The Defilers

The Defilers news

2012-06-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

Read what people are saying about The Defilers here. An excerpt here.

If you'd like to buy a copy, you can go here or find it on Amazon here. Canadians can find it at Amazon.ca here.
Photo by Chris Humphrey Photography CHPhotography@verizon.net. More photos here.

Drama at the check out counter!!!!!!

2011-08-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

At the check-out counter yesterday, as a young lady helped put my groceries into the cart, she suddenly exclaimed, "You have a huge, freakin' bug in your bananas!"

Sure enough, when I leaned over, I saw---inside a plastic bag thankfully---what looked like a cockroach about two inches long.

"I'm not taking those bananas," I said and a young male employee scooped the bag from my cart and the young lady who had spotted La Cacuracha promised to bring me another bag of bananas, since I'd already paid for them.

As I waited, another drama ensued. I saw a red-faced, dark-haired young woman carrying a plastic bag sans bananas that I realized still contained the bug, who was, "too big to kill" and would have created the giant squishing sound all the way to Mexico or the Dominican Republic or Costa Rica, wherever the bug came from.

"This is murder," she said, striding purposefully towards the exit, her shoulders hunched to protect her death row victim from the hands of a male employee who was trying to get it from her.

For a moment I wondered, gee, what if Mama Cucuracha did get loose and dropped thousands of eggs to be an invasive species. (It is then when you thank God for Canadian winters.) And ugh, what if the eagle-eyed young lady had not spotted the bug and I had brought it home? It was definitely even bigger than Igor, the centipede or millipede? who lives in my basement, could handle as a snack. I like Igor and let him live because he is like a "cat" to other insect "mice" and does a good job as a carnivore. Igor is shy and pretends he is a fake mustache if I catch him by turning on the lights. Then he scurries away.

Thankfully, the male employee was successful in grabbing the bug-bag away from the young woman. Hmmmm. She was definitely pro-life when it comes to cockroaches. Would she have the same public concern for unborn children?

If this kind of thing doesn't provoke fire and brimstone . . .

2011-08-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable. But! Coming soon to a school near you, I sadly predict. (h/t John Smeaton's blog)

A ‘sex box’ for primary school aged children which includes a wooden penis and a fabric vagina has sparked a storm of controversy in Switzerland.

The box is to be used as part of a radical new sex education programme for primary school aged kids in Basel.

A teachers’ guide says that teachers should “show that contacting body parts can be pleasurable”.

Massage

It also suggests that they should get pupils to massage each other or to rub themselves with warm sand bags, all accompanied by soft music.

When girls start serving the supply of altar boys dries up

2011-08-25T15:32:00.000-07:00

Father Z has a poll on whether an all-male sanctuary fosters vocations to the priesthood. You might have guesse that I voted yes. Go on over and vote.

And he also has a link to this most interesting article by William Oddie at the Catholic Herald.
The bolds are Father Z's but I too was struck by the emphasized paragraph and it does describe, in a way, the feminization of the Church, a feminization that drives men out of the pews:

" . . . as soon as girls appear, the supply of altar boys tends simply to dry up.
The first time this occurred to me was in the house of friends with whom I was staying in France. One of the guests at dinner one evening was Archbishop André Vingt-Trois of Tours (now Cardinal Archbishop of Paris). The subject of conversation at one point was the way in which, in the local Parish Church, presumably in an attempt to involve women in the celebration of the Mass, not only were all the readers women but so also were all the servers girls; my wife (not I) compared it to a farmyard, with the priest as the cock strutting about in the middle of a flock of hens. Archbishop Vingt-Trois said that the priest may have had no choice over the all-girls serving team: “Once the girls arrive, he said, the boys disappear: you can’t see them for dust” (his explanation was much more graphic in French). And he was adamant that though there were, of course other factors contributing to the decline in priestly vocations, the decline in the number of all-male sanctuaries was certainly one of them.

You know, I have been a leader and the boss of men during my long career as a journalist and television producer and communications advisor in government, but I love it that in my church, the bells ring, the men process in (maybe a boy or two) and they take over.

William Oddie on Anglican liturgy's Catholic roots

2011-06-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

The “diocesan liturgist”, who was present, presumably, to make sure that no reactionary enormities were perpetrated, asked me at the reception afterwards about the Te Deum, of which (I’m not making this up) she (a supposed liturgist) had never heard. “Is that a typically Anglican prayer, would you say?”, she asked me, quizzically.
There will be no nonsense of that sort under the ordinariate, of course; but the incident was instructive, all the same. What it shows, apart from the necessity for a separate jurisdiction, is how much of the patrimony these Anglican converts are bringing with them derives from Catholic sources that we have lost or at least temporarily mislaid.
I thought of this incident when I saw, on an (English) ordinariate blog, the ordinariate Portal, another – to me – amazingly poignant news story:
Solemn Evensong & Benediction at Blackfriars, Oxford
Solemn Evensong & Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament will be celebrated by the Oxford Ordinariate Group at Blackfriars, Oxford, at 7.30pm on Wednesday 15 June, by kind permission of the Prior and Community.
A very simple announcement: but what floods of memory it brought back! Evensong and Benediction was our version, of course, of Vespers and Benediction; it was all part of our attempt to Catholicise Anglicanism. When I became a Catholic 20 years ago, it all seemed to me suddenly a rather ridiculous thing to do. Evensong was profoundly Anglican and therefore Protestant: how could you Catholicise it by sticking on to the end of it a “Benediction” celebrated with a monstrance containing an invalidly consecrated host? The whole thing was an illusion, irredeemably defective (what an ecclesial snob one could suddenly become). But what has happened to Evensong now? Now, it is the ordinariate’s evening office: it has the Pope’s blessing and validation: now it is effectively a Catholic liturgy, duly recognised and authorised. What I looked down on, the Pope has now affirmed, making me feel suddenly very foolish.

Horrific story about ritual sexual abuse

2011-03-10T07:30:00.000-08:00

Damian Thompson writes:

Colin Batley: a pervert who pranced around in Satanic robes

Do you remember “Satanic Ritual Abuse”? Twenty years ago, stories of devil-worshippers abusing children and sacrificing babies swept across Britain and America. Police and social workers were caught up in the panic. Children were snatched away from their parents on the basis of worthless testimony extracted from them by gullible “experts”. It was years before the truth emerged: that, despite the occasional appropriation of occult symbols by solitary child abusers, there was no network of murderous covens and (to the best of our knowledge) no babies had been ritually sacrificed to Satan in the UK.

This week, however, four people from Camarthenshire were convicted of serious sex offences, some of which were accompanied by Satanic rituals. Here’s the Daily Mail’s account of what went on:

The leader of a Satanic sex cult is facing a lengthy jail sentence after being found guilty of multiple counts of rape and child abuse.

Colin Batley, 48, exercised absolute control over his sect in a seaside cul-de-sac – abusing and exploiting helpless children as ‘sex toys’ for more than a decade. He was found guilty yesterday of 35 sex offences against children and young adults. Yet social services were alerted to Batley’s child abuse in 2002 – and took no action.

