The Devil doesn’t like Latin.
That is one of the first things I learnt from Father Gabriele Amorth, long
known as Rome’s chief exorcist, even though that has never exactly been his
formal title. Perhaps Rome’s chattiest exorcist is the more apt title. Now
past the age of 80, Amorth has dedicated the last decades of his life to
regaining for exorcism a measure of respectability.
Despite his advancing age, he continues to perform the rite several times a
week at his office in Rome. Scores of people seek him out. He prefers to use
Latin when he conducts exorcisms, he says, because it is most effective in
challenging the Devil.
A little over a decade ago, Amorth founded the International Association of
Exorcists, which holds a secret exorcists’ convention in Italy every two
years. He is the group’s president emeritus. On alternate years, the
national association of exorcists meets, also with Amorth in attendance.
Father Amorth has had a hand in recruiting, training, or inspiring many of
today’s exorcists. In Italy the number of exorcists has, remarkably, grown
tenfold in the last decade, by Amorth’s count. As he slows his pace ever so
slightly – old age and the rigours of a strenuous vocation catching up to
him – he has overseen a new generation of exorcists and helped to fuel a
global renaissance of the ritual. Devil detox these days is something of a
growth industry: in a world awash in catastrophe and unspeakable suffering,
many people feel increasingly compelled to see evil in concrete and
personified – not to mention simplified – forms, and to find a way to banish
the bad.
But how is evil defined and conceptualised? Is evil, as many people believe,
merely the absence of good – privatio boni – a metaphysical concept? Or is
evil a force, a physical entity, that acts? Is evil personal or impersonal?
Is the Devil a symbol or something concrete and real? It is this latter view
of evil that is held by many priests and other Catholics for whom exorcism
is an acceptable practice, because if evil is an active force, there must be
a remedy, a way to combat it.
Many critics, however, see the Church’s willingness to use exorcisms at all as
a perilous crutch. It allows people to take flight from personal
responsibility and constitutes not just a wilful ignorance of serious mental
illness but also, potentially, an exacerbation of such illness.
Where psychiatry and therapy require a person to look within to solve his or
her problems, exorcism and blaming the Devil allows a person to escape
introspection and instead discern only external causes for problems. But
Amorth and other practitioners quickly dismiss the criticism. “Exorcism is
God’s true miracle,” Amorth likes to say.
“We of the Bible know that evil spirits are angels created as good by God and
who then rebelled against God,” Amorth said during one of our chats at the
Society of St Paul congregational residence in suburban Rome, where, in a
back room, he conducts exorcisms. “But the idea of evil spirits is a
universal idea, in all cultures, all religions, all times. Naturally,
everybody defends themselves according to their own culture and mentality .
. . perhaps resorting to witchdoctors or what have you. But all people, all
the time, have a perception that spirits of evil exist, which it is
necessary to protect against.”
Recognising demonic possession – the “discernment,” as it is called – is the
first and very difficult aspect of an exorcism. This is most commonly
achieved by seeing how the patient responds to religious symbols such as
holy water or a crucifix. For example, the person has a great aversion to
entering a church or cannot bear to face a priest.
It must be said: Amorth and other exorcists insist that true demonic
possession is extremely rare. In fact, of the thousands of Italians who seek
exorcisms for themselves or for relatives, the priests say, few really need
them. In most cases, the exorcist does not perform a full-fledged exorcism,
but rather offers a prayer of “liberation,” which includes some of the same
incantations but does not involve the full ordeal.
Officially, the Roman Catholic Church today is adamant about one thing: the
need to establish that a person seeking an exorcism is not mentally or
physically ill. This requirement is emphasised in the revised exorcism rite,
which was formulated in 1999. Many exorcists say they work with
psychiatrists and physicians to determine the nature of the patient’s
affliction. However, in practice, exorcists disagree on the need for doctors
to participate. Amorth usually asks the person seeking the exorcism whether
he or she has first consulted a doctor (almost always they say they have)
and he will take them at their word.
Like a number of the older exorcists, Amorth sees a diagnostic role for the
exorcism itself. He maintains that the exorcism is the only procedure that
can truly and definitively determine whether a person is afflicted by
satanic influence. Only an exorcism, in his opinion, can overcome the tricks
the Devil uses to conceal his presence. The consequence of this is that some
exorcisms take place without the consent of medical personnel. Since an
exorcism is basically prayer, Amorth reasons, it can’t hurt. “An unnecessary
exorcism never harmed anyone,” he says, rather controversially.
It is exactly that attitude that worries doctors, in Italy and elsewhere, who
approach the subject of demonic possession and exorcism much more
sceptically, or who think it is completely bogus. Ignoring physiological
causes and medical advice risks exacerbating the patient’s condition, they
say. Furthermore, an exorcism can be highly suggestive, and a susceptible
patient could be convinced that he or she is possessed and could begin to
display the symptoms out of imitation, compliance, or a subconscious need to
please the priest.
“You promise something to someone who is very sick and at best you offer a
temporary cure,” says the philosopher Dr Sergio Moravia of the University of
Florence. “It’s a scam.”
Amorth counters with the argument that people who come to him for exorcisms or
healing prayers do so only after having recurring symptoms despite treatment
from a host of doctors. If they had not exhausted medical possibilities,
they would not knock on his door.
By some estimates offered by Italian mental health organisations, thousands of
Italians seek exorcisms every year. Amorth is reluctant to pinpoint a
number, and he contends that, regrettably, many more people frequent
practitioners of witchcraft and black magic. Whatever the number, there is
no doubt that demand has soared.
As Amorth put it in one of his essays: “Why, today, is there such a high
demand for exorcists? Can we make the case that the demon is more active
today than in the past? Can we say that the incidence of demonic possession
and other, lesser, evil disturbances is on the rise? The answer to these and
similar questions is a decisive. Yes. Rationalism, atheism – which is
preached to the masses – and the corruption that is a byproduct of Western
consumerism have all contributed to a frightening decline in faith.
“This I can state with mathematical certainty: where faith declines,
superstition grows.”
Guidelines from The Roman Ritual
- Possession is not to be taken lightly. Each case is to be carefully examined
and great caution is to be used in distinguishing genuine possession from
certain forms of disease.
- The priest who undertakes the office should be himself a holy man, of a
blameless life, intelligent, courageous, humble, and he should prepare for
the work by special acts of devotion and mortification, particularly by
prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:20).
- He should avoid in the course of the rite anything resembling superstition
and he should leave the medical aspects of the case to qualified physicians.
He should admonish the possessed, insofar as the latter is capable, to
dispose himself for the exorcism by prayer, fasting, confession and
communion.
- The exorcism should take place in the church or some other sacred place, if
convenient; but if on account of sickness or for other legitimate reasons,
it takes place in a private house, witnesses (preferably members of the
family) should be present: this is specially enjoined, as a measure of
precaution, in case the subject is a woman.
- All idle and curious questioning of the demon should be avoided, and the
prayers and aspirations should be read with great faith, humility and
fervour, and with a consciousness of power and authority.
- The Blessed Sacrament, or the host, is not to be brought near the body of
the obsessed during exorcism for fear of possible irreverence; but the
crucifix, holy water, and, where available, relics of the saints are to be
employed. If expulsion of the evil spirit is not obtained at once, the rite
should be repeated, if need be, several times.
- The exorcist should be vested in cassock, surplice, and a violet stole.
© Tracy Wilkinson 2007. Extracted from The Vatican’s Exorcists, to be
published by Little Brown on July 5 at £16.99 and available from Times
Booksfirst for £14.99 (free p&p), 01326 555745, timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
