Exorcism coming back in fashion among Catholic leaders

[Cain]

First of all, in the USA:

There are only a handful of priests in the country trained as exorcists, but they say they are overwhelmed with requests from people who fear they are possessed by the Devil.

Now, American bishops are holding a conference on Friday and Saturday to prepare more priests and bishops to respond to the demand. The purpose is not necessarily to revive the practice, the organizers say, but to help Catholic clergy members learn how to distinguish who really needs an exorcism from who really needs a psychiatrist, or perhaps some pastoral care.

"Not everyone who thinks they need an exorcism actually does need one," said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., who organized the conference. "It's only used in those cases where the Devil is involved in an extraordinary sort of way in terms of actually being in possession of the person.

"But it's rare, it's extraordinary, so the use of exorcism is also rare and extraordinary," he said. "But we have to be prepared."

The closed-door conference is being held in Baltimore before the annual fall meeting of the nation's bishops. Some Catholic commentators said they were puzzled why the bishops would bother with exorcisms in a year when they are facing a full plate of crises — from parish and school closings, to polls showing the loss of one of every three white baptized members, to the sexual abuse scandal flaring up again.

But to R. Scott Appleby, a professor of American Catholic history at the University of Notre Dame, the bishops' timing makes perfect sense.

"What they're trying to do in restoring exorcisms," said Dr. Appleby, a longtime observer of the bishops, "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.' "

Pope Benedict XVI has emphasized a return to traditional rituals and practices, and some observers said the bishops' interest in exorcism was consistent with the direction set by the pope.

And in Poland:

The national congress comes as part of a policy by Poland's Catholic Church to lift the veil on what was once a secretive practice. Frustrated by the Hollywood image of cross-wielding exorcists engaged in dramatic conflicts with demons the Church intends to show the complicated and often more mundane world of exorcism.

[...]

"Our role is mainly to say prayers and psalms," Father Andrzej Grefkowicz told the press conference. Another priest, Aleksander Posacki, said that too many myths surround exorcisms, which in fact are based on fundamental church rules.

Congress participants argued that demonology lessons should be treated more seriously in seminaries and that ordinary people, too, would benefit from knowing more about exorcisms. During the congress, the priests discussed the main causes of possession by demons such as occult, esoteric beliefs like magic, eastern meditation and homeopathy.

According to Richard Bartholomew:

In 2009, Grefkowicz participated in a conference on "Occultism, Magic, Spiritism: Road to Torment and Enslavement", held at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University and organised by the pastoral ministry there (known as "Kaganek"); other speakers were Fr. Aleksander Posacki SJ, Leszek Dokowicz, Robert Tekieli, and Fr. Dominik Chmielewski. According to a blurb accessed by Google translate, Posacki warned against the dangers of "intellectual arrogance", defined as reasoning in opposition to church teaching; Tekieli attacked New Age ideas (according to this article, Tekieli believes that Harry Potter promotes Tai Chi "Mind Control"); Dokowicz denounced the "Satanic symbolism" of techno music; and Chmielewski warned of the occult aspect to martial arts, based on his own experience as a martial arts instructor (more on that here).

Grefkowicz is also listed as a member of a group called Krajowego Zespołu Koordynatorów (KZK, the "National Team Coordinators"), headed by Bishop Bronislaw Dembowski. This is a Catholic Charismatic Renewal group, and as such influenced by trends in neo-Pentecostalism

So basically the Vatican is purposefully retarding itself even further, to edge out other retarded Christian traditions and improve their membership numbers.

[Dysnomia]

Wonderful.. Now even more little boys and girls will be forever traumatized by being 'exorsized' when they're 'different' or 'hard to handle'.

[Jasper]

Why not?  This is what the free market demands.  Give the people what they want.

All the better if they don't want their inner demons.  Those kins of things are best second-hand anyway.