The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist (4 page)

T
HE YEAR AFTER
he broke up with Lori turned into a time of struggle for Gary. He continued working in the funeral business while determining whether or not God was calling him to the priesthood.

In the summer of 1978, he began meeting regularly with a spiritual director, Father James O'Shaunessy to find out “How is God in all of this?” However, the decision to apply to the seminary didn't come until after he had heard a talk at Saint Joseph's Seminary College in Los Altos on how to recognize a vocation. There, a Marian priest touched on ways a person might recognize the right vocation: “Part of it is desire, part of it is excitement for a service with people,and part of it is an inability to respond to some kind of prompting in any other way than going with what your heart tells you.” The words had a huge impact on Gary. He made his decision to enter the seminary that day.

When Gary dropped by his parents’ house to tell them the news, Gary's dad was shocked, telling his son that he was “nuts” to be entering the priesthood when everybody else seemed to be leaving. Gary assured him that if he didn't like it he would leave. Ray left it at that, realizing he wouldn't be able to change his son's mind. Gary's mom, on the other hand, was “thrilled.” She knew he was fulfilling his calling.

Gary entered Saint Patrick's Seminary in August 1979, amid a sea of change—discipline had become lax in recent years and a new rector, Father Howard P. Bleichner S.S., had been brought in to reinstill a sense of order, which he did with an iron fist. As a result, Father Gary remembers little about the seminary as being fun.

One of the few things he did enjoy was the opportunity to work in a parish, which allowed him to interact with people. It also gave him a taste of his future life as a priest. Unlike some seminarians who preferred losing themselves in intellectual pursuits, Gary loved the fieldwork. He was a natural communicator, thriving on human interaction.

During his third year he began working fifteen hours a week at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. He specifically requested to be moved to the “death ward.” He had been around death most of his life, but his experience at O'Connor was something else entirely. Ever conscious of his priestly duty to alleviate suffering, he wanted to know what to say when people were at their most vulnerable and needed comfort. Unlike the priests who shied away from suffering, Gary experienced these as circumstances when a priest was truly called upon to be present. In the end, his hours in the ward taught him that death can sometimes be a lonely experience and that often it is best to say nothing at all.

G
ARY WAS ORDAINED
in March 1983, during one of the worst storms to hit San Jose in twenty years. Caught out on the highway Gary's parents braved the torrential rains and hurricane-force winds, thinking that there'd be nobody at the cathedral when they finally arrived. However, they were amazed to see the place packed, even though the storm had knocked out the power (which miraculously came back on ten minutes before the ceremony was to start).

Lori had kept track of Gary's progress over the years and, though she still felt hurt by their breakup, cared too much about Gary to miss his ordination. Newly married, she brought her husband with her.

The thought of seeing so many of his family and friends in one place made Gary incredibly nervous. The two-hour ordination ceremony for himself and just one other priest flew by. Then, as the procession was filing out of the church, Gary spotted Lori by the door and stopped to give her a hug. Blushing at all the attention, she introduced her husband, Bob, who shook Gary's hand. With that Gary rejoined the procession.

In the context of the Catholic Church, the priesthood is more akin to an identity than a job. It is not something that a priest can turn his back on or take a vacation from. As Pope John Paul II wrote, “[A] priest, by virtue of the consecration […] is called to love self-lessly to put the needs of his ‘flock’ before those of his own.”

Father Gary had seemingly internalized very early in life this desire to engage with people. Now that he was a priest, his dedication to this role carried new meaning. Because of his ordination, he felt that he had a responsibility to embrace humanity in all its beauty and ugliness. He already knew he was comfortable with death; now he looked forward to helping his parishioners confront the trials of life.

CHAPTER THREE

GOING BACK TO SCHOOL

The Devil is present everywhere that evil things happen within the normal laws of nature. In anyone who says: I don't accept love, the love of my brothers and sisters, the love of God. And in many places, in all massacres, in every murder, in physical catastrophes, in every concentration camp, in all evil. Sometimes he shows himself, strangely, but also in cases of possession. But he's much more dangerous where he doesn't let himself be seen, where he can't be done away with through exorcism.

