons he pursues. They may be ingenious or stupid, coarse or charming, brazen or craven. Hell, it seems, is no place for stereotypes. "I need to know who they are," the Irish-born priest says softly. "I need their names - and their stories." He speaks of the demons in a tone of polite disgust, as a country clergyman might about village mobs who have thrown a brick through the stained glass windows. "They are a pestilence", says Father Martin. "They have to be countered and brought under control. People are possessed in the way that dogs are infested." This is New York in the hot summer of 1996. The place is pumping. Rollerbladers in Spandex suits skim through the pathways of Central Park, the hip cafes of Soho and Chelsea are packed with the downtown arts crowd. Can scaly-winged demons really be at large in the city? "Satanism is all around us," says Father Martin gently. "We deny it at our peril. I could point out places only minutes from here where black masses are being celebrated. I know of cases of human sacrifice - the sacrifice of babies. I know the peeople who are doing these things."

In the apartment, the atmosphere is close and sickly. Sometimes, says Father Martin, the demons can make the air freeze or turn it hot and fetid. No one here knows how long this will take. An exorcism can last for hours, or even days. The Bible says: "Only by prayer and fasting shall these devils be cast out." Until it is over, the priest and his helpers must go without food or sleep. Although Father Martin is a slender man of 75, and in delicate health, he performs at least one of these ceremonies a month. "I have never been busier," sighs the man who visited the cell of David Berkowitz - the serial killer known as Son of Sam - to hear him confess to being a Satanist. The Catholic Church's service of exorcism dates back hundreds of years to a time when demonic possession was held responsible for many conditions now easily explained by psychiatry. Although used less frequently or forcibly than in medieval times, the procedure has remained essentially the same. The possessed man or woman - who must have consented to the exorcism - is made to kneel in the middle of the room. Attending the priest are at least six laymen, usually selected more for their physical prowess than for their theological knowledge. "Exorcism can be extremely violent," says Father Martin. "It is often disturbing, and always exhausting. I have seen objects hurled around rooms by the powers of evil. I have smelled the breath of Satan and heard the demon's voices, - cold, scratchy, dead voices carrying messages of hatred. I've watched men withering, screaming, vomiting, defecating, as we fought for their souls."

Like a mongoose playing a cobra, the priest will attempt to work the demon into a position first of disadvantage, then of vulnerability. He begins by demanding, with the authority of prayer, to know its name. The demons, say Father Martin, are not always willing to play this game. They lay silent, sullen and hidden. When this happens, the exorcist must provoke them into breaking cover. "You have to tease them out," he says. "The demon does not physically inhabit the body; it possesses the person's will. We have to compel the thing to reveal itself and its purpose. 'It can be slow and difficult, with the demon taunting, scorning, abusing you - speaking through the mouth of the possessed, but not in his or her Voice. In the end, though, it does come out - and when that happens you experience the sensation we call 'presence'. At that moment you know you are in the company of the purest evil. I have felt the claws of invisible animals tearing at my face. I have been knocked off my feet, blinded and winded. But it is then, when you've sensed the 'presence', that the real attack on the demon can begin." The theory of exorcism holds that once the demon has been drawn out of the body it can be vanquished by the power of prayer. "The whole nature of the thing changes," says Father Martin. "The demon knows its losing. Instead of screaming abuse, it begins to plead for mercy. it says it's sorry, it begs to be spared. It promises to go home. But the Bible says that only on the last day can the followers of Satan return to Hell. "Where they go, I don't know. We do not destroy them, we drive them out. Sometimes I encounter the same ones again. As the demon disappears, the person it has possessed is 'cleared', and a wondrous wave of peace comes over them."