As a consequence, the former Tesco security guard was allowed to continue ‘preying on the young and vulnerable’ for a further eight years – with the full support of wife Elaine. At their semi in Kidwelly, South Wales, he would dress in hooded robes, chant before an altar and then orchestrate or participate in group sex with his female followers, including Jacqueline Marling and Shelly Millar.

One helpless girl was ‘initiated’ when she was just 11 and threatened with death by ‘cult assassins’ if she did not comply. At least two of his young victims gave birth as a result of the ‘systematic and prolonged abuse’.

Satanic sect members arrested

2009-10-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

Six members of satanic sect arrested for coercion, in Chiclana de la Frontera (Cadiz)

The Civil Guard has undertaken the dismantling of a sect with the arrest of six suspects who allegedly made money out of its members after achieving "control over their wills" coerced with esoteric and satanic rites.

The Armed Institute said in a statement, that 'operation Creator' was launched early last September, when he learned that a house located in Chiclana de la Frontera (Cadiz) could be practicing satanic rites and that animals were being sacrificed.

After six weeks of investigation, agents were able to verify the accuracy of the facts, identifying people who ran these ceremonies, a pairing only known as CJRL, 34, and MMP 24.

According to the Guardia Civil, these people advertised in the "ads section " of various media with the following: "Teacher, Seer, Witch Satan Spiritual experience and reliability, power in all areas to solve problems, especially getting a loved partner back, remove the evil eye, impotence, and so on. Guaranteed 100%".

Once potential customers contact the couple mentioned, these were offered the solution to any problem through all kinds of activities related to Santeria, esoteric and satanic rites, while they were held in the house like prisoners.

Through its activities, the suspects came to "obliterate the personality of their victims, creating a relationship of subordination and total dependence" to achieve, in some cases to agree to the sale of all their properties and deliver the money of the sale to the couple in question. Similarly, and after convincing them that if they disobeyed their orders, the devil would kill the victims family first and it eventually led to them acting as their "slaves".

More reaction to Chris Selley's illiberal tripe

2009-02-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

Mark Steyn weighs in:

So which response to this issue is, in Chris Selley's words, "a few chick peas short of a falafel"? The Misses Geller and Shaidle? Or the sensible, reasonable, moderate, measured approach of the PC eunuchs at Canada's most-watched TV stations and major metropolitan newspapers?

When Ezra Levant went nuclear on the "human rights" regime's medieval ass, wise old birds like Catsmeat Kinsella cautioned that Canadians wouldn't put up with some bezerk loon trashing "their" beloved human rights commissions. Really? Whether or not we achieve the repeal of Section 13 and its provincial equivalents, I doubt The Globe & Mail, Professor Moon, and even very tentatively the House of Commons would even be considering the question had it not been for Ezra going ballistic. That's what it took to drag the debate even half-an-inch in the direction of sanity.

I have no views on Chris Selley one way or the other. But I note his response to the Prime Minister's interview with Ken Whyte:

Principal Harper Ends The Free Speech Food Fight.

Each to his own. I don't happen to think of the Queen's first minister as the "principal" with me and the rest of the citizenry as his charges. The head of government is no more or less than just that: He is not my "leader", and certainly not on inalienable rights. But the headline seems to sum up Mr Selley's approach: the judicious arbiter settling midway between two extremes.

Not for me. As I've said re the so-called "global consensus" of the UN, if you mix half-a-pint of vanilla ice cream with half-a-pint of dog feces the result will taste more like the latter than the former. Likewise, if you split the difference between me and Commissar Barbara Hall, or Ezra and Jennifer Lynch, QC, you're still quite a long ways down the road to tyranny. "Moderation" - of the CTV/Gazette school - is a euphemism for drift, for letting the culture be tugged gently, imperceptibly, remorselessly into darkness:

I like the way Deborah Gyapong puts it:

You know why I want to defend Kathy Shaidle? Because she helps keep me honest about whether my civility really is a choice and not a blind or fearful conformity to the pressures of political correctness. She helps me to think about where I might be influenced by group think and the progressive air we breathe in Ottawa. She reminds me of where the line is between kindness and weakness.

Just so. Self-suppression is the most cost-effective form of tyranny. Or as Andrew Klavan says:

The whole way liberals work is to redefine manners and morals in such a fashion that conservative common sense automatically becomes hateful. If you note that women and men are different, you’re misogynistic. If you denounce the destruction of marriage in black communities, you’re racist or moralistic. If you call for the defense of America against the world-wide Islamist menace, you’re a bigoted warmonger. If we take this garbage seriously even for an instant, we spend our whole lives playing catch-up, saying sorry, going on defense.

The Binks adds:

~ WORD HAS IT NATPOST SCRIBBLER CHRIS SELLEY thinks Pam Geller and the Binks family and all the others who wanted a decent memorial stone for honour-slaughtered Canadian teen Aqsa Parvez are not very sensible people.

Ottawegian journalist Deb Gyapong weighs in; as has the inimitable Kathy Shaidle, Pam herself, and others. I had this to say a little while back, in a letter to Jason Kenney. Looks like Teh Steyn has chimed in, too.

Catses & Meeses

OK– imagine: There is a big cat around, which most of the mice are afraid to mention, let alone ponder belling. Some of the mice are even into denying the existence or intent of said cat, and consider the concerned mice or pro-bell mice to be dangerous trouble-making catophobes (technically speaking, Ailurophobes). Even mentioning mice freshly eaten by the cat causes outrage and fear: better just blame those crazy cat-conspiracy mice for bringing it up.

The cats change, but the cowardly mice are always with us, seeking peace with the cat; cat-denial; blaming other mice; writing books about how all the cats are actually the best friends of mice, and are gravely misunderstood. The save-your-ass at the expense of others instinct; the feeding of other mice to the cat, hoping you might be last; the half-conscious denial of the whole cat-problem. Can you say “Peace In Our Time” with kindly Herr Hitler? Meanwhile, the dead mice pile ever up, lives needlessly sacrificed, in various ways and for various noble-sounding reasons, but no less dead.

Modern day witchcraft

2009-02-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

Probably one of the most emailed-around articles on Election Day was this:

“In western Kenya, relatives, friends and a bull ready for slaughter were massed around the homestead of Barack Obama's late father, awaiting a hoped-for victory for their new favourite son…Leading in US opinion polls over Republican rival John McCain, Obama received some added support in Kenya with special prayer sessions and even a victory prediction from a local witch doctor.” [Obama's Kenyan relatives ready bull for slaughter, by Odhiambo Akombo, AFP, November 4, 2008]

Witch doctor?

In the wide, wide world of diversity, there's nothing quite as pungent as witchcraft. In many ways it is the gold standard of primitive anti-civilization belief systems—because it takes the human yearning for meaning and plops out credos that are reason-free and often violence-prone.

And because witchcraft and superstition represent such a complete refutation of multiculturalism—the ideology that all cultures are morally equal—there is little discussion in the polite liberal press when monstrous crimes result. The tone is one of proper shock, e.g.: isn't it terrible these things still go on in the world? Yet immigration in large numbers from these same societies is accepted with no question.

