The Vatican's top exorcist sends the devil packing

[Abdul Alhazred]

Sun-Sentinel/LA Times:

The Vatican's top exorcist sends the devil packing (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/custom/fringe/sfl-430vaticanexorcist,0,5182403.story?coll=sfla-news-fringe)



ROME -- In a small room, well away from the
street so that no one hears the screams,
Father Gabriele Amorth does battle with Satan.
He is a busy man.

As the Vatican's top exorcist, Amorth performs
the mysterious, ancient ritual dozens of times a
week. A confused world engulfed in tragedy and
chaos is turning increasingly to black magic, the
occult and fortune-telling, he said, proof that
the devil and his handmaidens are having a field
day.


Please click the link before commenting.

[DangerousBeliefs]

This pretty well sums it up for me...

But belief in the power of the devil to possess people, and of priests to free them, is too often a crutch that masks serious psychological and physiological disease, Moravia said.

"I don't think it's crazy. It's worse," he said. "An exorcism is the residue of a medieval practice completely devoid of any foundation of reason.

"It's a scam. You promise something to someone who is very sick and at best you offer a temporary cure."

I wonder how many mentally ill are "possessed"?

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by DangerousBeliefs
I wonder how many mentally ill are "possessed"?

Demonic possession was the usual diagnosis for mental illness before 1700 or thereabouts.

[Iconoclast]

See, that's one of the reasons I never joined a religion, atheists never seem to get possessed.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred
Demonic possession was the usual diagnosis for mental illness before 1700 or thereabouts.

That sounds like a truism, but is it actually true? I.e. is the claim backed up by scholarly works, or is it something that we just assume is true because it sounds right?

[Virgil]

why do they cast the devil (or demons) out. why not cast then into little containers and put a haz-mat label on them and store them is a wharehouse for the next million years


Virgil

[Anders]

Truly disturbing, these people, the patients that is, are in need of proper
medical treatment, probably psychiatry or even just psychology. It’s very worrying that in a industrial country as Italy these crazy rituals are still practiced. But I guess that religious people will always hold on to wishful thinking, or maybe something more sinister: This guy will loose his job as a top-exorcist if he’s debunked, so he has all the reasons in the world to keep going, although a lot of people will suffer immensely.

That is the face of a truly evil church that thinks it is doing good. A few more examples of what religion has been up to the last few years:
- In the US thousands of children has been molested by priests of the catholic church.

- 40000+ dies in an earthquake in Iran, due to the fact the priests in Iran neglects totally to build earthquake safe houses. An equally strong earthquake in mainly secular US kills a handful of people.

- Churches all over the world owns riches to the amounts in 100’s of billions of dollar., which could instead be used to help people in different ways, but they don’t.

- Millions of mainly catholic people die in HIV/AIDS because catholic church says: don’t use condoms.

- A group of terrorists run two airliners into two high-rises in New York in order to protest to American infidels that walk sacred grounds in Saudi Arabia. Would never happen if Saudi Arabia was secular; compare US troops in Japan, or Soviet troops in the Baltic states.

And the list goes on, and on, and on, and on…

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Virgil
why do they cast the devil (or demons) out. why not cast then into little containers and put a haz-mat label on them and store them is a wharehouse for the next million years

Because what if some devilplasm seeps out and contaminates the water supply? What if they completely lose containment? Didn't you see the problems that caused in Ghostbusters?

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Leif Roar


That sounds like a truism, but is it actually true? I.e. is the claim backed up by scholarly works, or is it something that we just assume is true because it sounds right?

An obvious source in the New Testament. Jesus exorcises a madman. Mark 5.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Anders
Truly disturbing, these people, the patients that is, are in need of proper
medical treatment, probably psychiatry or even just psychology.


Actually, you shouldn't discount the possibility that for the minority who are found to "really" be possessed, going through an exorcism might be healthy. Placebo works on many mental illnesses as well, after all.


- In the US thousands of children has been molested by priests of the catholic church.


Of course, in the US thousands of children has been molested by plumbers and cab-drivers as well. While it's always pointed out when an offender is a priest or a teacher, I haven't seen any studies that show that there's a statistically significant overrepresentation of priests (or teachers) among offenders.


- 40000+ dies in an earthquake in Iran, due to the fact the priests in Iran neglects totally to build earthquake safe houses. An equally strong earthquake in mainly secular US kills a handful of people.


