Exorcism Anyone?

[DWill]

It never fails. You do your best to have a positive attitude towards religion and religious people, and you pick up your local paper and read about something wacko and sickening. Right down the main road from me in Front Royal, Virginia, a priest performed an exorcism on a vulnerable woman. You'll never guess what this good shepherd said the woman must do to cast out the demons from her soul and "blow the Holy Spirit" into her, after calling her case "severe" and having her sign a paper promising full cooperation. No need to go into it. The woman is now suing the Catholic Diocese of Arlington for 5.3 million. She was naive and misguided for going to the priest, but I hope she wins her suit. I suppose I'm naive, too. I really didn't think the church still sanctioned this baloney, but it says that it doesn't let just any old priest perform an exorcism, no. There is special exorcism school to attend before the priest can hang out his shingle.

Hitchens was right. Religion will continue to be a problem until it is "tamed and sequestered."

[geo]

It may have been some local whacko instead of an official church-sanctioned excorcism. In many respects, the Roman Catholic Church is probably as stupid as any large organization. It's head doesn't know from its ass.

[youkrst]

literalism strikes again

casting out demons, to me, is just a metaphor for ejecting bad ideas.

as a hypothetical example, if i believed in the "supernatural" and interbane reasoned me out of it then metaphorically he would have "cast out a demon" so to speak.

i found it interesting the minister used the phrase "blow the Holy Spirit"

typical priest, one track mind

to me it is always literalism that ends up being the chief culprit when tracing the cause of the mentally ill and harmful side of religion.

[DWill]

It may have been some local whacko instead of an official church-sanctioned excorcism. In many respects, the Roman Catholic Church is probably as stupid as any large organization. It's head doesn't know from its ass.

Unless I didn't look into the matter deeply enough, the church does sanction exorcism through its program to train exorcising priests. The New York Post had an article in 2010 about the church's concern over a shortage or exorcists. There might not oversight of each act of exorcism.

[Dexter]

You'll never guess what this good shepherd said the woman must do to cast out the demons from her soul and "blow the Holy Spirit" into her, after calling her case "severe" and having her sign a paper promising full cooperation. No need to go into it.

What was it, money? I would have said sex, but I figured the priest would wait until later to make his move.

[geo]

Turns out it was sex.

from the article . . .

"The plaintiff alleges that Euteneuer's sessions with her frequently involved inappropriate touching and directing her to undress. The complaint says Euteneur explained passionate kisses as "blowing the Holy Spirit" into her.

The woman eventually realized the conduct was inappropriate . . ."

Good for her, figuring that out after TWO YEARS.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/28/vi ... z1zBesOHrH

[geo]

It may have been some local whacko instead of an official church-sanctioned excorcism. In many respects, the Roman Catholic Church is probably as stupid as any large organization. It's head doesn't know from its ass.

Unless I didn't look into the matter deeply enough, the church does sanction exorcism through its program to train exorcising priests. The New York Post had an article in 2010 about the church's concern over a shortage or exorcists. There might not oversight of each act of exorcism.

I missed this post.

It's hard to imagine that the Catholic Church would not only condone exorcism but seek out "qualified" exorcists. No, actually it's not.

This institutionalized brand of legitimacy fosters a trusting, credulous attitude towards "men of cloth" who are supposed to be doing God's work. The article says something about how the priest told her that her case was "severe" and had her sign an agreement promising full cooperation. So this is certainly a case of a sexual predator using the auspices of the church to get his jollies off with this poor woman, same as pedophile priests who the Church passively condoned for the sake of its own "good name." The woman in this case was very probably mentally ill. She went to the priest looking to get exorcised in the first place.

I have no problem branding institutionalized religion as corrupt, but unfortunately this sort of thing happens in many other arenas as well. I'm thinking of Sandusky, also a sexual predator who raped children under the auspices of institutionalized sports worship.

[Penelope]

geo wrote:
It may have been some local whacko instead of an official church-sanctioned excorcism.

All male thread this:

The idea, theory, of exorcism, is very funny and an easy target for ridicule, until you encounter the phenomenon. Just saying.

[geo]

geo wrote:
It may have been some local whacko instead of an official church-sanctioned excorcism.

All male thread this:

The idea, theory, of exorcism, is very funny and an easy target for ridicule, until you encounter the phenomenon. Just saying.

What phenomenon exactly are we talking about? Possession by the Devil? Or manifestations of mental illness?

[TheImpatientAtheist]

literalism strikes again

The problem is, who gets to decide what is taken literally, and what is taken allegorically? As the march of secularism continues, passages that were in the past taken literally, and are now no longer socially acceptable to be taken as such, are now re-read as if they allegorical all along, and as if this was so obviously how they should have been read in the first place.

Better off to just chuck the whole lot.