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.

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.