Ignoring for a moment the difference in economic and technological levels between the two areas, do you really feel there was any religious reasons to why the houses weren't built to be earthquake safe? After all, it's not like purely secular organizations doesn't sometimes ignore safety concerns too.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred

An obvious source in the New Testament. Jesus exorcises a madman. Mark 5.

There's a lot of difference between one entry in a quite dubious source from about 100 AD, and to generalize that it was the "usual diagnosis for mental illness before 1700 or thereabouts." After all, you wouldn't accept a statement that "carpenters were usually put to death by crusifixion up until 1700 or thereabouts."

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Leif Roar

There's a lot of difference between one entry in a quite dubious source from about 100 AD, and to generalize that it was the "usual diagnosis for mental illness before 1700 or thereabouts." After all, you wouldn't accept a statement that "carpenters were usually put to death by crusifixion up until 1700 or thereabouts."There probably is some basis for objecting to accepting unconditionally the statement:

Demonic possession was the usual diagnosis for mental illness before 1700 or thereabouts.

For one thing, mentally ill persons were often considered to have been "touched by the divine". I'm having a hard time imagining what other alternative explanations there might have been, though. Certainly in any place where Christianity exerted a strong political influence, any explanation not consistent with the The Church's explanation would not only be a tough sell, but even to suggest such a thing would have to be done pretty delicately.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Dymanic
There probably is some basis for objecting to accepting unconditionally the statement:

Demonic possession was the usual diagnosis for mental illness before 1700 or thereabouts.

For one thing, mentally ill persons were often considered to have been "touched by the divine". I'm having a hard time imagining what other alternative explanations there might have been, though. Certainly in any place where Christianity exerted a strong political influence, any explanation not consistent with the The Church's explanation would not only be a tough sell, but even to suggest such a thing would have to be done pretty delicately.

I'm not so sure it really would have been a hard sell - even at the height of the Catholic power, people would seek out astrologers and diviners, despite the Church declaring that they were, at best, fradulent, and at worse conspiring with the devil. Here in Norway, there was a living belief in the hidden people up until the end of the 1800s - a belief that was in parallell to the Christian teachings (although there was some overlap and cross-overs), and certain diseases and afflictions were attributed to having been "elf-shot."

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Leif Roar

I'm not so sure it really would have been a hard sell - even at the height of the Catholic power, people would seek out astrologers and diviners, despite the Church declaring that they were, at best, fradulent, and at worse conspiring with the devil. Here in Norway, there was a living belief in the hidden people up until the end of the 1800s - a belief that was in parallell to the Christian teachings (although there was some overlap and cross-overs), and certain diseases and afflictions were attributed to having been "elf-shot."

Well, you have a point there. But the Catholic church probably owes much of its success to its ability to subsume, rather vanquish the systems that preceeded it. In fact, it is easy to see how the church would actually benefit from the persistence of beliefs in demons and the like -- more grist for the exorcism mill.

But between the the church, and whatever parallel systems it symbiotically tolerated, it seems like even less room is left for any scientific (or prescientific) idea to gain a foothold.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Leif Roar


There's a lot of difference between one entry in a quite dubious source from about 100 AD, and to generalize that it was the "usual diagnosis for mental illness before 1700 or thereabouts." After all, you wouldn't accept a statement that "carpenters were usually put to death by crusifixion up until 1700 or thereabouts."

The New Testament is not a "dubious source" in this case. The datum is that people in 1700 believed in it, not whether the event happened.

[Ralph]

Originally posted by Iconoclast
See, that's one of the reasons I never joined a religion, atheists never seem to get possessed.

Atheists don't get possessed because as atheists---they're allready doomed. Satan figures "why waste my valuable time
on people that I allready own".

He prefers to spend all his time working on the saved christians since they're slotted for a spot in heaven.

This of course, is why most saved christians are allways so miserable or even possessed. They draw all the heat to themselves...........

This allows atheists & heathens to live a life of ease & comfort since Satan doesn't hassle them.


At least that's how the RR folks explain it..........

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Ralph


Atheists don't get possessed because as atheists---they're allready doomed. Satan figures "why waste my valuable time
on people that I allready own".

He prefers to spend all his time working on the saved christians since they're slotted for a spot in heaven.

This of course, is why most saved christians are allways so miserable or even possessed. They draw all the heat to themselves...........

This allows atheists & heathens to live a life of ease & comfort since Satan doesn't hassle them.


At least that's how the RR folks explain it..........

