This image of the Roman Catholic priesthood still sells, and that most likely has a great deal to do with the upcoming conference on exorcism for the USCCB.Fr. Richard McBrien's latest post for the National Catholic Reporter will surely generate a fascinating debate between progressives and traditionalists. The USCCB is sponsoring a conference on exorcism for bishops or others they have assigned to this field. Fr. McBrien is a bit of a sceptic as the following excerpt show:
In a letter dated May 18 of this year and addressed to "Eminences" and "Excellencies" of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, self-described as "Bishop Designate of Springfield in Illinois," announced that the bishops' Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, of which Paprocki is chairman, is sponsoring a special Conference on the Liturgical and Pastoral Practice of Exorcism, to be held in Baltimore in early November, just before the bishops' semiannual meeting.
Those with a deep interest in Catholic issues will recognize immediately how pertinent and even urgent this conference will be, given the present state of the church and the world, what with the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the tragic oil spill and loss of 11 lives in the Gulf of Mexico. (Actually it is very important, but more on that after the break.)
For those less engaged in religious matters, an exorcism is an act by which an evil spirit is expelled from a person who is demonically possessed. The act also has a less dramatic function in the baptism of adults: when candidates are enrolled in the order of catechumens, during the period of the catechumenate itself, and during the three "scrutinies" that take place on the third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent, prior to the catechumens' baptism at the Easter Vigil.
The letter from Paprocki advises, "The conference is open to bishops and those priests or officials whom a bishop wishes to designate to attend," including those whom bishops have authorized to perform exorcisms, evidently apart from the sacrament of baptism.
However, there is one session open only to bishops. One can only speculate what sort of topics will be addressed in this closed session.
However, there is one session open only to bishops. One can only speculate what sort of topics will be addressed in this closed session.
"The conference will address not only the theological and scriptural foundations of the rite of exorcism," the letter continues, "but it will also provide the necessary, practical insights into the many liturgical, canonical and pastoral issues associated with exorcisms and the church's battle against the demonic presence in the world and the lives of the Christian faithful."
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What I find to be of note is this:
The session designated for bishops only (in italics), on the second afternoon of the two-day conference, will present and discuss "matters of special interest to bishops related to the phenomenon of evil and the use of the rite of exorcism."
I wonder if one of those special matters might be that one indicator of the relevance of traditional religious belief in a given culture is the level of belief in hell and external agents of evil. When folks stop believing in hell and the influence of Satan, they lose a great deal of their motivation for engaging in religious practice. One could make a serious case for the notion that the historic glue which held Catholicism's place in Western culture was not the Good News of Jesus, but the bad news about hell and it's legions of demons. Fear sells and you can buy or barter your way out of hell, but love is free and heaven can't be bought.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the closed door session doesn't revolve around ways to make the devil 'real' again, and not necessarily how to exorcise demons. I imagine Paprocki's first job will be to convince a lot of his brother bishops that the devil is real, and he will probably do that by enlisting both the aid of mental health professionals, and exorcists who have experienced cases in which strange stuff happened and exorcism worked to stop the strange stuff. Paprocki will have to convince as many bishops as he can that there really is something going on and the traditional Church approach is both therapeutically effective and part of the truth of human history. Exorcism still sells and it's really scary stuff to boot. He might also feel it important to mention that the exorcist/priest is the last most powerful selling card for the priesthood, and one which still transcends the abuse scandal.
I would love to be a fly on the wall for this special session. I bet it would be like attending a GM sales conference in which dealers were evangelized to push traditional GM products like Cadillac and Corvette because it reconnects people to the dreams of their youth. In the case of exorcism it's attempting to sell people on reconnecting to the fears of their youth. But done correctly, it could still be really effective. There's enough video and other visual aids out there to help the process and besides, this world view is still prevalent in many cultures. It really is a pastoral issue. (Besides it's not unheard of for GM dealers to sell GM products and drive a BMW.)
And that's where I run into problems. Exorcism is a pastoral and at times psychological issue. There are behaviors and abilities some people exhibit which seem to be beyond their control and do respond to various forms of exorcism. They can also respond very well to modern psychotropic drugs, at least in terms of symptom reduction. Traditional religions say the operative paradigm is external supernatural influences. Modern psychiatric medicine says it's screwed up brain chemistry or pathological neurophysiology. Some therapeutic modalities postulate it's a product of a disconnect in spirit/mind/body integration and exclusively focusing on any of these areas will not lead to permanent successful outcomes. In other words, it may be a combination of both with symptomology manifesting in all areas of the mind body construct.
That these kinds cases exist is usually not disputed--just the number of cases. What's also not disputed is the higher the fear factor, the more intense the manifestation of symptoms. There does seem to be a sort of feedback loop. The stories in the New Testament in which Jesus casts out demons all have the same thing in common. Jesus acts as if this phenomenon is about as fear filling as dealing with bunions and the possessing demon about as powerful as a mosquito.
He seems to know what these spirits are and what they are about and it doesn't particularly intimidate him any more than we are necessarily intimidated by other predators who share our world with us. Jesus even tells the Apostles that some of these predators are more difficult to deal with than others and take more effort. Kind of like dealing with a predatory tiger is more difficult than dealing with a scavenging hyena. The only difference is these predators feed on emotional energy like fear, and not actual flesh. They can kill because they exhaust the body by maintaining a ramped up energy cycle of fear. A non fear filled state neutralizes their effect every bit as effectively as a well placed bullet neutralizes a predatory tiger. Trouble is in the modern world we no longer have an effective intellectual paradigm to control the fear when faced with non ordinary manifestations of reality. Way out on the fringes of scientific theory, we may just be getting there.
Bishop Paprocki will most likely emphasize the traditional Catholic approach because in my opinion fear of hell and Satan has been the singular belief structure that has kept Catholicism flourishing for a long long time. Fear so sells so much better than love and whether a bishop actually believes in Satan and hell will be irrelevant to the fact the Vatican is 'hell' bent on reinforcing this traditional fear paradigm. The Vatican would be saying: "We don't care if you drive a BMW, but we will insist you sell GM."
Without this atavistic fear of hell many aspects of doctrinal Catholicism become irrelevant. Exorcise a personal fear of hell and you also exorcise a lot of the motivation to maintain belief in a whole host of other Catholic doctrine. It does however, also free one to begin to understand just what Jesus actually was on about with all His talk of love and peace and joy. A world full of love and peace and joy is also a world which can't support the energy predators of either the human or the supernatural kind. I'm all for that kind of 'global warming'.
