Pope Francis's Exorcism

I saw what has been called the Holy Father's exorcism on Sunday and didn't take much note of it at the time, though inquiring minds would like to know what was in that folder. Since then, though, it's been coming back to mind. Maybe it's the strange progression of the story in the Italian media, though I have to admit that the grammar of Italian public discourse is somewhat opaque to me even at baseline.

Was it an exorcism? Spokescleric Fr. Lombardi says no. Apparently some experienced exorcists who watched said it certainly was. Another I heard speaking in private said no. In any case, as far as I'm concerned, it's none of my business. If the Holy Father knew by some means, natural or supernatural, that an exorcism was indicated and he did it, well, good for him.

What I do feel like saying, however--and this goes for both the more religious and less religious sorts of people--is that often when we get to talking about such things we don't take seriously enough that the devil is happy for us to do so, so long as our discussion, whether it be fearful or dismissive, bemused or pious, can be made to serve his purposes. The devil is happy to have us discuss things like demons, possession, exorcism, etc., so long as such conversations serve to make us dismiss religion or spiritual danger on the one hand, or to focus less on the love of God and the victory of Christ on the other. In other words, if the result of such talk is that we end up more dismissive of God and true religion on the one hand or more afraid and timid on the other, the devil wins.

In my opinion, we would do well to take Fr. Merrin's advice and be wary of demonic tactics that could be at work even in our conversations about such things:

"He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us."

But we should also remember that the devil knows well our tendency to collect shiny things even when their edges cut us, and always tries to make us think that his primary efforts are the sorts of sensational things that make for tabloid sales and  'viral' videos. The comment of Jeffrey Burton Russell comes to mind:

"The Devil no doubt has some interest in cultural despair, Satan chic, and demonic rock groups, but he must be much more enthusiastic about nuclear armament, gulags, and exploitive imperialism . . ."

(Mephistopheles, 257, quoted from Arthur Lyons, Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America)

One Year In Italy Post

There's still a week left to go until I will have been here in Italy for a calendar year, but in liturgical time the anniversary has come. It was the Monday after Pentecost, the first day of the greater stretch of Ordinary Time, that I left the USA.

Sometimes

For us Capuchins, today is the feast our first confrere to be canonized, St. Felix of Cantalice. Having served here in Rome, and with his relics venerated here to this day, he is also an optional memorial for the diocese.

Saying my prayers this morning, I was, however, a little troubled. For the second reading in the Office of Readings, we are given a chunk of chapter 17 of the Earlier Rule, which is basically St. Francis's sense of the interior attitudes of the Friar Minor-preacher (and, perhaps, more generally, a spirituality of Franciscan ministry).

Novelties Ironic and Blessed

At this point in my little journey, going on twenty-one years since I was baptized according to the rite of the Roman Church, I find myself living in Rome herself. And how funny Rome seems today as the brothers and I celebrate a liturgical day unknown to our mothers and fathers in faith, namely the Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter.

Rosary Ramble

It's almost twenty-two years since I first tried to pray the rosary. Since then I've had a lot of them; some break, some get given away, others go missing. Still others that seem extra special for some reason or other get hidden away before they break. I tend to identify them with where they came from, who gave them to me, or who blessed them.

RIP: Jeff Hanneman

I had known about his unfortunate illness, but I didn't realize how serious it was.

For better or for worse, Reign in Blood--much of the music for which Hanneman wrote--changed my life. I still listen to it sometimes. One time a while back I found myself listening to it on my little old iPod (which I have thanks to a gracious Yonkers bride who gave me an iTunes gift card) as I walked the path around the Collegio Internazionale San Lorenzo da Brindisi here in Rome. I stopped as I recalled how, twenty-one years before, my decision to become a catechumen had come out of a brooding daily routine that often included a nocturnal walk around the outer path of Connecticut College while Reign in Blood played in my Walkman. Maybe I'm boring. Maybe I know a classic.

Though at times the devil has gotten into it to stir up a vainglory that made me forget other, more important graces, it's still true that the music epitomized by what Jeff Hanneman gave us was indeed a remote preparation for greater graces God has given me, by making me realize that the ordinary thing, in this case the music that everybody else was listening to, wasn't what I really wanted.

Requiescat in pace. May his family and friends have strength and comfort in these days.

Capuchin Evangelization

Today we observed the optional memorial of Blessed Benedict of Urbino, a Capuchin preacher and founder of shelters for homeless people from the later sixteenth century. Today's memorial of Pope St. Pius V is optional even here in Rome, much to my surprise.

In his Office of Readings we were given the beginning of the ninth chapter of the Capuchin Constitutions of 1536. When I read the first line, L'evangelizzare la Parola di Dio (the modern Italian rendering of the original, lo euágelizare la parola di dio), of course I began to think about evangelization and the 'new evangelization' to which we are called in our time.

English

Today I had to prepare a mailing to all the English-using circumscriptions (provinces, vice-provinces, custodies, delegations) of the Capuchin Order. It's something like forty percent. That doesn't mean that they  speak English in all those places, just that English is used for official communication with the General Curia. (The other choices are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Polish.)

It's a fascinating exercise in the place and power of the English language in the world and especially in the life of the Catholic faith:

The piles, from largest to smallest, are for India, Africa, North America, Asia, Oceania, the Near East, and Europe (that is, Britain, Ireland, and Malta.)

Such an illustration also helps me see how the recent new translation of the third edition Roman Missal into English was an even bigger deal than I realized.

Proper Calendar of the Diocese of Rome

Here in Rome today is the feast of Pope St. Leo IX, who is remembered mostly for being pope at the time of the mutual excommunication of the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054. It was the occasion of my discovering something I've been mildly interested in finding since being here: a proper calendar for the diocese of Rome. I don't know how up to date it is; one notices right away that it isn't recent enough to include Pope Blessed John Paul II. Of course there are a lot of saints that also appear on the universal calendar but are celebrated at a different level of solemnity in Rome. And, of course, I can't help but point out the presence of two Capuchins.

Nevertheless, here it is, after the jump. Optional memorials are in italics, feasts in capitals, solemnities in boldface capitals, como Dios manda.