Speak of the devil

Just so everyone knows that our leadership is on top of the most important issues facing the church--things like sex abuse, new translations of the Mass, immigration reform, financial transparency--I thought I'd point out an important conference last week attended by dozens of bishops and priests on exorcism [1].

What the devil? It seems we Catholics are suffering from a severe shortage of trained exorcists (a shortage that seems to coincide with a general shortage of priests). That, and a book by author Matt Baglio about the training of an American exorcist is Rome, has resurrected this bit from the liturgical closet.

I guess I'm not entirely sure there's an epidemic of demonic possession out there, and to be honest I don't see how performing this kind of liturgy doesn't always end up looking like magic. Either way, I can't seem to unarch my eyebrows every time I read about last week's exorcism convention.