The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist

by Matt Baglio

  A small group of people stood outside the closed door to Father Carmine's office. They represented a broad spectrum—an older lady in her sixties, dressed conservatively; a man in his late thirties; two young thirty-something women wearing brand-new Nike sneakers and fashionable clothes; and a serious-looking couple in their fifties. Some chatted, while one man stood off on his own, his arms crossed tightly across his chest.

  As Father Gary approached, a few looked in his direction, eyeing him suspiciously. The younger woman with shoulder-length blond hair refused to even look at him.

  Taking his place among them, he wondered who they might be. He looked for signs of “trauma,” anything that might indicate these people were suffering from demonic possession, but found nothing. He knew from Father Daniel that exorcists sometimes did simple blessings. Perhaps the more serious cases hadn't arrived yet.

  A few minutes later, the door swung inward to reveal Father Carmine, who barely gave the group a glance before shuffling back inside. One by one, and with an after-you attitude, the group filed inside and took up positions around the waiting room, unwrapping coats and scarves. The door to Father Carmine's office was ajar, so Father Gary gently pushed his way inside, and said, “Buona sera.” Father Carmine returned the greeting and asked if he was ready.

  “Si,” Father Gary replied.

  “Good,” Father Carmine said. “Allora, cominciamo.” Okay, let's begin.

  Father Gary took off his coat, slipped on his purple stole, then entered the small room off the office, which contained a wooden end table near the door and four metal chairs, two against one wall and two shoved into the corner. Thinking it would be best to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, Father Gary took a seat in the corner, still only a few feet from the other two chairs. The room, which seemed even smaller from the inside, was an odd setting for an exorcism. Like most European rooms, it had a very high ceiling. The upper walls were crisscrossed by exposed pipe while the lower walls were covered by a fake wood paneling about six feet high. Each wall held some form of sacred image—a framed picture of Padre Pio along with a hand-woven rug depicting Mary and the baby Jesus on one wall, a purple stole (belonging to Father Candido) encased in glass on another wall, and a black-and-white picture of Christ crowned with thorns directly above the two empty chairs. To his immediate right, the room's only window, which he could reach if he were to stand on his tiptoes, was latched shut.

  From his seat, he could just make out the contents of a little wooden box resting on the end table near the door: a picture of Saint Francis, a rosary, various medallions, a roll of paper towels, a wooden crucifix, and a squeeze bottle of holy water—essentially, the tools of Father Carmine's trade.

  As he waited, Father Gary glanced at the two empty chairs against the wall. Just above their backs, a patch of wood paneling was rubbed and scraped raw, as if someone, or something, had clawed it.

  Seconds later Father Carmine, now wearing a thin, wrinkled purple stole, entered the room carrying a plastic shopping bag that he hung on the back of the door handle. Satisfied that everything was ready, he ducked out to the waiting room.

  Father Gary eyed the bag, wondering why they would need it. A few seconds later, Father Carmine returned with the man in his late thirties who wore a V-necked sweater and collared shirt.

  Father Gary could tell the man was unnerved by his presence, so he tried to put him at ease. “Hello,” he said, holding out his hand. “Mi chiamo don Gary Thomas. Vengo dalla California.”

  The man smiled as he shook Father Gary's hand. “Oh, California! É un piacere.” It's a pleasure to meet you.

  The man sat down and Father Carmine stood directly in front of him. Father Gary perplexed by the man's cordiality, took his seat and opened the Ritual book.

  “In nómine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.” In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Father Carmine said as he blessed the man with a few drops of holy water from the squeeze bottle. Following this, he placed his hand on the man's head and immediately began praying the deprecatory prayer of the Ritual from memory, skipping a good chunk of the book that Father Gary had opened on his lap. “Deus, humàni g´neris cónditor atque defénsor…” God, creator and defender of the human race, Father Carmine began, “look down on this your servant, whom you formed in your own image and now call to be a partaker in your glory.” Father Carmine spoke with an even, almost soft tone, the Latin blending into a shushing sound.

  Occasionally, as he prayed, he would turn to Father Gary and point to a spot in the Ritual. Father Gary tried his best to follow along, though he was distracted by trying to gauge the man's reaction.