Man killed because he said he believed in God

2008-06-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

VALENCIA -- A 21-year-old Valencia woman has been sentenced to 16 years in prison in the stabbing death of a man who told her he'd seen God.

Samantha Elizabeth Rothwell, who said she communicated with the devil, was convicted of second-degree murder for killing 18-year-old Walter Rivas in August 2006.

Rivas was attacked on the balcony of a Huntington Beach hotel room as a group of friends and acquaintances gathered outside to smoke.

Prosecutors say Rivas remarked that it had been such a beautiful day that he had "seen God."

Rothwell replied, "I'm the devil and don't talk about God or I'll stab you," then went to her room, prosecutors said. The young woman returned soon after with a small pocket knife from her purse and stabbed Rivas in the jugular vein and back.

Priest faces fraud investigation for alleged fake exorcisms

2008-04-07T05:15:00.000-07:00

Florence, Apr 6, 2008 / 02:10 am (CNA).- A priest in Florence is being investigated for fraud after allegedly earning millions by performing fake exorcisms, the Telegraph reports.

Prosecutors alleged that Father Francesco Saverio Bazzoffi would “stage shows” before crowds of more than 400 people at the House of the Sainted Archangels, an organization he founded.

According to prosecutors, the priest’s associates would “pretend to be possessed by demons” and Father Bazzoffi would allegedly exorcise them using obscure rites.

The priest would then offer to heal members of the audience who were sick and solicit donations to his organization.

“During Mass, the priest spoke in Aramaic, and strange things happened. I do not know if it was group hysteria or our suggestibility, but I remember one old woman screaming in a man's voice while five big guys held her down,” one witness told police, according to the Telegraph.
snip
“I would like to make clear the following: any sort of special rite of benediction, such as the laying on of hands, is forbidden. Exorcisms are also prohibited,” the cardinal wrote in his letter. A priest must be authorized by the diocese to carry out an exorcism.

Big feature on exocism in The Ottawa Citizen

2008-04-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Green has a big feature on exorcism in the Saturday Observer section of The Ottawa Citizen.

She writes:

But in the past few decades, the devil has returned. As the late John Paul II said, "Anyone who does not believe in the devil does not believe in the gospels."
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, exhorts the faithful to take Satan seriously, praises his team of exorcists, offers university courses in exorcism and calls for more exorcists around the world.
One Vatican City priest told his congregation on Ash Wednesday: "How could a person know anything about Satan if he has never encountered the reality of Satan but only the idea of Satan? ... It is like someone who brags about not being afraid of lions and proves this by pointing out that he has seen many paintings of lions and was never frightened of them."
Only 37 per cent of Canadians believe in the devil, but twice that number of Americans do. Well over half of Latin Americans and African also believe in Satan and 80 per cent of Pentecostal Christians in those regions say angels and demons are active in the world.

Most interesting. My novel The Defilers deals with exorcism, and whether demonic oppression is real.

Ottawa Archbishop appoints two priests as exorcists

2008-04-05T10:54:00.001-07:00

The Ottawa Citizen's Jenny Green has a most interesting story on this today.

She writes:

Ottawa's Catholic archbishop has appointed at least two new exorcists, one each for the English and French communities, replacing the region's last exorcist who retired five years ago.

The archdiocese will not name the priests, or say how many exorcists there are for fear of a flood of phone calls. Msgr. Kevin Beach says all the men are experienced clergy with overseas experience, some in areas of the world where belief in demons is more robust than it is in North America.

He said it wasn't easy to find men with the right qualifications, nor was it easy to persuade them to take the duties.

"I think they had to give prayerful consideration. If they are looking for the job, that's not the person you want."

They all have other duties as well as their new roles.

The archdiocese doesn't receive any more than seven or eight calls a year. Nor are the callers any more likely to be possessed -- in the past 15 years, Ottawa clergy say they have had only one case of demonic possession.

But exorcism has always been part of the Catholic ministry, even if it has fallen by the wayside in the last generation.

Green has an interview with the archdiocese's retired exorcist here:

Q: How do you separate what is human evil and what is demonic? I might be tempted to cheat on my taxes. Is that demonic temptation?

A: That's human nature. But the enemy might use it to get us in deeper. He may get you to lie about the reality of your situation. The devil is deceit. So it can (start) as something that is human but can be led in the wrong direction.

There was a young fellow who came for counselling. He was having difficulty controlling himself and his actions. One day he said to me, "I have a feeling of rage. I hear in my mind, the voice says, 'Kill.' I haven't done it yet, but there is that compulsion."

I started asking about the video games he had played as a child and they were full of violence. So it's not surprising to me we have these shooting incidents in high schools.

Q: Are they the work of the devil?

A: I have to take it from the point of view that the devil is against mankind. There is no doubt about it - he wants to ruin everybody. He doesn't just have a few favourites that he works on. He tries to get his hoof in wherever he can.

Green also blogs about how she came across this story.

Just two days before the story was to appear, I met Ottawa's former exorcist, a gentle, elderly man with shaking hands. We read a passage of scripture and said a prayer before the interview, and he anointed me with holy oil afterwards. He prayed that I would find my way to the truth, which is as good a journalist's prayer as I have ever heard.
I found myself relaxing utterly in the prayers, and the anointing, although I joked to friends later that he was probably trying to see if the oil made me sizzle and smoke, a gutter dog of the press.
In the final drafts, my editors looked at me funny and struggled to find a tactful way to ask, ‘do you really believe this stuff?' They settled on, ‘who are you readers here? People who believe this stuff?'
By the end of the day, I shook my head with a smile and shrugged. ‘I'm laughing at this stuff," I told them, "but not very hard."
Why trouble trouble? I think I'll tiptoe away.

Documented case of demon possession

2008-03-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

An American woman who levitated, demonstrated paranormal psychic powers and spoke foreign languages unknown to her was clearly demon possessed, according to a board-certified psychiatrist and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College.

The unnamed woman, with a long history of involvement with Satanic groups, was observed by a team of priests, deacons, several lay assistants, psychiatrists, nuns, some of whom also had medical and psychiatric training, levitating six inches off the ground while objects flew off shelves in the same room, according to Dr. Richard E. Gallagher, who documented the case in the February issue of the New Oxford Review.

"Periodically, in our presence, Julia would go into a trance state of a recurring nature," writes Gallagher. "Mentally troubled individuals often 'dissociate,' but Julia's trances were accompanied by an unusual phenomenon: Out of her mouth would come various threats, taunts and scatological language, phrases like 'Leave her alone, you idiot,' 'She's ours,' 'Leave, you imbecile priest,' or just 'Leave.' The tone of this voice differed markedly from Julia's own, and it varied, sometimes sounding guttural and vaguely masculine, at other points high pitched. Most of her comments during these 'trances,' or at the subsequent exorcisms, displayed a marked contempt for anything religious or sacred."

The Anchoress says don't be alarmed by exorcist stories

2008-01-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

She takes a common sense approach, imo.

