Firstly, I’d like to thank autocorrect for trying to make my title into “Exercising in the Catholic Church.”

Secondly, my firstly was a lie – but it sounded pretty funny, so there you go.

Exorcisms in the Catholic Church have been around since…well…Christ.  There are several instances of exorcisms being performed in the Bible, and my favorite is the casting out of Legion into the herd of swine.  He commanded his followers specifically in the Ministry of the Twelve to, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.”  Can  every follower of Christ cast out demons?  In theory, yes.  If we have the faith of a mustard seed, we can move mountains.  In reality and practicality?  No.  Quite literally, HELL NO!  Don’t try it, please don’t try it, please don’t try that at home people!

In the Catholic faith, authority needs to be handed down to the exorcist as it was handed to the twelve by Christ.  We do that by having a Bishop appoint an exorcist for the diocese, or multiple exorcists if it is deemed necessary.  Of course, in America, we don’t believe in demons anymore – science killed them a while back I’ve heard – so we don’t have many that I could find.  Granted, those that we do have don’t advertise their services for the simple reason that they’d be swamped.  And why wouldn’t they?  Movies and media make it seem like something so quick and easy.  Have a demon?  Call an exorcist, grab some lunch, badda bing badda boom, you’re out by dinner.  No, not so much, no.  An exorcism is(again, from my reading) a somewhat long and drawn out process more akin to chemotherapy than surgery…though without the negative side effects of chemo, all joking and snark aside.  Seriously, from the few people I’ve known to go through it, that stuff is rough.  God bless them!

Anyway….

All the exorcisms I’ve read about or of talk about a process, something that takes days, weeks, months, even years.  Sometimes their success isn’t measured by the completeness of healing so much as the level of reduction of symptoms.  Sometimes the success is measured by a bringing of a person back to a somewhat state of normal after which they can live their life well enough to get back on track…with more exorcisms and greater focus on “getting right with Jesus”, as we say here in the South.

From what I’ve read, exorcists are almost shunned in the Catholic church.  Remember that joke above about science killing the devil a while back?  Yeah, it’s not so much of a joke when you think about it, is it?  Try talking about angels and demons with a person with a shaky religious background and you’re likely to get pushback.  Talk about it with a scientist who isn’t firmly rooted in Christian ideals and you’ll probably get an earful of laughter.  Priests are no exception – they’re people too – and these “medieval” ideas should just die as far as they’re concerned.  Think of it this way – if you’re a Hillary Clinton supporter, you can’t possibly understand why someone is even thinking of voting for Donald Trump and vice versa.  So it is with exorcists – someone who thinks angels and demons are mere metaphors in the Bible can’t possibly fathom the seriousness of the ministry to which these priests are called.

So I guess in closing, I’d like to go back to the brief medical example above.  When you’re sick…really sick…you want the best doctor.  When you’re spiritually sick…really spiritually sick…you want the best spiritual doctor.  Don’t you want one who believes in what ails you instead of one who ridicules it?  Talk to your Bishop.  Tell him to appoint an exorcist for your diocese today.  It isn’t that easy, of course, but at least get the ball rolling.

And preorder my book, “The Devil and Casari: Ad Hominem”  etc etc etc.

Forgive me if I rambled.  It was late and I was tired.

PS: That’s a reference to Gary Larson’s “The Far Side”, but I can’t find the image to link it.  Ah well.