After three centuries of decline, exorcism is booming in the Catholic Church. Tracy Wilkinsonof The Los Angeles Times profiles Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s top exorcist, in an intelligent article that offers not only a nuts-and-bolts account of how exorcisms are carried out, but probes important questions about how exorcists distinguish illness from possession, and what the rising demand for their services indicates about our understanding of evil.
Other exorcisms: An interview with Michael W. Cuneo, author of American Exorcism, a skeptical examination of the resurgence;a brilliantly linked essay on exorcism in world religions in the Catholic Encyclopedia; a do-it-yourself guide from True Catholic; exorcisingrabbis; a CNN account of Mother Teresa‘s late-life exorcism, a story that got overshadowed by the events of September 11, 2001, just a few days later (see also ABC‘s report on exorcism on the rise, originally scheduled for September 11th); and Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet‘s own eyewitness account of a Pentecostal exorcism, “Hermaphrodite Terrorist Angel.”
Bonus track: Lorin Stein’s biographical essay on The Louvin Brothers and their brilliant record, Satan is Real.