If you accept that the supernatural exists, and you accept that there are things seen and unseen, then your common sense tells you that within that realm there will be that which is profoundly holy, and that which is quite the opposite. There is nothing unusual in any of that.

Is Catholic Church calling for more exorcists?

2008-01-01T08:41:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Little Green Footballs, I came across this Daily Mail story about the call for more exorcists in the Catholic Church.

The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.

Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."
Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.
"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.
"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.
Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.

But as LGF reports, according to UPI, the Vatican denies this is happening.

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The Vatican is denying reports it plans to install more exorcists around the world so possessed people can get help quickly.

"Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession,'' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters in Rome Friday.

On Thursday, the Roman Catholic Web site Petrus said the pope planned to install more exorcists in every diocese next year and reintroduce a prayer during mass to St. Michael the Archangel, believed to be the prime protector against evil, The Telegraph in Britain reported Saturday.

Paolo Scarafoni, a priest at Vatican University who teaches how to recognize and expel Satan, said exorcists increasingly are in demand because devil worship has become so common, reported ANSA, the Italian news agency. "Priests are being bombarded," Scarafoni told ANSA.

Poland opens exorcism centre

2007-12-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW, December 19 (RIA Novosti) - Poland plans to open its first exorcism center, for those who believe they are possessed by the devil, in the town of Poczernin 30 km (18 miles) from the city of Szczeczin, Polish media said Wednesday.
Andrzej Trojanowski, a Catholic priest working in the city says the center will be equipped with a chapel and will have a psychiatrist on hand.

Trojanowski said there was a demand for the service as he deals with up to 20 people a week allegedly possessed by the devil.

The center was the idea of the Catholic Church in Poland, which already has around 50 working exorcists, and the project is expected to provide spiritual help and guidance to the needy.

According to priests their service is popular with visitors from Germany, which has no working exorcists.

Many consider those who claim to be possessed are just mentally ill, whereas others contend that those diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses are really possessed by the devil.

The practice of exorcism by priests and clergy became very popular in the 1970s, which coincided with the 1973 release of the world-wide blockbuster movie The Exorcist.

Chilling story about the murder of a nun

2007-12-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

"People who prefer to worship beings other than God will seek a reversal of all things sacred," Father Grob said. "They take something that's sacred and turn it upside down, literally. They defile the very thing that is sacred."

For Christians, he said, the cross symbolizes the death of Jesus, their Messiah, who sacrificed his life by being nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago. For Satanists and others who are out to mock Christianity, the inverted cross is a powerful symbol. Sister Margaret Ann's killer had taken a cross and placed it, upside down, over her barely beating heart while the nun lay immobile on the sacristy floor, then plunged a dagger nine times into her chest, tracing the outline of the anti-Christian symbol of an upside down cross.

It wasn't just a coincidence, Father Grob told them.

The story

2007-11-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

When Boston native Linda Donner travels north to Canada in search of a better life, she has no idea how quickly her life will spin out of control. After joining the Mounties, she takes a posting in rural Nova Scotia, where the firebombing of a pastor's home and the murder of a sadistic cult leader draw her into a tangle of lies.

Now, to solve the mystery and find personal deliverance from her troubled past, Linda must lose herself in the shacks and trailers of a backwoods community to confront the evil that threatens everything she holds dear. But what will happen when she frames an innocent man in the process?

The Defilers is the gripping debut of Deborah Waters Gyapong, winner of the 2005 Best New Canadian Christian Author Award.

Visit Deborah's website and blog at www.deborahgyapong.com.

Number of exorcists in the U.S. has grown says priest

2007-11-12T17:46:00.000-08:00

From KTVI - myFOXstl.com --

The 1973 horror film, "The Exorcist," is considered one of the scariest movies ever made. Surprisingly, the church says the movie is a fairly reliable guide in what to look for in possession. "Everything that appears in the film happened in some exorcism in history. Everything. Even the case of the demon going inside the priest,” said Father Jose Antonio Fortea, who is considered one of the world's leading authorities on exorcism. The priest from Madrid, Spain is a Vatican trained exorcist. He was in St. Louis recently, but would not say why. Dan asked if there are Catholic exorcists in St. Louis. "I will not say about names or dioceses where exorcists are but here in the diocese, of course, they will take care of every case, I assure you," the priest answered.

After writing a doctorate thesis on exorcism and demonic possession, Fortea wrote a book called "Interview With An Exorcist." He has performed dozens of exorcisms over the past ten years.

Fr. Fortea: "I have everyday."

Dan Gray: "Everyday?"

Fr. Fortea: "Everyday a knock at the door of my parish, people wanting to know if they are possessed or not."

Fortea says in every case the exorcist must look for four types of behavior to determine possession:

Superhuman Strength

"Very often you need four, six or even more people to restrain a person," Fortea said.

Fierce Reaction To Holy Things

Use Of Languages That The Person Normally Would Not Know

Hidden Knowledge

"I remember one case, she knew perfectly whole Bible," the priest said.

Fortea says in most exorcisms he confronts demons but one case was very different. He told Dan in an exclusive interview, "We continue praying and a terrible roar appear and he spoke with pride that we did not experience before. And when we ask tell us your name, in the name of Jesus, he say I am Satan."

The priest says during that exorcism Satan forecast the war in Iraq. "Before the war of Iraq, we did not ask to him but he say I won the war because I won suffering, destruction and death."

Fortea says there are now about 70 Catholic exorcists in the U.S, up from four just four years ago. The reason for the increase in possessions?

"Almost always is witchcraft, witchcraft or somebody related to a satanic cult that invoked demons to get that person. People that go to Satanic rock concerts that hear for hours and hours that kind of music then they are affected by unclean spirits. The whole evil that is in the world, the root is a spiritual root. If everybody go be fearful servant of God this world would be Eden."

Father Fortea says he meets people who are skeptical of demonic possession and he does consult psychiatrists to determine if a person who fears they are possessed has a mental problem. But he says some cases can't be explained by psychiatry. He says if people pray and read the Bible everyday, evil influences will disappear step by step.

Be sure to go to Dan Gray's Blog on myFOXstl.com to hear my more of his personal comments about interviewing an exorcist.

Did satanic panic result in wrongful convictions?

2007-11-04T13:19:00.000-08:00

Most interesting story on how fears of satanic abuse contributed to a possible miscarriage of justice.

So, with that said, we now take a closer look at the trials that lead to the
convictions of the West Memphis Three back in 1994.

"These kids were throw away kids. They came from very poor families. They didn't have a chance," said Stidham.
The lack of money for Jesse Misskelly, Jason Baldwin, and Damien
Echols could have been the very thing that convicted them of murder 14 years
ago.

"The reason they were convicted is because of the satanic panic that
occurred and existed here back in 1993. These were very horrible crimes. It was
a national kind of crime that everyone was watching," said Stidham.
And with worldwide attention on the case, the pressure was on for police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and most importantly the jurors.
"The result was verdicts based on fear and panic and not on anything reliable or scientific," said Stidham.

Now some 14 years later, DNA evidence could eventually overturn
convictions of the West Memphis Three, but that is something that would prove
mistakes were made and the killer or killers are still on the loose.
And in 1993 it was the desperation of finding the killers that led straight to the West
Memphis Three.