Malachi Martin was born in Kerry, in the west of Ireland, one of nine children of a gynecologist. Like his three brothers, he had a vocation for the priesthood, and at 18 joined the Jesuits. Ambitious, outgoing and scholarly, he won a place as a professor of ancient scriptures at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. In 1958 Father Martin traveled to Cairo with a Jesuit mission to study a newly discovered collection of Hebrew writings from the time of Abraham. The trip had profound consequences. "I was asked to help with the exorcism of an Egyptian youth who had got involved in Satanism to the extent of participating in the sacrifice of his own sister. What I saw convinced me forever of the power of evil - and of the need to fight it." Six years later he left the Jesuits and moved to the United States, aiming to follow the gospels and pursue a private writing career. "I had the Pope's blessing," he says. "He told me: 'America is the biggest battleground. There is a war of the spirit going on'." In New York, Father Martin's most immediate battle was to keep himself clothed and fed. He drove a taxi and sold doughnuts. Later came book contracts and the help of a well-to-do New York family who provided him with a large apartment near Park Avenue. Anxious to involve himself more closely in church work, he began to look once more at exorcism. "The possessed have almost invariably been involved with Satanism," he says. "They are not innocents selected at random by passing demons. Most have made a deal with the Devil. Only later do they become aware of the Devil's asking price."

Satanism, he says, is far more widespread than is usually imagined. "The cruelty of these practices puts them beyond the civilized pale. I am speaking of human sacrifice, cannibalism and the sexual abuse of children. Not in far away countries long ago, but right here, now, in New York." The symptoms of possession, Father Martin says, are often confused with mental illness." "Science spent a lot of time trying to prove that these people were, so to speak, loonies," he says. "Now most of my cases are referred to me by psychiatrists." Victims tend to undergo a startling change of personality. They may become unpredictable, violent, and treacherous. They humiliate their families, plot against their friends, lie to their colleagues. "They have become alien entities. They have surrendered their wills." The most extreme state is "perfect possession," when the demon has taken complete control. "The perfectly possessed person is totally lost. There is nothing I can do," says Father Martin.

"The peculiar thing is that these people are usually highly sophisticated, and the last thing you would suspect is that they were in league with the Devil. But there is always something about them. It may be a look in their eyes, a tone in their voice, a sense of coldness, of contempt. Something inhuman. When you encounter it, you know you have met the true enemy. "Father Martin cites David Berkowitz, the 1970's New York serial killer, as a classic case of perfect possession. "I met him in his cell, at his request," says Father Martin. "He confessed that he had been, for many years, a member of a Satanic coven. This was the source of his evil." The encounter with Berkowitz was light relief compared to the time when he believed he came face-to-face with Satan himself. "I was standing on a stool in my apartment, reaching for a book and I saw him. He was crouched on the floor looking at me. His body was like a muscular pit bull terrier, but the face was recognizably human, "It was the Devil's face." I recognized the eyes, they were eyes of the coldest, deadliest hatred. When the Devil sprang at me, I fell from my stool and broke my shoulder, but I felt fortunate. I had seen Satan and I had lived." Father Martin charges nothing for his services. He acts only with the permission from his bishop, when all medical options have been exhausted. After two heart attacks he wonders how long he can go on. "Every exorcism takes something out of you that cannot be put back," he says. "The demon goes, but it carries a part of you away with it. A little of the exorcist dies each time. It's a mental fight against a powerful, dangerous enemy."

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Number: 545 Date: 22-May-96 Type: U Code:

ROME'S EXORCIST SCORES LAX PRACTICE

VATICAN (CWN) -- Calling upon the Catholic hierarchy to make its own "mea culpa," the official exorcist for the diocese of Rome said that diabolical possession can be the result of "sins of omission" on the part of Church authorities.

In an article published by the Italian monthly 30 Days, Father Garbriele Amorth said that he had seen a steady increase in the number of cases of suspected diabolical possession during the past ten years. "If esoteric practices and Satanic sects are multiplying," he said, "that is also the fault of the hierarchy."

The explosion of demonic activity, he said, reflects a growing failure to recognize the existence of evil itself. "Some bishops themselves do not believe in the existence of the Devil," he lamented.

As tangible evidence of that attitude, the exorcist pointed out that the Church has still not published a new ritual for exorcism. While virtually every other ritual has been renewed since Vatican II, and while Orthodox and Protestant churches have developed a keen interest in spiritual warfare, the Catholic Church has not updated its ritual since 1614, he complained. Early drafts of a new ritual reveal that the authors themselves do not understand the problem, he added.

Father Amorth concluded: "The Devil is not an impersonal entity; he is not the name which psychoanalysts give to abstract evil in our society; he is a concrete person."

