A Rot within

[woodchip]

Seems the catholic church's cheif exorcist believes the church may be infiltrated by Satan possessed officials:

\"Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as \"cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon\".\"

Even more interesting is what Father Amorth has collected over the years:

\"He said it sometimes took six or seven of his assistants to to hold down a possessed person. Those possessed often yelled and screamed and spat out nails or pieces of glass, which he kept in a bag. \"Anything can come out of their mouths – finger-length pieces of iron, but also rose petals.\"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 056689.ece

Now here is some interesting conjecture on my part. If Satan is owning high officials of the Catholic church, what about Islam? Could we say the Islamnofacist terrorist are really possessed by the Devil? If so then we can perhaps view the war on terror as more a war of souls? Perhaps view it as a onset of Armageddon. As a last thought, maybe Tricon should be allowed to continue imprinting it's gun sights with biblical scripture.

[Xamindar]

Seems the catholic church's cheif exorcist believes the church may be infiltrated by Satan possessed officials:

Wait a minute! Hold up here.

Didn't this already happen around 400AD when all the "real" apostles were killed and the church became the "Roman Catholic" Church in order to control the peasants and peons for thousands of years?

[AlphaDoG]

And, just what is \"congress\" possessed with?



Oh, never mind, that is just yours and mine dollars.

[Sergeant Thorne]

The Catholic church infiltrated by Satan? Should I wait for a punch-line or is that it?

[woodchip]

No punch line. Try reading the link. The guy is dead serious.

[Duper]

Seems the catholic church's cheif exorcist believes the church may be infiltrated by Satan possessed officials:

Wait a minute! Hold up here.

Didn't this already happen around 400AD when all the "real" apostles were killed and the church became the "Roman Catholic" Church in order to control the peasants and peons for thousands of years?

the apostles died a earlier than 400 AD. And the formation of the "Roman Catholic Church" was a bit more complex than that and actually took well over 1000 years.

[TechPro]

The Catholic church infiltrated by Satan? Should I wait for a punch-line or is that it?

You know, depending on what religion you cling to ... you might have already believed that years ago.

[roid]

/me suspends disbelief to have some fun in the thread.

If priests can secretly be possessed by demons without their knowledge. One wonders what evidence Father Gabriele Amorth has that he himself is not also possessed? Maybe a devil has possessed him, and made him say these things, to try to bring the church into disrepute.

You're a witch!
No I'm not a witch, YOUR a witch!
NO U!


If i remove weekends and assume a 4-week yearly holiday, 70,000 exorcisms means that this guy has been performing somewhere between 4 and 21 exorcisms per day!

ok. suspension of disbelief over


In the end what this crazy Father Amorth is saying is no different to any of the past would-be "Secret Satanist cult" conspiracies throughout history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_pani ... tual_abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism

Although Religious Satanism began in 1966 with the founding of the Church of Satan, there was also a late seventeenth century French moral panic against alleged satanism during the Poison Affair (1675-1682), which occurred during the reign of Louis XIV and dealt with accusations of widespread poisonings, infanticide and forgery, presided over by an alleged satanic social network, which had no actual substance but reflected the aforementioned pre-Enlightenment popular religious anxieties

But of course in the end all demon possession is much better explained as stupid witchhunting ("She's a witch! Why? Coz i don't like her"), Seizures, or some of the many physical and/or mental illnesses that freak bystanders out, or a combination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism#Scientific_view

Unfortuantely many people are still killed, even in our modern day, in barbaric exorcism rituals. *sigh*
http://angryastronomer.blogspot.com/search?q=exorcism
Come on people, how long ago was the the enlightenment?

[woodchip]

Perhaps the famed comedian Flip Wilson said it best...\"The Devil Made Me Do It\"

[Duper]

lol Roid.

Let me just say that you have no real clue. When you DO come upon someone that is possessed, you will know it. Trust me. A fit or seizure doesn't even come close. .. although i know there are plenty that are too willing to see a demon under every rock. Because if you Go looking for them you will \"find\" them. I've known folks like that.

[AlphaDoG]

The thread relates to Islamofascists and demonic possession which is clearly related in the question posed in the original post.

Demonic possession takes on many forms. It's NOT always evident that someone has been possessed. Keep in mind that Satan and his followers are the greatest deceivers to have ever roamed the planet.

To me it is quite possible that the leadership of the Taliban and/or Al Queada are in fact demon possessed. That being said, most of the followers are (IMO) not.