"Those three kids stuck out like a sore thumb in West Memphis
in 1993. They were the perfect patsies. All the stars and all of the moons lined
up, and what happened happened," said Stidham.
Read the rest here.

Santa Muerto? Some disturbing Halloween customs

2007-10-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

Whispers in the Loggia has an interesting post today entitled Boo! "Santa Muerte" spooks U.S. Church, linking to a story in Time Magazine. Plus some additional comments about Halloween.

I think I will turn off the lights this evening and go to mass, even though I admit being ambivalent about this holiday. I remember fondly going out trick or treating as a kid. But in those days, we lived in neighborhoods and people didn't put razors in apples. But then, I was a totally secularized little kid and had no idea about demonic forces.

I hate the way Halloween is allowed in public schools but Christmas nativity scenes are not. And every year the fascination with horror and the occult grows. Halloween is a big deal in Canada where houses are decorated, and adults put on costumes, too.

What kind of message are we sending our children?

Sometimes it's easier to believe in demons than believe in God

2007-09-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

By the time I read Neil Anderson’s The Bondage Breaker in the mid 1990s, no one needed to persuade me demons existed.

I grew up in a nominally Christian home, but rejected the Christian faith in my college years. Instead, I considered myself “spiritual,” into New Age teachings and the occult. I even dabbled in magic because I thought it was harmless. I thought spiritual forces were impersonal powers like a kind of electricity.

Interesting article on mental illness vs. the demonic

2007-09-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

This Washington Post article looks at the differing attitudes immigrants might have towards mental illness. Some of it concerns the Virginia Tech shooter. Sandra D. Boodman writes:

Days after the shootings, there were reports that in the months before the April 16 tragedy Cho's mother had sought assistance from several Northern Virginia Korean churches in ridding Cho of what one pastor called the youth's "demonic power."

Seeking help from a church for a psychological problem is common practice in the Korean community, psychiatrists say, because churches play a singularly important role. It is the place many immigrants turn to as a last resort -- if they seek help at all.

"Asians don't view it as a sickness or an illness, but as a family curse," said Esther Chung, a minister and part-time counselor at the Korean Family Counseling and Research Center in Vienna. "They try to take care of it themselves."

Claims membership in satanic cult in Nova Scotia

2007-05-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

'You gotta tell that judge that I have to be locked up forever. I just gotta."

Those are the words of Alexander Dean McLean, according to a psychiatric assessment found in his file at Nova Scotia Supreme court.

That assessment is a chronicle of a tortured and disturbed life including Satanic cults and blood sacrifice. He is the victim of rape, and himself a perpetrator of sexual violence.

On Wednesday, McLean appeared briefly in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. His hair is now long and drops onto the shoulders of his brown leather jacket.

snip

Even in his teenage years, there was a clear pattern of problems. At 16, he was admitted for the first time to the Nova Scotia Hospital.

In the 1970s, there was Satanic worship. Past psychological reports describe some details of the cult: cats were killed, their blood drained for ritual sacrifice; the throat of a German shepherd slit with a dagger and its blood put in a goblet.

According to one report from 1996, the assessment says, the cult "worshiped a 'blood is power' philosophy," openly abused women.

McLean reported he eventually left the cult after there was talk of sacrificing a baby.

Fox News looks at whether the devil made Cho do it

2007-04-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

Could Cho have been possessed by the Devil? Could that explain the massacre at Virginia Tech?

Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, shouts an unequivocal “Yes!”

“Based on what I’ve seen in the news," Roberts said in an interview, "there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin."

Was Cho demon possessed? or mentally ill?

2007-04-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

Franklin Graham thinks the Virginia Tech shooter was demonically possessed.

Graham, who leads Charlotte's Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, dismissed the idea that the killer was mentally ill or seeking revenge.
"I don't think you can go out and murder innocent people just because somebody rejected you. We've all been rejected," he said. "I believe there are demons that dwell in the human heart."

This Beliefnet post has some interesting links:

The mainstream media explanation for the tragic actions of a young college student in Blacksburg, Va., has been that he was troubled, sick, mentally ill and a textbook case of a school shooter.

Not everyone is going to be satisfied with those explanations, though, since there is really no way to know for sure what compelled Cho Seung-hui to release his heinous rampage.

Demonic attack? Spiritual warfare is real says radio host

2007-03-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

At the Christianity Today's website, Christin Ditchfield writes in response to a question about whether someone who experienced a strange manifestation was suffering demonic attack:

Anyone who's ever made an earnest, heartfelt commitment to spend more time in Bible study and prayer can tell you that spiritual warfare is real. It's amazing how suddenly exhausted and sleepy we feel the minute we open our Bible. As we start to pray, a million distracting thoughts rush through our heads. We find ourselves reliving the most painful experiences of our past, or going over and over long to-do lists. The phone rings, a family crisis erupts. And yes, some believers have reported experiencing more bizarre and explicitly supernatural distractions. The good news is that "greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). With Jesus to guide us and lead us, defend us and shield us, we're more than a match for anything the enemy throws our way.

Christin Ditchfield is the host of the syndicated radio program Take It To Heart, and the author of A Family Guide to Narnia: Biblical Truths in C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia (Crossway).

Scary story about a house haunting

2007-03-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

H/T Mark Shea.

Then, late at night, as he talked to his mother on the phone and the children slept in the master bedroom, the door began to shake. Thinking his sons were playing, he told them to cut it out. Then all the doors in the house started to shake, and again LaChance told his sons to stop.
"It was like the proverbial scary story," LaChance described. "Each time it was louder and louder."
But his daughter called out that her brothers were asleep ... and then the bedroom door slammed shut!
"The only way I can describe this to you is when we talk about the 'boom,'" LaChance told his fellow investigators. "The boom was like an earthquake, 'Boom! Boom!' It was like something coming after you. I can't explain it."
His daughter began screaming, and so did the man from the house.
As LaChance continued his tale of horror, tears filled his eyes and his voice cracked with emotion. He couldn't open the door to reach his kids.
"I'm a big guy, look at me," he said. "I can take any door down. By the end of the evening, the whole right side of my body was bruised. I kept throwing myself at the door, over and over. I heard my daughter screaming behind the door, and I couldn't get to her.
"I remember saying to myself, 'Oh God, please help!' and at that moment, the door gave."
LaChance pushed his sons outside and picked up his daughter, who didn't move because of the shock.
"As I was leaving the bedroom, I heard the door behind me slam open," LaChance continued. "I didn't look behind me."

Note how his prayer was answered immediately. Read the rest though. Chilling.

The Anchoress and Colby Cosh on Al Gore and global warming

2007-03-02T05:53:00.000-08:00

Some good posts on global warming today.

Check out this one by The Anchoress:

I note that Gore’s suggestion that journalists and editors stick to his version and forego telling any others is exactly what so many on the left have accused the Bush administration of doing on…oh, pick a subject.

Over and over we watch the left project their means and manner onto the opposition, and it seems to be effective.
I distrusted the “global warming is going to kill us all unless you do exactly what I say NOW” schtick before…now I’m starting to develop a real animus toward it.

