The Defilers news

Maranatha News publishes story of my faith journey.

April 19, 2007 The National Post published my testimony.
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Christian Week Feature article "Giving the devil his due."

Read what people are saying about The Defilers here. An excerpt here.

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Photo by Chris Humphrey Photography CHPhotography@verizon.net. More photos here.

Priest faces fraud investigation for alleged fake exorcisms

Florence, Apr 6, 2008 / 02:10 am (CNA).- A priest in Florence is being investigated for fraud after allegedly earning millions by performing fake exorcisms, the Telegraph reports.

Prosecutors alleged that Father Francesco Saverio Bazzoffi would “stage shows” before crowds of more than 400 people at the House of the Sainted Archangels, an organization he founded.

According to prosecutors, the priest’s associates would “pretend to be possessed by demons” and Father Bazzoffi would allegedly exorcise them using obscure rites.

The priest would then offer to heal members of the audience who were sick and solicit donations to his organization.

“During Mass, the priest spoke in Aramaic, and strange things happened. I do not know if it was group hysteria or our suggestibility, but I remember one old woman screaming in a man's voice while five big guys held her down,” one witness told police, according to the Telegraph.

snip

“I would like to make clear the following: any sort of special rite of benediction, such as the laying on of hands, is forbidden. Exorcisms are also prohibited,” the cardinal wrote in his letter. A priest must be authorized by the diocese to carry out an exorcism.

Big feature on exocism in The Ottawa Citizen

Jennifer Green has a big feature on exorcism in the Saturday Observer section of The Ottawa Citizen.

She writes:

But in the past few decades, the devil has returned. As the late John Paul II said, "Anyone who does not believe in the devil does not believe in the gospels."

His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, exhorts the faithful to take Satan seriously, praises his team of exorcists, offers university courses in exorcism and calls for more exorcists around the world.

One Vatican City priest told his congregation on Ash Wednesday: "How could a person know anything about Satan if he has never encountered the reality of Satan but only the idea of Satan? ... It is like someone who brags about not being afraid of lions and proves this by pointing out that he has seen many paintings of lions and was never frightened of them."

Only 37 per cent of Canadians believe in the devil, but twice that number of Americans do. Well over half of Latin Americans and African also believe in Satan and 80 per cent of Pentecostal Christians in those regions say angels and demons are active in the world.

Most interesting. My novel The Defilers deals with exorcism, and whether demonic oppression is real.

Ottawa Archbishop appoints two priests as exorcists

The Ottawa Citizen's Jenny Green has a most interesting story on this today.

She writes:

Ottawa's Catholic archbishop has appointed at least two new exorcists, one each for the English and French communities, replacing the region's last exorcist who retired five years ago.

The archdiocese will not name the priests, or say how many exorcists there are for fear of a flood of phone calls. Msgr. Kevin Beach says all the men are experienced clergy with overseas experience, some in areas of the world where belief in demons is more robust than it is in North America.

He said it wasn't easy to find men with the right qualifications, nor was it easy to persuade them to take the duties.

"I think they had to give prayerful consideration. If they are looking for the job, that's not the person you want."

They all have other duties as well as their new roles.

The archdiocese doesn't receive any more than seven or eight calls a year. Nor are the callers any more likely to be possessed -- in the past 15 years, Ottawa clergy say they have had only one case of demonic possession.

But exorcism has always been part of the Catholic ministry, even if it has fallen by the wayside in the last generation.

Green has an interview with the archdiocese's retired exorcist here:

Q: How do you separate what is human evil and what is demonic? I might be tempted to cheat on my taxes. Is that demonic temptation?

A: That's human nature. But the enemy might use it to get us in deeper. He may get you to lie about the reality of your situation. The devil is deceit. So it can (start) as something that is human but can be led in the wrong direction.

There was a young fellow who came for counselling. He was having difficulty controlling himself and his actions. One day he said to me, "I have a feeling of rage. I hear in my mind, the voice says, 'Kill.' I haven't done it yet, but there is that compulsion."

I started asking about the video games he had played as a child and they were full of violence. So it's not surprising to me we have these shooting incidents in high schools.

Q: Are they the work of the devil?

A: I have to take it from the point of view that the devil is against mankind. There is no doubt about it - he wants to ruin everybody. He doesn't just have a few favourites that he works on. He tries to get his hoof in wherever he can.

Green also blogs about how she came across this story.