  Initially, the man sat perfectly still, his eyes clenched tight as Father Carmine recited the prayers. After a few minutes, however, he began to cough—at first just a bit, but then the coughing got worse and worse. He began to move his head from side to side as if trying to dislodge Father Carmine's hand. Then he began trying to push Father Carmine away—not violently, but as if he were drunk and didn't have complete control of his motor skills.

  Father Carmine, meanwhile, used his free hand to keep the man's flailing arms away. He continued praying the Ritual without skipping a beat, occasionally accentuating a word from the prayer. As he intoned, “Ipse Christus tibi imperat,” Christ commands you, the word imperat, commands, was spoken louder, though still not shouted.

  While he watched, Father Gary prayed a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers silently.

  The man's cough continued to get worse, until he was hacking as if something was stuck in his throat.

  Father Carmine then took his free hand and pushed on the man's sternum, causing him to let out a belching sound.

  To Father Gary it sounded more like air escaping than a belch caused by food—”Uhhhhhhhh. Huuuuhhhhhhh.”

  The man continued belching for a few minutes then suddenly stood up and, with tightly clenched eyes, pushed past Father Carmine toward the door.

  Father Carmine immediately spun him around and expertly plopped him back down into the chair. He continued the Ritual for several minutes until he abruptly stopped and tapped the man's forehead with his index finger, at the same time roughing up his hair in the manner of an older brother razzing a younger sibling.

  As he did this, the man stopped fidgeting and opened his eyes. He sat for a moment, rubbing his eyes, taking a few deep breaths.

  “Come stai, giovanotto?” How are you, young man? Father Carmine asked him while patting his shoulders.

  The man, now fully aware, looked up at him and nodded. “Bene,” he replied.

  It took a moment for Father Gary to realize that the exorcism was over. From start to finish, the whole episode had lasted about twenty minutes.

  As Father Carmine led the man out into his office, Father Gary stayed behind in the room. The exorcism certainly hadn't gone as he had expected. He'd seen none of the symptoms talked about in his exorcism class nor the dramatic reactions Father Daniel had described. Instead this guy only coughed and belched. Father Gary hated to admit it, but he felt underwhelmed.

  Next, a conservatively dressed blond woman in her fifties entered, accompanied by her husband, who wore a slightly rumpled suit. Again, Father Gary introduced himself and sat back down in the corner. Father Carmine asked the woman a few questions in Italian, and Father Gary caught something about “not being able to receive the Eucharist.” She began to cry and Father Carmine consoled her, “No, no, non ti devi preoccupare.” No, no, you don't have to worry.

  Father Gary took note that Father Carmine blessed both the woman and her husband, a gesture he found touching. It's not only about the woman, he thought, appreciating the pastoral significance of it and making a mental note to do the same when the time came for him to perform an exorcism.

  As before, Father Carmine invoked the Holy Spirit by putting his hand on the woman's head and then skipped straight through the Ritual to the exorcism prayers. This time, the woman went completely rigid and didn't move a m
uscle.

  Midway through the exorcism the phone rang in Father Carmine's office, and to Father Gary's surprise, Father Carmine interrupted the exorcism to walk out and answer it. As he did so, the woman remained where she was, though the rigidity seemed to leave her. She seemed unfazed that Father Carmine had taken a phone call, while Father Gary wondered whether his mentor was taking the woman's situation seriously.

  After a few minutes, Father Carmine came back in, picking up where he left off. Once he resumed the prayers, the woman immediately went rigid again. The exorcism continued for another fifteen minutes.

  Afterward, Father Carmine blessed a six-pack of bottled water that the couple had brought, waving his hand in the sign of the cross. As they walked out, Father Carmine, perhaps sensing Father Gary's confusion, felt compelled to explain: “Lei é posseduta da un demons, muto,” he said, struggling to find the right word in English. “Cannot speak,” he said. “A very powerful demon.”

  “A mute demon?” Father Gary asked. Father Carmine nodded.