And this one by Colby Cosh , (hat tip Relapsed Catholic.)

There are pretty much two main models of behaviour open to someone who wants to be the leader of a revolutionary social movement. One is the religious model of sainthood or messiahship: setting a personal example by being more straitlaced, holy and visibly committed than one's neighbours. And one is the vanguard model pioneered by Lenin: regarding oneself as part of a professional advocacy clique that cannot afford to be hindered by tight moral strictures, or to be too concerned with hypocrisy, until the New Jerusalem is achieved for everybody.

*emphasis is mine.

Not only Christians have botched exorcisms

2007-02-14T05:32:00.000-08:00

The Muslim-majority Macedonian village of Labunista, long known for its small but prominent Wahhabi fundamentalist community, has become the scene of controversy once again. According to a February 10th investigation from Skopje newspaper Vreme, well-intentioned but apparently unqualified Muslim clerics murdered a local man while trying to wrest him from the demonic grips of his illness.

While all the details of the story are not yet known, it appears that 27-year-old Abedin Alijoski died in his home after three members of the Wahhabi sect were called in to treat him.

According to the newspaper investigation, the young man died at around 11 PM on January 25th after the Wahhabis, brought in specially from Ohrid for the job, treated him “with the help of readings from the Koran and by beating him with sticks.” While the Alijoski family did not allow an autopsy, nor for anyone to see the body, the newspaper learned that there may be an exhumation, as Struga municipal prosecutors are considering this a possible criminal case.

The young Muslim had been sick for some five years with an unspecified neurosis, for which he had been taking an increasing number of medications in recent times, locals told Vreme. He had been living with his mother, cousin and two sisters, one of whom was deaf and mute. His father died a year ago. In the Balkans and elsewhere, the Saudi-backed Wahhabi order has sought to prey upon weak and stigmatized members of local communities, such as the poor, drug addicts and ill. With its specific troubles and general religious orientation, the Labunista family would seem to have been a perfect target for the radical Islamists.

According again to the newspaper account, drawing on local sources, the continuing malaise of the young man led his sister to take drastic action: fearing that Abedin’s body had been infested with evil spirits, she called in three prominent Wahhabis from Ohrid: ”one Bashkim, his brother, and one other member of the community.” While the Wahhabi witch doctors conducted their ritual, Alijoski’s brother-in-law, nephew and cousin were also reportedly present in the room.

Witchcraft destroying the Church in Africa say experts

2007-02-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

Via Catholic Online:

NAIROBI, Kenya (CISA) – Witchcraft is real, and it is destroying the church in Africa, Catholic experts warned earlier this week.

Scholars from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) expressed concern that the church continued to dismiss the dark arts as mere superstition, thereby unwittingly helping the devil advance his reign.
For that reason, Christians who suffer because of witchcraft are often dismissed by priests as being superstitious, the scholars said. Because they do not get adequate help from pastoral agents, they seek the assistance of witchdoctors or join the mushrooming evangelical denominations that offer healing, exorcism and deliverance, they said.
Many African priests fear witchcraft or are ignorant of their own power to confront the devil, the scholars said, adding that Christians visit diviners and magicians to seek practical solutions which the church and science apparently do not offer.

and

Africans are not any more superstitious than other peoples, he said. The problem is that the church has not come to terms with the African worldview which accepts the existence of evil powers, he said. "It is important for the church to understand the fears of the people and not to attribute them to superstition."
"Witchcraft is a reality; it is not superstition," Katola said, adding that "many communities in Kenya know those powers exist in their midst."
Dissatisfied Catholics are swelling the ranks of the new evangelical movements, he said.. "Many of our Christians seek deliverance, healing and exorcism from other denominations because priests do not realize they have redemptive powers," Katola said.
He said the responsibility of fighting witchcraft lies with the clergy, who should start by accepting the reality of the phenomenon. "If we don't believe in the existence of witchcraft as Satanism then we can not deal with it."
Sister Bibiana Munini said Christians still consult diviners and magicians for practical solutions because the church has not paid much attention to integral healing.
Moreover, she added, the much-valued ministry of the traditional healer has no equivalent in the church today.
Malawian academic, Father Clement Majawa, said the problem of witchcraft is real and needs a serious effort as it had contributed to "superficiality of faith and morals" in Africa.

Most interesting. Whether you look at evil spirits as a metaphor for certain psychological states or as transcendent personal beings, as superstition combined with the power of suggestion or genuine personal evil---all these attempts are paradigms for trying to explain various mysteries of the human mind, sould and spirit. I personally think all of the above can be involved. For example, what level of personal evil might be behind the power of suggestion and mass psychosis? Perhaps people have found ways to manipulate these forces to curse and even kill people through the power of suggestion. But it is also interesting how Christian belief can protect people from this, or set someone free from this kind of mental bondage.

Demonic possession? or mental illness?

2007-02-03T12:50:00.000-08:00

Fascinating look at the real life story of Anneliese Michel that inspired two movies: The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Requim. Yes, this is an old story, but well worth the read.

From the Washington Post:

BERLIN -- The first person to recognize that Anneliese Michel was possessed
by demons was an older woman accompanying the girl on a pilgrimage. She noticed
that Anneliese would not walk past a certain image of Jesus, refused to drink
water from a holy spring and smelled bad -- hellishly bad. An exorcist in a
nearby town examined Michel and returned a diagnosis of demonic possession. The
bishop issued permission to perform the rite of exorcism according to the Roman
ritual of 1614.

Half a year and 67 rites of exorcism later, Michel was dead at
23.

Fear itself can be lethal

2007-02-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

Excellent talk given by author Michael Crichton on fear is a must read. (Hat tip Dr. Sanity)

Man experiences freedom after videotaped exorcism

2007-02-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

Peace eluded Bret Payton for so many years. He thought that he was damaged beyond repair -- that is until his life took an unexpected turn.

"I can remember as a kid watching the TV and being so angry at TV families - "The Cosby Show" and all that," Payton said. "I thought, 'That's not how families are. That's a lie.'"

When we first met Payton last year he was, by his own admission, a desperate man.

Reporter Carey Pena (from last year's interview): You literally felt that you had demons inside of you?

Payton: Yeah, but I thought they would just go.

But he never could get rid of those evil feelings.

Pena: Were you ever worried that the rage was going to turn you into a horrible person?

Payton: Of course. I can't be a child molester. I can't abuse children. I can't do that. So what I had to do was find something, some way to get rid of this. I don't want to carry it anymore. It hurts.

3TV cameras were present when Payton experienced what he believes was an exorcism. And we've been following his story ever since.

And

"I didn't care about my life," he said. "I didn't care how I looked. I have over 50 stupid tattoos on me. (The tattoos) represent the destructive life I used to lead."

But Payton says everything changed after he had an exorcism.

"Come here, stand where everybody can see you," said televangelist Bob Larson during the exorcism. "We love you, Bret."

Our cameras witnessed the exorcism at the Spiritual Freedom Church in Scottsdale in November of last year. Larson called Payton in front of the congregation to do some soul searching.

