Article from the Washington Post.
As faith recedes, superstition -- and other things -- take its place.
One of the recruits is the Rev. Wieslaw Jankowski, a priest with the Institute for Studies on the Family, a counseling center outside Warsaw. He said priests at the institute realized they needed an exorcist on staff after encountering an increase in people plagued by evil.Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said.
"This is a service which is sorely needed," said Jankowski, who holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. "The number of people who need help is intensifying right now."
If you read much on the history of the Church, you will find that when Europe and the near East were first converted, one of the first orders of business for the evangelists was a duel in which the local religion's idols were overthrown -- for instance, the Irish had to be spiritually liberated from Crom Cruach. Today, of course, these stories are treated like mere colorful folklore, or symbolic stories, or Christian propaganda against the supposedly benevolent "old religions". As Europe reverts to paganism -- or to atheism that is itself a form of paganism, with man himself as the idol -- it can only be expected that the Church will have to return to first principles. It will need to re-evangelize, throw down idols, and cast out demons.
We in the West live in a garden. One need only look beyond the garden's walls to see the wilderness beyond. But if we do not tend the garden, then the garden goes wild and becomes like the wilderness. We should not be surprised to see lions and tigers and bears in the garden if we have let it go wild, even if we have spent out whole lives in the garden and never experienced a lion, a tiger, or a bear, except in books. If a book sits on a shelf long enough, we often believe its contents to be mere folklore, even when the book's authors were trying to write history.
There is no institution on Earth with a longer institutional memory than the Catholic church. Even when I did not believe in Christ, I, as a student of history, venerated the Church for that reason. It is more ancient than anything we know.
So if there are strange occurences in your life, or you feel the unmistakable reptilian touch of evil, or see something in the garden that really oughtn't to be there, it might pay to get one of those old books off the shelf and see if the founders of the garden had any advice on how to treat it.
And we need to remember that if we abandon the faith, we leave ourselves open to the idols of men, and to all the ills that the faith treats.
UPDATE: I wasn't aware there was a Pagan blogosphere, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me -- there are blogs for everything. At any rate, Jason Pitzl-Waters at The Wild Hunt, has weighed in on the Post article with a post entitled "Pagans Need Exorcisms". It is always a little amusing to me that professed non-Catholics still feel obliged to weigh in on what the Catholic church is doing. He seems a little bit aggrieved (or perhaps I'm just reading that into it) that the Church might actually be out there offering exorcism:
"Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said."In other words, Pagans need exorcisms!
Actually, yes -- that is precisely what the Church believes, and always has believed. For example, here is a passage from the 1964 edition of the Rituale Romanum from the sacrament of Baptism:
P (to each): N., what are you asking of God's Church?Sponsors: Faith.
P (to each): What does faith hold out to you?
Sponsors: Everlasting life.
2. P (to each): If, then, you wish to inherit everlasting life, keep the commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."
{The next ceremony and all the following exorcisms in the rite are designed to free the subject from the power of Satan, who has this power in view of original sin. The signification is accomplished by an exhaling of breath, as to blow away something, or figuratively, the act of dispelling the evil spirit.}
3. The priest thrice breathes softly in the face of the child (each one singly), and follows up the gesture with these words:
Depart from him (her), unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.
{By the cross Christ takes possession of the mind and heart of the child, fitting him to become a temple of the Blessed Trinity, and imposing on him the obligation of belief and observance of the commandments. The sign of the cross used here and throughout the rite is indicative of the essential fact that the sacrament has its efficacy from the paschal sacrifice of Jesus.}
4. With his thumb the priest traces the sign of the cross on the brow and on the breast of the child, saying (to each):
Receive the sign of the cross on your brow and on your heart. Put your whole trust in the heavenly teachings. And lead a life that will truly fit you to be a dwelling place for God.
The Church assumes that any person not yet baptized may, indeed, be possessed, so the ritual historically proceeded from that assumption.
Now, certainly, the Church does not believe that demonic possession is common, or that anyone not baptized is out of necessity possessed, but it does not ignore the fact that the person may, indeed, be possessed -- even if that person is an infant.
This may seem like a strange notion, but there is a good deal of theology behind it. Catholics believe in Original Sin, transmitted through each of our parents from Adam and Eve, and believe that Baptism, made effective through Christ's death on the Cross, removes that original sin. Baptism is a way of reclaiming a person from sin. We start from a default position of "suffering from the consequences of original sin, and therefore subject to death." If we are in the power of sin to begin with, well, at that point, anything is possible.
The ritual of Baptism traditionally included the exorcism just to make sure.
Now I do not believe that Demonic possession is common, even among professed Pagans. Or even among professed Satanists. But possession is not unheard of, and if the exorcists say they are in demand, and that demand, as a trend, is growing, then I believe them.