Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: kriz@skat.usc.edu (Dennis Kriz) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Exorcism on 20/20 tonight, Friday 5 May 1991 Message-ID: Date: 28 Apr 91 22:27:17 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 34 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article jhpb@garage.att.com (Joseph H Buehler) writes: > >One of the more somber things that occurs to me on this subject is that >there are priests who specialize in this. The drain on them, from >coming into such close contact with such tremendous evil, must be >tremendous. A few years ago, I asked one of the priests at the Catholic Center here about exorcism. What followed was what I consider one of the most fascinating conversations I ever had. The priest I had talked to said that the movie "the Exorcist" was based on a real occurance. He also said that while any priest has the power to exorcize demons, the process is so draining that the priests that the Church normally allows to perform the ritual are *selected* for having (essentially) "demonstrated a holiness above and beyond the call of duty" Prior to encountering the possessed person, *everybody* who is to be involved in the exorcism, including clearly the priest(s) involved, is asked to confess to absolutely anything they can possibly think of that they have done/thought/not done in the past that could be held against them as sin. This is because the entity inside the person who is possessed will **know** absolutely **EVERYTHING** about the people then conduct the exorcism ... and even after such an extensive confessional "debriefing"/accounting of ones past sins ... the exorcism is often a terribly humiliating experience for those involved in the ritual. So as a friend of mine who reads the net put it ... the Church only allows "the few, the HUMBLE" to be become "the EXORCISTS" :-) dennis kriz@skat.usc.edu