Payton (at the November exorcism): My stepmother.

Larson: What about your stepmother?

Payton: She tortured me and my brother.

An emotional moment for Payton, and then, "Get up and face me. Get up," Larson demanded.

Payton says he believes the devil was then called out of his body.

Larson: Say we lift the curse of hatred and abuse of torture and torment.

It's a shocking tape to watch. It goes on for 11 minutes until Payton collapses and falls to the floor.

Once the exorcism was over, Payton says he felt a sense of relief.

"You see beauty instead of ugliness," he said.

Read the whole story. One of the dangers of stories like this is that people hope for some magic, instant solution to the problems in their lives, to suddenly and permanently be released from the sin that besets them. Sometimes perhaps it does really happen like that. But most of the time, we grow by cleaving to the Truth, by resisting evil. And we're promised that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us.

The pornography plague

2006-12-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

Dr. Jeff Mirus in Catholic Culture magazine looks at the plague of pornography. (Via The Catholic Education Resources Centre CERC)

What is the great plague of the 21st century? Bird flu? Terrorism? Global warming? No, none of these. The pandemic of our century is pornography. This scourge was already severe in the twentieth century with the development of color photography, moving pictures, and cable television. But with the advent of the Internet age, pornography is freely and effortlessly available in nearly every home.

Fighting to Keep it Out

In the previous generation, kids and even adults generally had to expend considerable time, effort, expense and subterfuge to find pornography and smuggle it into the home. Now, computers attached to the Internet take care of that automatically. In any given household, concerned individuals have a major battle on their hands just to keep pornography out. All of that time, effort, expense and subterfuge must now be employed on the side of purity.

Nativity scenes desecrated across North America

2006-12-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

From LifeSiteNews.com

WASHINGTON, December 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic League is reporting vandalism to nativity scenes across the United States.
Figures from nativity scenes were stolen or vandalized in Tucson, AZ ; Millbrae, CA; Mission Viejo, CA; Moorpark, CA; San Francisco, CA; Naugatuck, CT; Waterbury, CT (Jesus was taken, but one of the arms was left behind); Fort Walton Beach, FL; Des Moines, IA; Sioux City, IA; Ammon, ID; Chicago, IL (32 figures of baby Jesus were nabbed-they were later dumped on the lawn of a Catholic church); Jackson County, IL (two incidents); Tinley Park, IL; Floyd County, IN; Fort Wayne, IN; Montgomery County, IN; Wichita, KS; Hardin, KY; Lafayette, LA (two incidents); Youngsville, LA; Fitchburg, MA; Southborough, MA; Winthrop, ME; Portage Township, MI; Fayettville, NC; New Bern, NC; Columbus, NE (12 baby Jesus figures were stolen in one day); Plaistow, NH; Dover, OH; Utica, OH (three incidents); Artemis, PA; Bucks County, PA; Greenfield, PA; Hilton Head, SC; Halom City, TX; Santa Fe, TX; Salt Lake City, UT; Winfield, WV and West Allis, WI.

"Some of these attacks were clearly motivated by malice," the League's Bill Donohue commented. "The baby Jesus figure stolen in Plaistow, NH was later returned, having been defiled by a pair of devil horns. The hooligan who stole the manger from Southborough, MA left the surrounding secular decorations standing."

Donohue continued, "In Sioux Falls, SD, someone crushed the face of the statue of Jesus. What's worse, the creep in Des Moines, IA burned Jesus' face, doused the statue with red nail polish, and twisted the electrical cord around its neck."

Vandals were busy in Canada as well.

TORONTO, December 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Vandals in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa attacked major nativity scene displays. The displays in Toronto and Ottawa were both hit last night, and Montreal's major nativity scene sustained damage Friday night.

In Toronto, the display set up by the Catholic group Gethsemane Ministries had its baby Jesus stolen and lights and wiring destroyed. In Old Montreal, the huge statue of one of the Magi was cut off at the knees, and light fixtures were also damaged. In Ottawa, Creche outside St Patrick's Basilica was broken into. The large and antique statue of St. Joseph was found toppled on the lawn with the fingers broken off. In addition one of the statues of the Magi and another of an angel were missing.

Italian police consider creating satan squad

2006-12-11T14:08:00.000-08:00

The Italian police are considering the formation of a special squad to help tackle the growing problem of Italian Satanic gangs. The squad would include occult experts and psychologists.

The new generation of Satanists have been blamed for a number of high profile gruesome murders including a recent case where a young couple was bludgeoned and then buried alive in woods just outside Milan.

Demonic possession or mental illness? or both?

2006-12-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

"Satan told me in a deep, demonic voice, 'You belong to me,'" said Samantha Wheeler, who believes she's been possessed since age 12.

But recently, Wheeler met a charismatic pastor from Kenya who promised her deliverance.

"When I first talked with her, I could see the manifestation of demons," said Paul Mbugua, a preacher and exorcist at Operation Fresh Start Apostolic Church in Oildale.

"Every Sunday, we were casting devils out of her," he said of the 18-year-old Bakersfield woman. "She was very possessed."

Belief in demonic possession has been part of the Christian walk since Jesus' exorcisms in the Gospels 2,000 years ago.

Health professionals blast sex-abuse prevention model

2006-11-30T06:31:00.000-08:00

Interesting story out of the U.S. about sex-abuse prevention programs potential harm.

HUNTINGTON, Ind. (Our Sunday Visitor) – When the U.S. bishops created a program to protect children from sexual abuse in the wake of the scandal that rocked the church, they included a mandate that children be taught sex-abuse prevention.

Now, as the bishop's landmark response, "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," nears its fifth anniversary, one group of Catholic health-care professionals has declared the prevention programs ineffective and potentially harmful and has called on the bishops to rescind the mandate.

-snip-

Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre, a physician-psychiatrist and lead author of the study, told Our Sunday Visitor that the child-empowerment models, which teach children to recognize things like "bad touch" and other potentially dangerous behaviors, rely on children to do the policing and introduce concepts that can be frightening.

"It causes children to be very confused. You could have a child who is 6 years old hearing about sexual abuse. It's a deviant, perverted form of sexuality that has nothing to do with love and marriage and chastity and responsibility for others. It's very frightening for the child and causes them to have confusion as to who is a safe person and who isn't," said Bissonnette-Pitre.

"A trusting relationship with parents and with trustworthy adults is a real protective factor for children and they need it to develop. We should not be giving children information earlier than they can handle it," she said

Witchdoctor puts Voodoo curse on Bush

2006-11-24T16:37:00.000-08:00

Here's all the more reason why we need to pray for our leaders.

A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before drank the "potion" and smeared some on his face.

"I don't hate Americans, but I don't like Bush," said Pamungkas, who believed the ritual would succeed as, "the devil is with me today."

