From The Telegraph:
In the US, over the past 10 years, the number of official priest exorcists has more than quadrupled from 12 to 50. But for two of America’s most active exorcists – Father Gary Thomas, whose training in Rome was chronicled in Matt Baglio’s book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, and Father Vincent Lampert, whose work was depicted on Paranormal Witness – it is an ongoing struggle to keep up with the demand. In lengthy interviews with The Telegraph, the two exorcists discuss how the increase in drug and pornography addiction, failure of the mental healthcare system and a rise in popularity of “pagan activities”, such as using a Ouija board to summon the dead, are among the factors contributing to the huge increase in demand for the Rite. Warning that “evil is a reality”, the priests debunk several of the myths around exorcisms, discussing how they decide who is eligible for an exorcism, how the procedure is carried out and some of their most notable cases. …Fathers Thomas and Lampert, both exorcist priests for the past 10 years and believers in the existence of Satan, pinpoint several trends in American culture that they believe are giving rise to the increased requests for the Rite. Those include an expanding spiritual void in the lives of Americans, the diminishing authority of the Church, and the failure of the mental healthcare system.
And today we celebrate...