  Father Gary had heard about mute demons through the course. Father Daniel had weighed in on them, too. He wondered, though, how an exorcist could tell whether a person was really possessed by such a demon. Before he had time to question Father Carmine further, the Capuchin was ushering in a couple in their forties. This time the exorcism lasted about ten minutes, and the only noticeable reaction was the man's continual yawning. As with the two previous cases, Father Carmine tapped the man's forehead with his index finger, which Father Gary took to mean that the exorcism was finished.

  The fourth person was another woman in her late fifties, with short curly reddish hair that was noticeably thinning. She entered with her husband and a ten-year-old boy who appeared to be her grandson. They all sat and Father Carmine began bantering with the boy asking about school and reminding him to behave. Father Gary could tell that Father Carmine had become almost like a parish priest, checking in with people, listening to their problems. After a few minutes, Father Carmine blessed the family, sprinkling them with holy water, and then the boy and the husband left. Alone with the woman, Father Carmine asked her how she was doing. “The headaches,” she answered in Italian, holding her head. Her voice became choked and she dabbed at tears with a handkerchief. “Terrible, terrible,” she said. Father Carmine nodded.

  The woman sat with her head bowed and her arms in her lap as Father Carmine prayed the Ritual over her. Tears continued to stream down her cheeks and she grimaced occasionally, a little squeak of pain escaping from her clenched mouth as if she had stomach cramps.

  After this case, Father Carmine took a ten-minute break, and he and Father Gary sat down in the office. Early on, Father Gary had decided he would not ask unnecessary questions or disturb Father Carmine's rhythm during the exorcisms. He didn't know Father Carmine all that well yet, and he wanted to make a favorable impression so he could keep coming back. Now, however, as they paused, he couldn't resist. “How do you know these people are possessed?”

  Father Carmine quickly explained his “technique of discernment”— he noticed things through little “signs.” Most of these people, he said, had already been through several hospitals and had seen numerous doctors, none of which helped. “This last woman,” he said, “has terrible headaches, the kind that don't go away. They completely block her. No matter how many aspirins she takes, it doesn't help. You understand?”

  “Si, si,” Father Gary agreed, but he still wasn't sure how to be absolutely certain. The course had stressed that an exorcist should be skeptical in the beginning, and while he trusted that Father Carmine knew what he was doing, it bothered Father Gary that the “signs” weren't as apparent to him as they were to Father Carmine. Wary of being disrespectful, he held his tongue.

  At 6:45 they took a short break and went to the basilica for evening prayer. Around fifteen people, including two other friars, crowded into the Cappella di San Tarcisio just off the sacristy. Among those praying, Father Gary recognized some of the people he'd seen in Father Carmine's waiting room. Apparently he would have to rethink his concept of what it meant to be possessed. Weren't demons supposed to stop people from worshiping?

  They returned to Father Carmine's office and resumed the exorcisms. None of the reactions extended beyond coughing and yawning. One woman coughed so much that she brought up some foam. Father Carmine gave her one of the paper towels to wipe her mouth, then he threw it in the plastic trash bag he had attached to the door. At least Father Gary got an answer to the question about the bag's purpose.

  Toward the end of the evening, Father Gary could see that the strain of so many exorcisms was starting to affect Father Carmine. Drenched and aching from being on his feet for hours, he shifted continuously and hooked his left hand into his rope belt behind his back while he prayed. Father Gary knew he must be exhausted.

  Finally, at eight o'clock, Father Carmine turned to Father Gary and announced with a heavy voice, “We're finished.”

  He could see that Father Carmine was drained; still he couldn't resist. “Un momento,” he said to Father Carmine. “Una domanda?” A question.

  Father Carmine turned to look at him, his eyes lidded and heavy.

  “Come back tomorrow afternoon at three-thirty,” he said with a nod. “We can talk a little then.”

  When Father Gary stepped outside, the streets were practically deserted. A handful of antiquated streetlights cast a dull glow over him as he walked briskly to the bus stop on the opposite side of Via Tiburtina. Once on the bus, he realized that instead of providing answers, the evening had only raised more doubts. The people had certainly appeared to be troubled, but whether the cause was demonic, he couldn't say. None had displayed the classic symptoms of demonic possession. He knew that Italy had socialized medicine, that its population was 83 percent Catholic—maybe seeing a priest was easier for people than seeing a counselor, he hypothesized. And wouldn't a priest locked in battle against a demon let the answering machine pick up the phone?