—
Father Pedro Barrajan, excerpt from interview in
Die Welt,
December 2, 2005

W
hen Father Gary first heard about the exorcism course, he'd wondered how such a class might be structured. Obviously the organizers had worked this out carefully and systematically.

After Dr. Ferrari contacted Father Scarafoni about the idea, they began collaborating on the syllabus and choosing the faculty. The goal was to scrape away all misinformation so priests could relearn what the Church actually taught on these matters. However, in addition to a straightforward course on the theology of demons, the organizers also wanted to ensure that potential exorcists become well rounded and decided to include lectures by a psychiatrist and a criminologist. Students would attend lectures on Satanism and youth culture, on how to discern spirits, on the powers of the Devil, as well as on the Church's teachings regarding angels and demons, taught by a Legionaire theologian. In addition exorcists would be called upon to discuss their ministry and share practical tips. Unfortunately, the International Association of Exorcists had refused Father Scarafoni's request to perform an exorcism live, in front of the students.

After the first day of the course, things had improved dramatically for Father Gary. As soon as he'd gotten off the train coming back from the Regina Apostolorum, he'd stalked the halls of the NAC, looking for a priest to translate for him. Yet after a week of chasing leads, he'd struck out. Thinking that the second day might be a waste like the first, he nonetheless took the train out on the morning of October 20, hoping to be proved wrong. As it turned out, the course organizers had scrambled and found a very competent Legionaire seminarian to translate for him, communicating via a microphone and headset. While not perfect (sometimes the seminarian had to abridge in order to keep pace), the system worked pretty well.

R
IGHT OFF THE BAT
, Father Gary was amazed to learn that exorcism was actually central to Jesus’ gospel message. In fact in the early Church, every Christian was thought to have the power to perform exorcisms.

Back at the NAC, as he got to know some of the priests and seminarians better, he quickly realized that he wasn't the only one to have misconceptions about the real nature of exorcism. As he shared the fact that he was a fledgling exorcist, he predictably got mixed reactions. Some complimented him. Another group responded with “You shouldn't have told us. We're not supposed to know.” Perplexed by this, he got in touch with his bishop and asked if his appointment was indeed some kind of “state secret.” The bishop said this was the first he'd heard about it. True to his open nature, Father Gary thought that the priests in the diocese ought to know so they could come to him with questions.

Members in the third group responded to his revelation simply by giving him a blank look and saying flatly, “I don't believe in that.” And while it may seem strange that Catholic priests did not believe in the Devil or exorcism, to Father Gary, who was ordained in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, it wasn't surprising at all.

U
P UNTIL THE
1960s, the Church as a body was relatively unified in its belief that the Devil was an evil spirit, a fallen angel created by God and endowed with certain powers and free will.

In the early Church, the Devil was seen as the leader of a vast army of demons arrayed against “the community of the faithful” as represented by the apostles and the other followers of Christ. Later, Saint Augustine would come to refer to this conflict in terms of a struggle between “two cities,” created when the angels were put to a test by God. As a result, Christians had to be on constant guard against this enemy who sought mankind's ruin as a way to get even with God. In this war, the chief weapon of the Devil was temptation; however, as witnessed in the New Testament, in certain circumstances he could attack an individual directly, taking control of the person's body. When that happened, the only remedy was an exorcism.

Since Satan is a created being, and therefore subject to the power of God, an exorcism is valid only when it is performed in the name of God and by the authority of the Church, to which Christ gave that power. “Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (Matthew 10:1).

The New Testament is full of stories of Jesus exorcising demons, which not only proved his divinity but was also tangible evidence that he had come to defeat the kingdom of Satan and usher in a new one. “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Matthew 12:28).

Perhaps the most dramatic exorcism in the Gospels is the case of the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:1-20). As Jesus steps out of a boat near a town called Gadarenes, he is immediately accosted by a man out of the tombs on the hillside. The people of the town have tried to restrain him with “shackles and chains,” but he has “wrenched them apart” during his ravings. He is always shouting and bruising himself with stones. Upon seeing Jesus he cries out, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” Jesus then commands the evil spirit to leave the man and asks his name, receiving the answer “Legion.” The evil spirit then begs Jesus “not to send them out of the country” but instead to allow them to be sent into a herd of swine feeding nearby. Jesus grants permission and the herd of swine “numbering about two thousand” then “rushes down the steep bank and into the sea.”