[Sergeant Thorne]

The Catholic church infiltrated by Satan? Should I wait for a punch-line or is that it?

You know, depending on what religion you cling to ... you might have already believed that years ago.

I need only cling to the scriptures to know that the Catholic church is not under God's rule. Not if we're talking about the God of the Bible.

If i remove weekends and assume a 4-week yearly holiday, 70,000 exorcisms means that this guy has been performing somewhere between 4 and 21 exorcisms per day!

Good catch, I didn't even bother to think about the numbers. Maybe he's cheating and including crowds he waved his magic wand over.

[AlphaDoG]

Possession avoidance: \"Get thee behind me Satan!\"

[Duper]

I wondered about the numbers too. Stretch it out a bit more though. He's only been the Chief exorcist for 25 years. The number given probably includes his time even before Bishophood. (?) So.. I don't know. take it from oh. 25, or 28? So about 57 years if you start when he was 28.
so for argument's sake (and not necessarily realizm) lets say 5 days a week @ 10 hours a day. (priests are on-call 24/7 for this kinda thing)minus major holidays (5 days New years, Easter, The 4th <assuming he was in america the whole time> Thanksgiving, and Christmas) is 255 days/ year @57 years = 14535 days X 10 hours= 145,350 hours over his life. (assuming my math is right. )

Still 70K is an awful lot and makes you wonder.

\"Enlightenment\" was in the mid 1800's as was declared such upon the discovery or an ancient Greek library wherein were found a lot of old failed philosophies were \"rediscovered.\"

[roid]

4 exorcisms a day would be if he was performing exorcisms since he was 15 years old.
21 exorcisms a day would be if he has only been performing exorcisms since he was made chief exorcist.

Even the lower figure is startling.
But then again we should probably forgive this priest for pulling the figure outof mid-air - rigorous documentation is not exactly the strong suit of his magical profession.

lol Roid.

Let me just say that you have no real clue. When you DO come upon someone that is possessed, you will know it. Trust me. A fit or seizure doesn't even come close. .. although i know there are plenty that are too willing to see a demon under every rock. Because if you Go looking for them you will "find" them. I've known folks like that.

No apparently you are the one who has no clue.
Demon possession sounds like a pretty debilitating illness, if exorcism is a valid treatment for this supposedly common (70,000 cases successfully treated by just one practitioner alone!) condition then every doctor in the world will be interested.

Don't you think if any supernatural cause or influence had been witnessed in a patient that it would be documented and studied? The ability of spitting supposedly an infinite amount of finger length nails from a magical demon's nailbag in your throat, would be a very interesting phenomenon that would force us all to question our understanding of the laws of physics.
Curious people don't run away from such conditions, they search them out. Do you realise just how much any concrete evidence of any supernatural occurrence would revolutionise the halls of science? You really do have no clue.

[woodchip]

To clear up how he did 70,000 rites:

\"His claim to have carried out 70,000 exorcisms seems incredible. “But I was talking about the number of exorcisms, not the number of people exorcised. You often have to exorcise someone dozens, even hundreds, of times, and an exorcism ritual can take anything from a few minutes to several hours.\"

[AlphaDoG]

Well, the claim IS 70K exorcisms, that leaves little wiggle room.

You are only ONCE exorcised, after that you back slide.

[Sergeant Thorne]

You often have to exorcise someone dozens, even hundreds, of times ...

Does that fall under the category of the same works Jesus did, or the \"greater works\" he referred to? [/sarcasm]

[roid]

Well, the claim IS 70K exorcisms, that leaves little wiggle room.

You are only ONCE exorcised, after that you back slide.

no i think you're getting confused with being BornAgain or Baptised.

[Duper]

quite correct.

[Kilarin]

I believe that demonic possession does occur, but its' really not that common. What would be the point? Look at the world around you and you will SEE the evil that happens without requiring anyone to be actually possessed.

Today, 100,000 people will die of hunger. 16,000 of them children. Today, husbands will beat their wives to-death. Today men will kill each other because they have different religions, or skin colors. Today people will be sold in slavery. Today people in big plush offices will make decisions that will result in the suffering and even deaths of thousands of innocent people, and then they will break for lunch, smiling and laughing.

Satan does his greatest work without ever needing to do something so flashy as posses anyone. And it doesn't even take much work. The slightest nudge is all thats required to make us not only not CARE what happens to each other, but actively hate each other.