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Vatican issues first new exorcism ritual since 1614

Rites seeks to bring church up to date with science

In this story:

Rules urge consultations with physicians

Actual formula largely unchanged

Number of exorcisms performed unclear

Related stories and sites

January 26, 1999

Web posted at: 8:39 p.m. EST (0139 GMT)

VATICAN CITY (CNN) -- Blaming Satan for many of today's ills, the Vatican on Tuesday unveiled updated exorcism rules, along with a caution not to mistake psychiatric problems for diabolic possession.

The Vatican's first updated ritual for exorcism since 1614 tries to bring the church up to date with modern science and, for the first time, urges church-approved exorcists to consult modern medicine where needed. However, officials made clear at a news conference that the traditional belief in the devil was not optional for today's Roman Catholics.

"The existence of the devil isn't an opinion, something to take or leave as you wish," said Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, a Vatican official, adding that belief in Satan is a tenet of Catholic faith.

The devil "deceives men, making them believe that you find happiness in money, in power, in carnal desire," Medina said in presenting the revised rules. "He fools men by persuading them that they do not need God and that they are self-sufficient."

Rules urge consultations with physicians

Except for some new formulas for priests, authorized by bishops, to read during exorcisms, the text is essentially unchanged. Instead the novelty appears largely in the cautions for determining if exorcism is warranted.

"The exorcist will decide with prudence" after consulting with spiritual experts and "if considered opportune, with experts in medical and psychiatric science," the new rules stress.

"First of all, he must not assume that those who are suffering from some illness, particularly psychological, are vexed by the demon," the guide says.

It says signs that a person is under the influence of the devil include speaking unknown languages and having physical strength disproportionate to a person's age or body.

The ritual of exorcism itself, outlined in detail in the booklet, includes prayers, the blessing and sprinkling of holy water, the laying of hands on the possessed and making the sign of the cross. It continues with appeals to Christ, the Holy Spirit and the saints of the church.

Actual formula largely unchanged

Then, the actual formula of exorcism begins.

The first is the "imploring formula," in which the evils of the devil are listed and God is entreated to free the possessed.

The second, more intense formula, is the "imperative formula" in which the devil is ordered to leave the possessed.

The imperative formula begins: "I order you, Satan ..." It then goes on to denounce Satan as "prince of the world" and "enemy of human salvation." It ends: "Therefore, Go Back, Satan."

The new text, an 84-page Latin-language book known as the Roman Ritual, is not yet available in other languages, but Cardinal Estevez said that was not a problem.

"The new manual comes into effect today in its Latin version," he said. "An exorcist can use the Latin version tonight if he wants because the devil understands Latin."

Number of exorcisms performed unclear

Vatican officials said they had no figures on how many exorcisms are performed, but major dioceses have their own exorcists. Estevez said he believed the number of true possessions today was "not that great, rather scarce," but that the amount of evil in the world left no doubt the devil was on the job.

Pope John Paul II has made it clear several times in his 20- year papacy that he believes in the existence of the devil. During a trip to Germany in 1987, the pope said the horrors of World War II, including the Nazi death camps, were proof that the devil was still at work.

The pope himself once performed an exorcism during his papacy, according to the memoirs of Cardinal Jacques Martin, the former prefect of the pontifical household.

Quoting the late cardinal's book, "My Six Popes," the Italian news agency ANSA said John Paul carried out the rite in 1982, driving out the devil from a woman who was brought to him, writhing on the ground.

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Number: 7775 Date: 04-Jun-98 Type: U Code:

Exorcist says Pope's teaching shows importance

VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- When Pope John Paul II spoke of the exorcisms that Jesus performed during his earthly life, his statements were "an implicit advertisement for the clergy," according to a noted Italian exorcist.

Don Gabriele Amorth, interviewed the Italian daily Avvenire today, said that the Pope's remarks at a Wednesday audience noted that in recent centuries "excorcisms have been almost completely abandoned by the Church." As a result, he continued, priests and even bishops are unacquainted with the work of exorcism, and some of them even reject it. Some theologians, he observed, even argue that Christ's exorcisms, as reported in the Gospels, were not real events but merely dramatic descriptions of the fight against evil.

Father Amorth said that the prayer of exorcism was widespread among Christians prior to the 4th century, when it was formally incorporated in the Latin rite. The prayer of exorcism is still used in Baptism, he pointed out. And the clergy should remain active in the fight against the devil, he said, quoting the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that Satan would remain active "until the end of the world."