Who Knew?

NEW YORK -- Citing a shortage of priests who can perform the rite, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops are holding a conference on how to conduct exorcisms.

The two-day training, which ends Saturday in Baltimore, is to outline the scriptural basis of evil, instruct clergy on evaluating whether a person is truly possessed, and review the prayers and rituals that comprise an exorcism. Among the speakers will be Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, and a priest-assistant to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

"Learning the liturgical rite is not difficult," DiNardo said in a phone interview before the conference, which is open to clergy only...

...The full exorcism is held in private and includes sprinkling holy water, reciting Psalms, reading aloud from the Gospel, laying on of hands and reciting the Lord's Prayer. Some adaptations are allowed for different circumstances. The exorcist can invoke the Holy Spirit then blow in the face of the possessed person, trace the sign of the cross on the person's forehead and command the devil to leave.

This is truly good stuff. Who knew it was so easy? Shake a little water, a little blow..., say "scram." I know of teenagers who were harder to get to move out.

I get the faith thing, I really do. Don't have it, sadly or not, but I get it. But this? Believing in possessions and little rituals to treat it? Really? I simply can't connect such belief with sanity. I mean, geez, people, we're talking Satan here. Beelzebub, the dark one, evil disincarnate. Why would he waste his time possessing a person if it were so easy to force him out? Is some priest, maybe even a little tired from a hard day's child molesting, more powerful than The Devil himself? After a two-day course? That's all it takes?

I have to assume there's no lab time, no possessed people caged in a basement somewhere, to be brought out for the final exam. I admit I felt ready to do lap choles after a half-day course that ended by separating a couple of pigs from their gallbladders; but this seems so much more, what, biblical. Apocalyptic. I'm thinking a week at least. Maybe half a lifetime of good deeds and a miracle or two.

A two-day course. And they're serious! Doesn't it make the whole possession/devil belief a little embarrassing? Even more than it already was?

What The Devil?

Ever since Pat Robertson enlightened us, I've been thinking about the idea of a deal with the devil. I have a couple of questions.

First: it seems to me the kind of person who'd make a deal with the devil is pretty much already consigned to hell. So wouldn't making a deal be a smart play? Get a little something up here before you sign in down there?

Second: how does this pact thing work, anyway? Some guy can get a deal that pays forward so that two hundred years later, a bunch of innocents get destroyed, painfully, miserably? Oh, yes, I know: the deal was with the devil. This here thing is from god. So he (god, not the devil -- although in this case it's hard to tell) smites people who had nothing to do with Pat's pact, centuries later, as punishment? The fact that Haiti is 80% Catholic isn't enough?

Finally, the most obvious question: this Christian god is all mighty, right? Can do anything, n'est-ce pas? So what the hell is the devil doing existing, anyway? (I'm sure there's plenty of theological thought -- somewhat of an oxymoron -- on the subject, but why not some common sense?) Either god is the most powerful, perfect, capable thing in the universe, or he's not. If the devil exists, and can pactifiy people, per Pat, then it can only be at the pleasure of god, correct? Alternatively, if the devil can exist and do all the bogey-man stuff that Wretched Robertson claims, then he (the devil, not god, although it's hard to tell them apart in this case -- or did I mention that already?) is as powerful as god. But god is all-powerful; he makes earthquakes that kill people by the hundreds of thousands, ferchrissakes! Plus, god has a plan for everyone and everything. So isn't it obvious who, in fact, made a pact with the devil?

Just asking.

Meanwhile, as it is with prayer, the whole idea of the devil is self-negating. Assuming there's an oog (I'm getting tired of writing "omniscient, omnipotent god"), and if that means -- as it's said -- that god has a plan for everyone, then what the devil is going on? Can the devil disrupt god's plans? If so, then god has a plan but is unable to carry it out. Big deal. So do I. If the devil can't foil god's plans, then what's he for, except scaring people into coming to church (and sending money to Pat Robertson), and giving a lot of people excuses? You simply can't reconcile deviled oogs.

It's one thing to believe in god. But if I also believed in some red guy running around causing havoc that my god was powerless to prevent (or that he chooses not to prevent so he can see people fry in hell or, even better, directly inflict massive suffering on their heirs for generations), I'd be embarrassed to admit it. In fact, I would have hoped for the moral strength not to have bought in.

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