Sounds like Cotton Mather's explanation of why there are no witches among the Turks.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred
The New Testament is not a "dubious source" in this case. The datum is that people in 1700 believed in it, not whether the event happened.

Yes, but just because people believed in demonic possession, doesn't mean that they would usually diagnose mental illness as such.

Besides, the story in Mark 5 only states that the man was possessed by demons - it doesn't say that he was thought to be possessed by anyone besides Jesus. It's quite possible that the people around him(*) at the time would say the equivalent of "Oh, that weirdo? He's a complete nut-case, and boy does he got some serious issues" rather than "Stay away from him. He's possessed by malevolent spirits."


(*) Assuming for the sake of argument that the incident actually happened. It's anyway a general statement that can be applied to anyone from the period who were mentally ill.

[Anders]

Originally posted by Leif Roar


Actually, you shouldn't discount the possibility that for the minority who are found to "really" be possessed, going through an exorcism might be healthy. Placebo works on many mental illnesses as well, after all.

As you write below, there are no surveys done on what happens to exorcised people, do they become better or not, and in what degree do they need further real treatment by a psychiatrist or physiologist.

What do you mean by “really possessed people”? There are no possessed people, well, not possessed by supernatural beings that is. If you believe that there are “really possessed people” then your post makes perfect sense.


Of course, in the US thousands of children has been molested by plumbers and cab-drivers as well. While it's always pointed out when an offender is a priest or a teacher, I haven't seen any studies that show that there's a statistically significant overrepresentation of priests (or teachers) among offenders.

We were talking about religion now, were we not?

What I did say was that the Catholic Church is at the moment accused of covering up of these alleged crimes against children. We don’t see that the plumbers union is trying to cover up what their members are doing to children now are we?


Ignoring for a moment the difference in economic and technological levels between the two areas, do you really feel there was any religious reasons to why the houses weren't built to be earthquake safe? After all, it's not like purely secular organizations doesn't sometimes ignore safety concerns too.
As you probably now, Iran was a quite rich country before the priesthood came and moved the country back to the dark ages. It was a quite hard dictatorship though, but compared to the dictatorship of the mullahs, Shaens reign was not that bad. My hypothesis is that without religion Iran would have had a secular government, and as secular they would do much better economically. Yes, it could be complicated to prove, but take a look at non-secular countries in the world and compare them to secular.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Anders

As you write below, there are no surveys done on what happens to exorcised people, do they become better or not, and in what degree do they need further real treatment by a psychiatrist or physiologist.

Yes, and I'm not saying that it is healthy, only that we shouldn't dismiss the possibility that it is out of hand.


What do you mean by “really possessed people”? There are no possessed people, well, not possessed by supernatural beings that is. If you believe that there are “really possessed people” then your post makes perfect sense.


If really believed in demonic possession, I wouldn't have put the word really in quotation marks. I mean the people who are thought to be possessed by the exorcist, and who undergo an exorcism. I.e. "really possessed" in the eyes of the afflicted person themselves, and in the eyes of the exorcist or church they seek help from.


We were talking about religion now, were we not?


Yes, and I only pointed out that the reporting of religious pederasts doesn't have to mean that there's any particular link between religion and child abuse.


What I did say was that the Catholic Church is at the moment accused of covering up of these alleged crimes against children. We don’t see that the plumbers union is trying to cover up what their members are doing to children now are we?


There is no excuse for the Catholic Church's actions when it came to hiding the abuse it was made aware of. Your original comment, however, basically blamed child abuse on religion, which I don't believe is warranted.


As you probably now, Iran was a quite rich country before the priesthood came and moved the country back to the dark ages. It was a quite hard dictatorship though, but compared to the dictatorship of the mullahs, Shaens reign was not that bad. My hypothesis is that without religion Iran would have had a secular government, and as secular they would do much better economically.

There's still a stretch to blame the effects of an earthquake on religion, though. By the same tenuous logic, why shouldn't we blame the Chernobyl accident or the many deaths in France from the 2003 heat wave on secularism?

Yes, it could be complicated to prove, but take a look at non-secular countries in the world and compare them to secular.

What do you define as a secular country? Is Norway secular or non-secular? It's got a state religion, the head of state is a king who is hallowed by the clergy, the current prime minister is a priest and one of the political parties in power bases its politics in Christian teachings and ideals. Now, one might argue over how much of this is just window-dressing, and how much religion really influences the government and social life in Norway, but then one might argue the same thing for other countries.

