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Priest Made Millions from Fake Exorcisms
May 21, 2008 09:11 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
An incident in Florence, Italy, is just one sign of a growing interest in the practice worldwide. Psychotherapists have been disturbed by this trend.
30-Second Summary
Father Francesco Saverio Bazzoffi amassed £3 million, or just under $6 million, and regularly attracted large crowds of over 400 people at staged events during which individuals would “pretend to be possessed,” reports Britain’s The Daily Telegraph.
“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,” a witness told police.
Though the practice appears anachronistic to many Christians today, exorcism, a ritual in which evil spirits are expelled from people or places, is on the rise, reported The Wall Street Journal in 2005. Recent popes have encouraged exorcism, which has become popular in the developing world, carried there by the spread of Catholicism.
Rome’s chief exorcist, Gabriel Amorth, said last year that the Pope wants an exorcist in every diocese in the world.
The resurgence has sparked tensions between priests and psychotherapists concerned about patients whose mental illnesses may have been exacerbated by a belief in demonic possession, reports Jennifer Green of The Ottawa Citizen. Last month, an Australian ministry came under fire because of a program that offered Bible study and exorcisms to mentally ill young women.
Speaking to the Citizen, Ottawa psychiatrist and practicing Catholic Carlos Miura said that he uses healing prayer but has never attended an exorcism.
“There is a long tradition of spiritual healing, and there is a short tradition of scientific healing,” he said. “At the same time, there are lots of distortions on both and there are difficulties in both, and neither of them is totally right all the time.”
“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,” a witness told police.
Though the practice appears anachronistic to many Christians today, exorcism, a ritual in which evil spirits are expelled from people or places, is on the rise, reported The Wall Street Journal in 2005. Recent popes have encouraged exorcism, which has become popular in the developing world, carried there by the spread of Catholicism.
Rome’s chief exorcist, Gabriel Amorth, said last year that the Pope wants an exorcist in every diocese in the world.
The resurgence has sparked tensions between priests and psychotherapists concerned about patients whose mental illnesses may have been exacerbated by a belief in demonic possession, reports Jennifer Green of The Ottawa Citizen. Last month, an Australian ministry came under fire because of a program that offered Bible study and exorcisms to mentally ill young women.
Speaking to the Citizen, Ottawa psychiatrist and practicing Catholic Carlos Miura said that he uses healing prayer but has never attended an exorcism.
“There is a long tradition of spiritual healing, and there is a short tradition of scientific healing,” he said. “At the same time, there are lots of distortions on both and there are difficulties in both, and neither of them is totally right all the time.”
Headline Link: ‘Priest “Made £3 Million From Fake Exorcisms”’
Italian prosecutors are investigating Father Francesco Saverio Bazzoffi, a priest in Florence who allegedly amassed £3 million from performing fake exorcisms.
Source: The Telegraph
Related Topics: Canadian archdiocese appoints new exorcists, and a troubled ministry in Australia
Two new exorcists, one for the English and one for the French community, will replace the last exorcist who retired five years ago, reports Ottawa’s Catholic archdiocese. The archdiocese would not release the names of the priests, but said that both had worked in areas overseas where belief in demons is more common than in North America. Rome’s chief exorcist, Gabriel Amorth, said last year that the Pope wants an exorcist in every diocese in the world.
Source: Canwest News Service
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, a Christian ministry in Australia tricked troubled young women into entering a program that offered Bible studies and exorcisms to treat mental illness. Mercy Ministries says that 96 young women have “graduated” from its program since 2001. Former residents accuse the program of administering cruel and medically unproven techniques, such as exorcisms, “separation contracts” between friends, and harsh discipline. Some former patients claim that they left the program suicidal.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Opinion & Analysis: Exorcism v. psychotherapy, and exorcism’s comeback
The Catholic Church’s renewed interest in exorcism is igniting conflicts between priests and psychiatrists, reports Jennifer Green of The Ottawa Citizen. “In the past few decades, the devil has returned,” says Green, noting that popes and priests have been urging people to take Satan more seriously. Psychiatrists point out the dangers of treating mentally ill patients with exorcisms. Ottawa psychiatrist Carlos Miura is a practicing Catholic who makes use of healing prayer but has never attended an exorcism. “There is a long tradition of spiritual healing, and there is a short tradition of scientific healing,” he said.
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
Psychotherapy has become a modern form of exorcism, says Rosie Dimanno of The Toronto Star. “And while it’s true that some exorcists … have caused incalculable harm to those already suffering from what any rational person would recognize as mental illness, so to have many psychiatrists inflicted harm on their patients via such discredited curative treatments as retrieved memory syndrome, electric shock therapy and latterly, a pharmacopeia of antidepressants, as if it’s all just a matter of chemical imbalances in the brain.”
Source: The Toronto Star
Exorcism has been making a comeback, although it has always played a major role in Christian theology, wrote John J. Miller in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in 2005. In the past, Catholics considered exorcism an embarrassment. He attributes some of the recent growth to Catholicism’s spread into developing countries, where exorcisms are not uncommon. “Most exorcisms are tame. In my case, the priest spoke a few words and puffed his breath into my face, and that was that. The house blessing, another common practice among devout Catholics, is in fact a minor exorcism,” wrote Millar.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Video: Exorcism in the Philippines
The National Geographic Web site provides a video of a woman in the Philippines who seeks out an exorcist to heal her son.
Source: National Geographic
© 2009 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