Although Jesus was not the only exorcist of his day, his method was special. Rather than using the complex rituals and props of his contemporaries, he simply ordered the demon to depart, sometimes even in the first person. In fact Jesus’ exorcisms were considered so radical that he was accused by his enemies of harnessing the power of demons (Mark 3:20-30), a charge Jesus answered by saying simply that it was impossible for a demon to cast out a demon.

These exorcisms had a powerful effect on Jesus’ followers. The evangelist Mark thought them so spectacular that the first miracle he reports Jesus performing is an exorcism (Mark 1:23-27).

In the years following Jesus’ death, exorcism became an important tool for believers to win converts and spread the faith. Almost all the Apostolic Fathers (the writers who came after the apostles) wrote about it. In his
Dialogue with Trypho
, Justin Martyr, one of the earliest Christian theologians, states: ‘Any demon who is commanded in the name of the Son of God … will be overcome and defeated.”

The importance of exorcism is clear in the early ceremonies of baptism, in which candidates underwent a series of formal exorcisms over a period of days while renouncing Satan (the renouncing of Satan is still used in baptism today).

Despite this early importance, a fierce debate erupted between “liberal” and “conservative” theologians in the 1960s about whether the figure of the Devil was ever meant to be taken literally. Since the Church goes about defining truth through two distinct elements— divine revelation (scripture) and tradition, which are authentically interpreted by the Church's Magisterium, or teaching authority—both sides used a mixture of historical and biblical evidence to make their case.

For liberals, it was incomprehensible that the Church would continue to believe in such things as “unseen spirits” or that the Devil was a “person” when advances in science and human reason had clearly shown most of the foundations for these beliefs to be obsolete. “We cannot use electric light and radio, or turn to modern medicine in cases of sickness,” wrote Rudolf Bultmann in 1969, “and at the same time believe in a spirit world and in the miracles that the New Testament presents us.” Taking aim at the Bible, they analyzed the passages that mentioned the Devil and pointed out their reliance on allegory—a literary device used by the writers of the Gospels to underline the hold that evil had over the world. And while Jesus’ actions clearly indicate that at least
he
believed in the Devil, this was debunked by critics like Herbert Haag, Bas van Iersel, and Henry Ansgar Kelly, who claimed that he was simply doing the modern PRequivalent of “dumbing down” the message to get his point across to an uncultured society.

For conservatives, not only did these interpretations misrepresent scripture, but they completely disregarded long-standing traditions reported by the Apostolic Fathers. If the Church had never come out with a binding statement on the Devil's existence in the past, that was because it never had to; the reality of the Devil had never been doubted. To dispute these teachings, they said, would be to call into question the very credibility of the Church. As if to underscore the point, on November 15, 1972, Pope Paul VI spoke out on the matter to a general audience, saying that “evil is not merely a lack of something but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, [and that] it is contrary to the teaching of the Bible and the Church to refuse to recognize the existence of such a reality.”

Both positions seemed to have their limitations. While the liberal view was in many respects a continuation of Enlightenment thinking, its labeling of Jesus’ exorcisms as allegorical had disturbing ramifications for anyone claiming to be a Christian. If Jesus were indeed the Son of God, as every Christian believes, why would he misinform his followers by commanding them to cast out evil spirits if no such beings existed?

Meanwhile, for conservatives, while their defense of the faith on traditional grounds did agree with the Fathers of the Church, it was perceived by rank-and-file priests of the day as being medieval and out of touch with modern society.

In the end, it would be this last view that would win out, as more and more priests found themselves affected not only by a growing acceptance of a modernist worldview, but also by a kind of existential relativism that took hold as a result of the Second Vatican Council. While not necessarily rejecting the official teachings of the Church, most clergymen found the concept of the Devil a sideshow that no “serious-minded” priest would lose time considering. For all intents and purposes, it was Charles Baudelaire's well-known phrase come to life: The Devil had finally convinced the world that he no longer existed.