Don't forget that some of the offically secular countries, such as North Korea or China, is not particularly paragons of virtue either - so I personally don't see any undisputed correlation between secularism and the economic situation in a country, and I certainly don't see any clear and unquestionable cause and effect. If poor countries are more religious than rich countries, it might be just as well be that poverty causes people to be religious, rather than religion causes countries to be poor.

[Anders]

Originally posted by Leif Roar

If really believed in demonic possession, I wouldn't have put the word really in quotation marks. I mean the people who are thought to be possessed by the exorcist, and who undergo an exorcism. I.e. "really possessed" in the eyes of the afflicted person themselves, and in the eyes of the exorcist or church they seek help from.

Mentally ill people do believe they are what ever person or being. We usually call that schizophrenia which is treated preferably by a psychiatrist or sometimes a psychologist. We don’t want to treat them by sprinkling water on them and reciting medieval texts, that kind of treatment probably have the same effect as homeopathic remedies, or worse. The little I know about mental health suggests that religion don’t have the best effect on instable patients.

What the catholic church should do is to point the ill people in the direction of a hospital, not suggest exorcism.

There's still a stretch to blame the effects of an earthquake on religion, though. By the same tenuous logic, why shouldn't we blame the Chernobyl accident or the many deaths in France from the 2003 heat wave on secularism?

I don't blame the earthquakes on the priesthood; I blame the badly built houses on the incompetent priesthood of Iran.


Don't forget that some of the offically secular countries, such as North Korea or China, is not particularly paragons of virtue either - so I personally don't see any undisputed correlation between secularism and the economic situation in a country, and I certainly don't see any clear and unquestionable cause and effect. If poor countries are more religious than rich countries, it might be just as well be that poverty causes people to be religious, rather than religion causes countries to be poor.
Ah, but you forget that a certain countries can have more problems then religion. In the case of North Korea and China, they have or have had problemes related to a faulty economic system.

And you are totally right in that poverty induces religious believes.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Anders

Mentally ill people do believe they are what ever person or being. We usually call that schizophrenia which is treated preferably by a psychiatrist or sometimes a psychologist. We don’t want to treat them by sprinkling water on them and reciting medieval texts, that kind of treatment probably have the same effect as homeopathic remedies, or worse. The little I know about mental health suggests that religion don’t have the best effect on instable patients.

What the catholic church should do is to point the ill people in the direction of a hospital, not suggest exorcism.


It appears that that is in fact what the Catholic church actually does. From the article referred to above:

"In the majority of cases, the people who come to me are not in need of an exorcism but of medical care," Amorth said. "But when some people, after having gone through extensive medical treatment, have had no benefits, they begin to think their problems are not natural."

In other words, exorcism is a last resort for people who have not responded to other treatment.


I don't blame the earthquakes on the priesthood; I blame the badly built houses on the incompetent priesthood of Iran.


Why? It's not like there aren't plenty of examples of how secular authorities have neglected safety in ways which have resulted in large-scale loss of life, so why should religion be blamed in Bam?

It's also rather silly to blame the current government in Iran for "the badly built houses" in Bam, considering that much of what was destroyed in the earthquake were historic buildings, several hundred years old.


Ah, but you forget that a certain countries can have more problems then religion. In the case of North Korea and China, they have or have had problemes related to a faulty economic system.


You're the one who made the claim that there was a connection between the secularite of a country and its economic health. I pointed out that this was not obvious, and pointed out China and North Korea as examples of countries which didn't follow this pattern.

And you are totally right in that poverty induces religious believes.

So how can you be so certain that the economic situation in Iran is the product of the country's religion?

[Anders]

Originally posted by Leif Roar

In other words, exorcism is a last resort for people who have not responded to other treatment.

That’s really silly! What you or the article is saying is that there are in fact people that are possessed by daemons or satan that need exorsism. That is a blatant lie! No one has ever been possessed by any supernatural beings, period! And to take away the ill people the right to good medical or psychological treatment is a great injustice towards these poor people.

Why? It's not like there aren't plenty of examples of how secular authorities have neglected safety in ways which have resulted in large-scale loss of life, so why should religion be blamed in Bam?

Yes, two errors do not make one right. It’s equally bad when humans lose their lives where ever they are.

Why? Because the Iranian priesthood neglects many things, for instance building regulations, in favour for religious work. The priesthood is the result of religion.

