New rules for The Exorcist

BY BRUCE JOHNSTON, ROME CORRESPONDENT
CASES OF demonic possession are "relatively few in the world" said Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez, presenting the Vatican's new exorcism ritual manual this week, to coincide with the Millennium.
The new ritual, a 90-page book entitled De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibustam (On Every Kind of Exorcism in Supplication), replaces the one in use since 1614.
New guidelines on exorcism encourage priests to work closely with medical professionals to distinguish between cases of mental illness and demonic possession.
"Exorcism and psychoanalysis are two different and separate fields," Cardinal Estevez said. "One must be very careful since ordinary people tend to confuse psychosomatic and psychological problems with demonic ones."
The new ritual says that "when someone asserts that they are possessed by the Devil it may mean that they are simply victims of their imagination." The exorcist should never proceed with an exorcism unless he has the "moral certainty" that what he is faced with is really the Devil.
The new ritual retains much of symbolism and language of the medieval ritualbut devotes more time to prayer with the possessed person and tones down the most aggressive imprecations against the Devil. It also forbids the recording of exorcisms for broadcast and enjoins exorcists never to talk publicly about the performance of the ritual.