Indianapolis, IN

Wed 01 August 2007

So, I’m thinking about exorcisms. Near Bloomington (in Monroe County), a 22-year-old priest-in-training gave an exorcism to a 14-year-old autistic boy. He claimed that he could cure the boy and “get the demons out.” Apparently, he tied the boy down and stuck his fingers down the boy’s throat and induced him to vomit. Then he punched the boy in the face for eleven hours. Ok, there are so many things wrong with this story. First off, he is just a priest-in-training. He had to convince the mother to let him do this. If I were the mother, I would have requested that someone who was a full priest be there and supervise. And second, I think I would’ve also got a second opinion. Don’t you do that if you have a serious medical problem, like cancer? That’s the problem with being a religious fanatic; they just believe what’s told to them. That makes about as much sense as having a med student perform a surgery. Thirdly, why induce vomiting? Does he have some kind of knowledge that the rest of us is not privy to? Did he find out that demons take the earthly form of vomit? Don’t tell AA about that. It might feed the fire. (“I wasn’t so drunk I vomited on your shoes. I was expelling the demons inside, and THEY landed on your shoes.”) And why beat the kid up? Is that in the Idiot’s Guide to Exorcisms? (Part 1: Make a bunch of promises you know damn well you can keep. Part 2: Make the boy vomit. If you need help, ask a bulimic. Part 3: Now beat the kid to a bloody pulp for 11 hours. Part 4: Run like hell!) Now the article did say that the mother did try to stop the exorcism. What did she do? Ask him nicely? If some guy was punching my kid in the face, I’d put a baseball bat to his head. So, I guess the moral of the story is that if you have a kid who has an incurable disease, and you are gullible to the persuasive speech of the neophyte priest, then at least make sure your insurance covers botched religious rituals.

: exorcisms, exorcisms gone wrong, religious fanatics