It's also rather silly to blame the current government in Iran for "the badly built houses" in Bam, considering that much of what was destroyed in the earthquake were historic buildings, several hundred years old.

Many of the destroyed buildings where modern houses, built after the revolution. If you refer to the famous clay fortress, I really don’t blame any one. I don’t think that finding the responsible people to 40-50 thousands death is silly. The problem is that no one is going to be prosecuted in Iran for this, because the priesthood will say “insh’allha”, good willing, and go on with their incompetent reign.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Anders

That’s really silly! What you or the article is saying is that there are in fact people that are possessed by daemons or satan that need exorsism.


Neither I nor the article makes any such claim. I think it should be amply clear from the context here that the single sentence you quoted was not my personal believes, but rather a description of the Catholic Church's view and process here.

[SNIP]


Yes, two errors do not make one right. It’s equally bad when humans lose their lives where ever they are.

Why? Because the Iranian priesthood neglects many things, for instance building regulations, in favour for religious work. The priesthood is the result of religion.


[SNIP]

Again, why should religion be so easily blamed for something that also happens in secular soceieties? You have not presented any argument linking the lack of building regulations to the religion practiced in Iran, so why do you so emphatically believe that this link must exist?

[Anders]

Originally posted by Leif Roar


Neither I nor the article makes any such claim. I think it should be amply clear from the context here that the single sentence you quoted was not my personal believes, but rather a description of the Catholic Church's view and process here.

And the catholic church is in this case totally wrong, unless you belive in satan and daemons, then exorcism makes perfect sense.

Again, why should religion be so easily blamed for something that also happens in secular soceieties? You have not presented any argument linking the lack of building regulations to the religion practiced in Iran, so why do you so emphatically believe that this link must exist?
Elementary, my dear Leif Roar, Elementary.

First of all it's not out of emphatically believes, it out of my own experience. I used to be a Christian, but I saw all the faults, errors, contradictions, in the religious writings, and since then I’ve been an atheist. But that’s not what this is about.

First of all, the priesthood initiated a very bloody revolution which sent the country back to medieval times. That was because of religion. The priesthood thought, not that the Shaen was a cruel dictator, but that he was not religious enough, too west-oriented. The priesthood had no problem with the very brutal reign of Shaen. So the revolution was initiated because of religion. The country fell into an economic collapse, further deepened by the war with Iraq. A poor country can’t afford the luxury of building regulations, hence, new buildings crumbled during the earthquake. Just the last few years after a softening of the religious dogma the economy has improved.

[Leif Roar]

Originally posted by Anders

And the catholic church is in this case totally wrong, unless you belive in satan and daemons, then exorcism makes perfect sense.

The Catholic Church is "totally wrong" in using exorcism only as a last resort, rather than using it as a universal antidote on mental problems?

The Catcholic Church certainly believes in the existance of Satan and demons, and from their point of view exorcism certainly makes perfect sence in some situations. That, however, doesn't mean that the Catholic Church advices exorcism instead of mental treatment, nor does that mean that it might not be healthy for someone to undergo an exorcism. (And please note that "being healthy" doesn't equate to "getting rid of demons.")


Elementary, my dear Leif Roar, Elementary.

First of all it's not out of emphatically believes, it out of my own experience. I used to be a Christian, but I saw all the faults, errors, contradictions, in the religious writings, and since then I’ve been an atheist. But that’s not what this is about.

First of all, the priesthood initiated a very bloody revolution which sent the country back to medieval times. That was because of religion. The priesthood thought, not that the Shaen was a cruel dictator, but that he was not religious enough, too west-oriented. The priesthood had no problem with the very brutal reign of Shaen. So the revolution was initiated because of religion. The country fell into an economic collapse, further deepened by the war with Iraq. A poor country can’t afford the luxury of building regulations, hence, new buildings crumbled during the earthquake. Just the last few years after a softening of the religious dogma the economy has improved.

Sorry, but your argument doesn't hold water. You're basically saying that because the Iran government came into power because of religion, and holds that power in a religious capacity, every bad decision and act of neglect by that government can be blamed on religion as a phenomena. You haven't shown that there's anything but an incidental connection between the fact that the government in Iran is religious, and that the houses in Bam were not made earthquake proof.

(For that matter, you haven't put forward any evidence or argument that the scale of the disaster in Bam was linked to poor building standards - but I'm accepting that for the sake of the argument.)