  He had to trust that Father Carmine had the experience to diagnose these people; after all, he'd been an exorcist for more than eighteen years. Still, something about the experiences troubled Father Gary. He felt let down that he hadn't found the definitive proof that he sought.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DISCERNMENT

  Every man has close by him two angels, the one an angel of holiness, the other an angel of perversion … And how then, O Lord, shall I recognize the workings of these two since they both dwell within me?

  —The Shepherd, by Hermas

  In mid-January, even before participating in his first exorcism, Father Gary had been asked by the director of pastoral formation at the NAC, forty-seven-year-old Father Steve Bigler, to give a talk to the seminarians about discernment. While not an exorcist himself, Father Bigler had taken the exorcism course the year before and wanted his seminarians to have more practical exposure. He thought of Father Gary, whom he knew from their time together the previous fall at the NAC.

  The concept that most terrified Father Gary about exorcism was discernment—the possibility that he might get it wrong. He knew that several mental illnesses could mask themselves as demonic possession. Performing exorcisms on people with severe mental disease would most likely harm them, “fixing” them in this state. He was extremely wary of doing anything that might add to a person's pain by making an existing condition worse.

  When Father Bigler contacted him, Father Gary immediately warmed to the idea of imparting some of his knowledge to the seminarians. In fact, early on, once he began to sink his teeth into the course material, he'd realized that while he might never be called upon to actually perform an exorcism, he could still be a resource for priests in the parish who had questions. He had seen how callous some priests could be in unfamiliar situations, turning people away who sought comfort for problems such as depression.

  He gave his presentation on a Saturday afternoon in one of the NAC's small gathering rooms, with the seminarians arra
nged around a horseshoe-shaped table. Attending the talk had been optional, so only eight seminarians showed up, along with two spiritual directors and the director of spiritual formation, Father Mike Tomaseck. All found the subject intriguing.

  Father Gary's portion of the talk focused on the teachings of the Church with respect to the Devil. To help the seminarians with the concept of discernment, he passed around a list of questions they might ask a person who claimed to be possessed, telling the seminarians that “these are just food for thought.”

  The questions ranged from the obvious (“Please describe the experience that led you to believe that you are being affected by a presence of evil.”) to the less obvious (“How would you describe your own personal self-discipline?”). At the bottom of the page, Father Gary had written a small “end note,” explaining how the questions had been derived from the course material and how, in his opinion, “many of the lectures that have been presented do not only apply specifically to the demonic but to experiences leading up to demonic possession or other kinds of harassment and evil manifestations.”

  Afterward, despite the low turnout, he was pleased with how his talk went. His main goal was to give the seminarians “some equipment in their pastoral bag” that could help them “minister and serve people, rather than tell them they were crazy.” From the course he had picked up the phrase “the exorcist must be the ultimate skeptic,” and he never got tired of saying it.

  IN ADOPTING THIS PRUDENT APPROACH, Father Gary was following recognized protocol. The guidelines set forth in the Ritual clearly state that “the exorcist should not proceed to celebrate the rite of exorcism unless he has discovered to his moral certainty that the one to be exorcized is in actual fact possessed by demonic power.” In order to do this, the exorcist “must above all exercise necessary and extreme circumspection and prudence … He must not be too ready to believe that someone beset by some illness, especially mental illness, is a victim of demonic possession [nor] should he immediately believe that possession is present as soon as someone asserts that he or she is in a special way tempted by the Devil, abandoned, or indeed tormented, for people can be deceived by their own imagination.” The discernment of spirits is far more than just an educated guess, and is not to be confused with “intuition.” Instead, according to Sicilian exorcist Father Matteo La Grua, discernment is one of the gifts that God gives to the faithful. It is like a “holy light” that comes from God and that allows those who receive it “to see how God is present in things.” The Bible lists discernment as one of the nine spiritual manifestations (or fruits of the Holy Spirit), mentioned by Paul (1 Corinthians 12:8-10).