Four exorcisms a day. Yes, it’s a devil of a job

Are you suffering from diabolical possession? Do you need liberating from evil? The Vatican can help

Giles Coren
From The Times March 13, 2010

A propos of a story that is not funny at all and on which I have no intention of touching, the Devil is at work inside the Vatican, according to an interview with the Holy See’s chief exorcist in The Times today.

Mmm, yes, I see, interesting. I suppose within the context of this being the capital of world Catholicism very bad things probably would be ascribed by some people to the presence of the . . . hang on! According to the Holy See’s what?

Its chief exorcist? Oh, come on. You’re having a woolly scarf, aren’t you? The Vatican can’t possibly have a chief exorcist. Not in 2010. Bells and smells and a touching regard for the sanctity of theoretically viable life, yes. But a chief exorcist? Such individuals simply do not exist outside every third episode of Scooby-Doo — and even then he’s just a lonely old bloke who dresses up in a sheet at night to keep himself in the day job, running backwards and forwards with his arms in front of him, going “Woooo!” until finally he trips over a bucket of water and falls in a heap muttering, “pesky kids”. You’re not telling me that old Ratzinger keeps one of those on the payroll?

I say “one”. But 85-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth is the Vatican’s chief exorcist, and has been for 25 years, which rather presupposes the existence of a whole cadre of lesser exorcists jostling for position beneath him. Ranks of vice-chief exorcists and regional head exorcists stuck out in the boondocks, exorcising poxy little local churches and motorway service stations, all hoping to move up a rung if the old boy ever dies. If.

Beneath these, there will no doubt be yet lesser exorcists, trainees even, who are called out to investigate minor cases of gerbil-possession and broom-cupboard hauntings, who have the power to do little more than kick the skirting board a couple of times, scratch their chins, scroll through their BlackBerrys and mutter: “I’m going to have to call head office on this one.”

And even if you do fear diabolical possession, and feel the need to call in expert help (which seems a bit defeatist coming from the Pope himself, who you would have thought had clout enough to see off his own devils), it seems rather an extravagance in this day and age to have exorcists actually on staff. Surely you could just hire them in freelance, as and when, off the internet. £60 call-out, double on weekends, and if there is cause to suspect a possession, then charges per exorcism are on a pro-rata basis, although they can’t promise starting until Thursday. You can try someone else if you want but they’ll tell you the same . . .

That said, Father Amorth makes a strong case for his full-time employ by stating that he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession in his career. Now, if he started in the job at, say, 25, then that’s 1,166 cases a year (actually it’s 1,166.66 recurring — which are damned spooky digits in his line of work), or nearly four a day (not counting Sundays, when you have to assume the Vatican’s chief exorcist does not work).

Four demonic possessions a day. You’ve got to start looking a bit more closely at Farther Amorth, haven’t you? I mean, one case a day would be a coincidence, but four is beginning to look a bit, well, a bit like that bloke out of Scooby-Doo dressing up in a sheet every night to keep himself in work.

“The Pope fully believes in liberation from evil,” says Amorth, “because the Devil lodges in the Vatican.” And the Pope stays there? I don’t think so.

I’m sorry, but “the Devil lives in the Vatican” sounds to me more like something you would think if you were not Catholic. If you were, say, the Rev Ian Paisley. But the chief exorcist says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Is the Pope a Catholic? Does a bear go poo-poo in the woods? Does the Devil live at the Vatican?” “Naturally,” Father Amorth says of his Devil-in-the-Vatican stories, “it is difficult to find proof.” Oh, you don’t say? It’s no wonder he and the Pope get on so well, what with both of them having their livelihoods more than a little grounded in the existence of invisible beings of whose existence “proof” is notoriously hard to come by.

I think he’s a bit dodge, this Amorth. He is on record, for example, as having proclaimed that both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were possessed by the devil. Now, these are hardly the boldest choices of candidate for celebrity Devil-possession.

Indeed, the accusation has more than a whiff of the fairground fortune-teller about it. Anyone can come along and say that a murderer of millions is possessed by the Devil. What would be impressive would be to say that Joanna Lumley is in the pay of Satan. Or Adrian Chiles. And then get down there and exorcise them live, on The One Show.

It’s just all so very Roman Catholic. Does anyone else have a chief exorcist? Does the Church of England have one? Does it have any? I very much doubt it. If it does then it’ll be one or two beardy chancers, in it for the beer and lonely-hearts opportunities. But it’s hard to imagine what a C of E exorcist would do. Sit down with a fiery demon and offer it tea? And then presumably say that it takes all sorts and had it ever thought of becoming a priest?

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It has been announced that a director of porn films has been selected as a Liberal Democrat candidate in the general election. “What is this,” I hear you cry. “Italy?” No, it’s Gravesham, Kent, where Anna Arrowsmith, 38, says she is standing because women are under- represented in Parliament. Not because they are over-represented in porn films, you notice. Which they absolutely are. It’s always at least two girls to one boy, and usually far more, like in that picture of Tony Blair and his “babes” in 1997.

I think a bit of a “brain-drain” out of pornography and into Parliament can only be a good thing. It’ll certainly glamorise the place a bit and give poor old Caroline Flint — the only MP one can even vaguely imagine in a porno — a break from Question Time, for which she is positively the only sexy option, and beginning to look a bit weary of it. And there’s no doubt that those poor tattooed, smack-dependent lasses in the films are a resilient bunch, and more than used to being surrounded by a lot of grunting men and, er, humiliated.

“Out of porno and into parley!” might even become the great feminist war-cry of our age. Let’s fill the benches of Westminster with plastic- titted dolly birds because, frankly, there is nothing in the world more democratic than pornography (if the people want to watch you shagging, you work; if not, not) and it would certainly be nice if, for once, the MPs and not the tax-paying electorate were the ones who were getting screwed.

This will, of course, create opportunities in the porn industry to be filled by former MPs travelling the other way. I can just see Sir Peter Viggers up in front of the moneymen at Skinflick UK, Inc trying to justify his expenses, and the accountant looking at him and murmuring: “Duck Island, you say? Duck Island? I can’t say I’ve seen that one. Although I’ve seen one that sounds very much like it.”

From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/giles_coren/article7060305.ece