I just attended a talk by the exorcist for diocese of San Jose, Fr Gary Thomas. He is the subject of a book and a film called The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins. (The talk was organized by a group called Catholics at Work.)
First, he was a great speaker. He described how almost by accident, and
after 20 years as a parish priest, he found himself sent to Rome to
learn how to perform the Rite of Exorcism. He was very clear in saying
that, in his opinion, the recent rise in interest in (the) New Age....
has opened the door to adherence to the occult for greater numbers of
people than before, which in turn opens the way to diabolical
possession. He has always been inundated with requests, even before the
publicity.
The fact that he described these things pretty much in the same
straightforward, matter-of-fact way that one might describe what goes on
in a marriage or baptism in a parish RCIA class only served to
reinforce the truth of it all for me. And I would say that if anything
is to increase your faith, it is listening to accounts of how the Church
overcomes the effects of possession by the devil and demons, and the
suffering of those poor people who are affected by them.
I wanted to pass on one little comment that he made almost in passing. I
do not know where he stands liturgically in regard to the Mass - there
was nothing in what he said that led me to believe that he celebrates
the Latin Mass, for example. However, he did explain that the Rite of
Exorcism is only said in Latin. One reason is practical - there is no
approved translation in English as yet. He gave another reason why he
was so strongly in favor of the use of Latin in the Rite of Exorcism:
“The Devil hates Latin, it is the universal language of the Church.” I
asked him about this afterwards, and he repeated it, saying that his
personal experiences as an exorcist who has performed many, many
exorcisms have convinced him of this. He told me he had heard from
exorcists who did exorcisms in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (the only
approved vernaculars for this Rite) that Latin was the most effective
language.
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