Just two days before the story was to appear, I met Ottawa's former exorcist, a gentle, elderly man with shaking hands. We read a passage of scripture and said a prayer before the interview, and he anointed me with holy oil afterwards. He prayed that I would find my way to the truth, which is as good a journalist's prayer as I have ever heard.
I found myself relaxing utterly in the prayers, and the anointing, although I joked to friends later that he was probably trying to see if the oil made me sizzle and smoke, a gutter dog of the press.
In the final drafts, my editors looked at me funny and struggled to find a tactful way to ask, ‘do you really believe this stuff?' They settled on, ‘who are you readers here? People who believe this stuff?'
By the end of the day, I shook my head with a smile and shrugged. ‘I'm laughing at this stuff," I told them, "but not very hard."
Why trouble trouble? I think I'll tiptoe away.

Documented case of demon possession

An American woman who levitated, demonstrated paranormal psychic powers and spoke foreign languages unknown to her was clearly demon possessed, according to a board-certified psychiatrist and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College.

The unnamed woman, with a long history of involvement with Satanic groups, was observed by a team of priests, deacons, several lay assistants, psychiatrists, nuns, some of whom also had medical and psychiatric training, levitating six inches off the ground while objects flew off shelves in the same room, according to Dr. Richard E. Gallagher, who documented the case in the February issue of the New Oxford Review.

"Periodically, in our presence, Julia would go into a trance state of a recurring nature," writes Gallagher. "Mentally troubled individuals often 'dissociate,' but Julia's trances were accompanied by an unusual phenomenon: Out of her mouth would come various threats, taunts and scatological language, phrases like 'Leave her alone, you idiot,' 'She's ours,' 'Leave, you imbecile priest,' or just 'Leave.' The tone of this voice differed markedly from Julia's own, and it varied, sometimes sounding guttural and vaguely masculine, at other points high pitched. Most of her comments during these 'trances,' or at the subsequent exorcisms, displayed a marked contempt for anything religious or sacred."

The Anchoress says don't be alarmed by exorcist stories

She takes a common sense approach, imo.

If you accept that the supernatural exists, and you accept that there are things seen and unseen, then your common sense tells you that within that realm there will be that which is profoundly holy, and that which is quite the opposite. There is nothing unusual in any of that.

Is Catholic Church calling for more exorcists?

Thanks to Little Green Footballs, I came across this Daily Mail story about the call for more exorcists in the Catholic Church.

The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.

Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.

They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."

Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.

The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.

"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.

"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.

"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.

Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.

But as LGF reports, according to UPI, the Vatican denies this is happening.

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The Vatican is denying reports it plans to install more exorcists around the world so possessed people can get help quickly.

"Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession,'' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters in Rome Friday.

On Thursday, the Roman Catholic Web site Petrus said the pope planned to install more exorcists in every diocese next year and reintroduce a prayer during mass to St. Michael the Archangel, believed to be the prime protector against evil, The Telegraph in Britain reported Saturday.

Paolo Scarafoni, a priest at Vatican University who teaches how to recognize and expel Satan, said exorcists increasingly are in demand because devil worship has become so common, reported ANSA, the Italian news agency. "Priests are being bombarded," Scarafoni told ANSA.

Poland opens exorcism centre

MOSCOW, December 19 (RIA Novosti) - Poland plans to open its first exorcism center, for those who believe they are possessed by the devil, in the town of Poczernin 30 km (18 miles) from the city of Szczeczin, Polish media said Wednesday.

Andrzej Trojanowski, a Catholic priest working in the city says the center will be equipped with a chapel and will have a psychiatrist on hand.

Trojanowski said there was a demand for the service as he deals with up to 20 people a week allegedly possessed by the devil.

The center was the idea of the Catholic Church in Poland, which already has around 50 working exorcists, and the project is expected to provide spiritual help and guidance to the needy.

According to priests their service is popular with visitors from Germany, which has no working exorcists.

Many consider those who claim to be possessed are just mentally ill, whereas others contend that those diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses are really possessed by the devil.

The practice of exorcism by priests and clergy became very popular in the 1970s, which coincided with the 1973 release of the world-wide blockbuster movie The Exorcist.

Chilling story about the murder of a nun

"People who prefer to worship beings other than God will seek a reversal of all things sacred," Father Grob said. "They take something that's sacred and turn it upside down, literally. They defile the very thing that is sacred."

For Christians, he said, the cross symbolizes the death of Jesus, their Messiah, who sacrificed his life by being nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago. For Satanists and others who are out to mock Christianity, the inverted cross is a powerful symbol. Sister Margaret Ann's killer had taken a cross and placed it, upside down, over her barely beating heart while the nun lay immobile on the sacristy floor, then plunged a dagger nine times into her chest, tracing the outline of the anti-Christian symbol of an upside down cross.

It wasn't just a coincidence, Father Grob told them.