The Power of Holy Relics

The mentally ill and those suspected of possible possession are blessed with the incorrupt relics of Saint Gerasimus of Kefalonia.

Russian Orthodox Church warns against DIY exorcisms

The Russian Orthodox Church has warned worshippers against performing exorcisms at home, saying that casting out demons should be left to members of the clergy.

Metropolitan Hilarion, who heads the church’s Department of External Relations, made the comments in reaction to a viral video showing parents attempting to expel a demon from their 10-year-old son with holy water and garlic in the Volgograd region. In the video, the parents can be seen taking turns trying to restrain the screaming boy and pushing his face into the couch.

“If questions arise as to whether demons should be driven out of this or that person, first of all, you need to turn to the priests. Any [personal] initiative in this is completely unacceptable,” Metropolitan Ilarion said during a news program on the state-run Rossia 24 broadcaster Saturday.

The state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited the abbess of the local monastery in the Volgograd region as saying that the 10-year-old in the exorcism video was “a normal, healthy boy who was ready to make contact, talk with a priest and confess.”

Metropolitan Hilarion condemned "the blatant discrepancy between the actions of these parents and the teachings and practice of the Church."

The Russian Orthodox Church strictly prohibits performing any type of exorcism on children and mental health disorders should never be confused with demonic possession, he said. 

Proper exorcisms usually performed by a priest only after being granted a special blessing from a bishop. During the ritual, a priest reads special prayers for casting out the demons, Metropolitan Ilarion explained.

At least two people have died as a result of exorcisms in Russia since 2011.

Source

That this needs to be actually said is alarming. Nobody should be studying or have anything to do with demonology or exorcism unless they have been given a blessing from the competent church authority. And those blessings are rarely given for good reasons, and then only to persons who have a legitimate need and who are known to be spiritually mature. For anyone else, dabbling in this field is the spiritual equivalent to playing with a loaded gun.

Bishops' upcoming exorcism conference responds to queries about rite

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- U.S. bishops are looking for a few good men to become exorcists.

In response to growing interest in the rite of exorcism and a shortage of trained exorcists nationwide, the bishops are sponsoring a two-day conference just prior to their 2010 fall general assembly Nov. 15-18 in Baltimore.

Interest in the Nov. 12-13 Conference on the Liturgical and Pastoral Practice of Exorcism proved great. When registration closed Nov. 1, 56 bishops and 66 priests had signed up.

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., chairman of the bishops' Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, told Catholic News Service he knows of perhaps five or six exorcists in the United States. They are overwhelmed with requests to perform the rite, he said.

"There's this small group of priests who say they get requests from all over the continental U.S.," Bishop Paprocki said.

"Actually, each diocese should have its own resource (person). It shouldn't be that this burden should be placed on a priest when his responsibility is for his own diocese," he said.

Under canon law -- Canon 1172 specifically -- only those priests who get permission from their bishops can perform an exorcism after proper training.

Read the rest here.

Catholic: The reformed rite of exorcism is inferior says priest

The Catholic Church has a gift that no other church, Christian or otherwise, can even imagine having — namely, a written exorcism ritual. This little book makes the Devil shake in his boots! As one who uses the ritual, I know how much of a tour de force it is against the power of evil. That being said, the exorcism ritual is not what it was in its glory days.

Although the Second Vatican Council authorized the revision of all liturgical books, it is hard to believe that the Council envisioned the radical changes made to such an important weapon of the Church militant as the 1614 exorcism ritual, known as De exorcizandis obsessis a dae­monio ("On Exorcising Those Obsessed by a Demon"). Its 1999 revision is titled De exorcismis et supplicationibus quibusdam ("On Exorcisms and Other Supplications"). Even the change in title signals a change in focus: The 1614 ritual is about freeing those obsessed by demons; the 1999 revision is about prayers and supplications. I am sure the Devil is happy to have the focus diverted from breaking his power to pious prayers.

I do not say this for effect. I say it because it is true. It appears as if someone took a knife to the old ritual and then, when all the pieces were cut up and lying in a pile, discarded some and cobbled the rest together in a new order and called it a "revision." It is no surprise, as Fr. Gabriele Amorth noted in his 1999 book An Exorcist Tells His Story, that the revision was conducted without the input of a single practicing exorcist.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Longnecker on the supernatural...

Via the Young Fogey Fr. Dwight Longnecker (a respected Anglican cleric who recently swam the Tiber) has an interesting post up on things supernatural. It is worth the read as are many of the comments.

As long time readers will be aware; this blog is pretty eclectic. One topic however that I have no recollection of ever broaching is the supernatural. By which I refer to the occult, witchcraft demonology ghosts etc. There is a reason for this. A long time ago, I got some advice from a Roman priest that struck me as very sound, and I have not changed my opinion.

Stay away from it. Do not play with Ouija boards, tarot cards , Dungeons and Dragons or similar games, seances etc. If it deals with the supernatural and it's not definitively Christian then give it a wide birth. Avoid the temptation to "study" the occult or demonology. Such should be undertaken only by those who are very strong and mature in their faith and then only for a compelling reason with the blessing and guidance of their spiritual father.

Many of us enjoy a good old fashioned scary movie. When younger I was rather partial to the vampire genre (Christoper Lee will always be THE vampire in my mind). Even here though, my feeling is that great discretion should be exercised, especially by the parents of young children. Sometimes the line between cheesy fiction and reality can be blurry. This is especially so when dealing with the supernatural. A lot of people have seen a particularly obscene film from the 1970's which has since become a cult (no pun) favorite, called The Exorcist. What many do not realize is that it was at least loosely based on real events that occurred in the 1950's in Maryland. This stuff is not a joke or a game.



Once again... if it deals with the supernatural, and it is not Christian then stay well clear of it.