He said the jinx would send spirits to possess Secret Service personnel guarding Bush and put them in a trance, leading them into falsely thinking the president was under attack, thus eventually causing chaos in Bogor Presidential Palace, where the American leader was scheduled to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday

The Anchoress writes:

It is an ancient knowledge: there are things visible and invisible. Many of us realise that forces of dark and light have always been engaged and that for the past 6 years that engagement has been greatly intensified in ways we cannot always comprehend. And a great deal of the battling has centered around George W. Bush, and - to a lesser but still apparent extent - Tony Blair, two men who have deeply embraced supernaturalism (in the form of Christian faithfulness) and been very public about it.

It’s interesting, that’s all. I draw no conclusions; feel free to draw your own. I simply know what I know. Bush knows it, too. So does Blair. So does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So does Benedict XVI: there are no accidents, everything is engaged, all the time, and while most of us are not looking - while we’re fussing deadlines, banging out our pithy opinions, cleaning house or watching Stephen Colbert sing, whole worlds are at play - battles are being won and lost - and prayers and curses are breathed and go constantly forth.

Stingray writes:

To western minds — even to Christian western minds — this whole idea sounds silly. We either believe that there is no devil (and thus no demon minions) or we believe that demons are found in only isolated instances, like the Charles Manson murders. Even most conservative Christians are taught to believe that the devil and his demons are pretty much limited to tempting us and that anything more is the result of a fervid imagination or one too many slices of pizza before trundling off to bed.

Most of the world does not believe that way.

They believe in good and evil spirits — mostly evil ones who can sometimes be placated or manipulated — and they see the actions of these spirits, or what they believe are the actions of these spirits, in their day-to-day lives.

To my surprise, I found out from talking to former missionaries 25 or so years ago, and many times since, that they usually return from the missionary field believing in the direct actions of demons in everyday life. They are mostly quiet about it because it upsets the mission boards of the big denominations but it’s the rule rather than the exception that they enter the missionary the missionary field with nice, quiet, western Christian beliefs and leave the missionary field with their eyes wide open to the supernatural.

Deliver us from evil

2006-10-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

Review of a documentary about sexual abuse from TV Guide

It's estimated that serial pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady abused well over 100 children during his career as a California priest, though the exact number of his victims may never be known. But the most infuriating revelation in Amy Berg's powerful documentary is the lengths to which current Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney and other church officials went to protect Father O'Grady and themselves, even though it meant knowingly delivering countless other children into a child molester's hands. Berg begins by tracking Father O'Grady's crimes through the memories of a group of survivors and their families, then records the actions taken by several parents and one courageous cleric to call attention to what they suspected was a widespread problem. Then-bishop of Stockton, Merlin Guilfoyle, and later his ambitious successor, Bishop Mahoney (who hoped to become archbishop of L.A. and didn't need a pedophile scandal on his watch), solved the problem by quietly moving O'Grady from one parish to another. None of O'Grady's new homes were farther than 55 miles apart, so the moves conveniently enabled "Father Ollie" to continue molesting his prior victims while exposing himself to a new flock.

The Defilers News

2006-10-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

UPDATED!!!

Mary DeMuth interviews me on The Master's Artist.

Read what people are saying about The Defilers here!

On Friday Sept. 29, I taped an interview in Toronto with Gillian Kantor, who hosts a new program on books for Salt & Light TV. It will air some time in November.

See the pictures and read about my trip to the American Christian Fiction Writers conference in Dallas Sept. 21-24 over at the Master's Artist.

News about my trip to Nova Scotia here.

The Defilers is now on the shelves in Chapters stores in the Ottawa area. It's also available at Salem Storehouse and Prime Crime Books in the Glebe.

Hear my testimony in the Michael Harris Live interview on CFRA 580 AM here.
You can also read my testimony here.

Pictures of the June 1 Ottawa launch of The Defilers here, a news release on the event here, and Pastor Doug Ward's remarks at the launch here. Doug, who pastors Kanata Baptist Church, was my M.C.

For more on The Defilers, go here. If you'd like to buy a copy, you can go here or find it on Amazon here. Canadians can find it at Amazon.ca here.

New book out on spiritual warfare

2006-10-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Today, many Christians are unaware of the meticulous plan that Satan, the prince of darkness, has crafted for their destruction. They assume that the conflicts they experience with others, the temptations that regularly assault them, the depression and illnesses that pull them down and the private doubts they harbor about God are all a natural part of life. As a result, they become “spiritual road kill.”

The Divine Defense: Six Simple Strategies for Winning Your Greatest Battles coverIn his latest book, The Divine Defense, respected pastor and author Dr. Robert Jeffress exposes this deadly mistake by offering a much-needed perspective on the unseen battle that constantly rages in the spiritual world. While affirming the reality of Satan and his demons, Jeffress shuns sensationalistic practices and instead encourages readers to employ the proven defense God offers in Ephesians 6, which he breaks down into six simple strategies for success.

“The Divine Defense is written for those who may be unaware, or just wary, of the subject of spiritual warfare,” writes Jeffress in his opening chapter. “Although you believe in the reality of Satan and his plan to destroy you, you are not sure what—if anything—you can do about it. And you sure don’t want to engage in anything weird like casting out demons from friends and family members.”

Satanist musician kills himself

2006-08-31T08:36:00.000-07:00

From Chartattack, this link to a story about a Swedish musician who also worshipped Satan.

Swedish police who found the singer/guitarist's body have confirmed that he shot and killed himself on August 16 — which is the same day that Elvis Presley died 29 years ago, if that means anything.

Dissection formed in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1989 and released two albums, 1993's The Somberlain and 1995's Storm Of The Light's Bane, before Nodtveidt was convicted of brutally murdering an Algerian homosexual in July 1997. He was released from prison in 2004 and reformed Dissection with a new lineup to record the group's third studio album, Reinkaos, which was released by The End Records in May.

-snip-

A more disturbing tribute to the man can be found in the "official statement" on the Dissection website. Here's what it said:

"As a true Satanist he led his life in the way he wanted and ended it when he felt that he had fulfilled his self-created destiny. Not everyone will have understanding or acceptance for his personal path in this life and beyond, but all must respect his choice.

"Those of us who have met him in his last days can assure that he was more focussed, happier and stronger than ever. It is our full conviction that he left this world of lies with a scornful laughter, knowing that he had fulfilled everything that he had set up for himself to accomplish. The empty space that he leaves behind will be filled with the dark essence that he manifested through his life and black-magical work. His legacy and Luciferian Fire will live on through those few who truly knew him and appreciated his work for what it really was and still is. As our brother's goal in life and death never was to 'Rest in Peace,' we will instead wish him victories in all battles to come, until the Acosmic Destiny has been fulfilled.

Kathy Shaidle on The Exorcist

2006-08-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Kathy Shaidle of Relapsed Catholic posted a link to a column she wrote several years ago about the movie The Exorcist. She is an amazing writer.

Enjoy:

When the movie first came out, the Vatican II reforms were almost ten years old. The Catholic Church had thrown out the Infant Jesus of Prague with the holy water, trashing centuries of "superstitious" bells & smells overnight. "Hey kids, eat burgers on Fridays! Let's split this medieval pop stand and blast into the twenty-first century!"

All too much, too soon (and way too "Protestant") for millions of Catholics who declined to board Spaceship Folk Mass. So Hollywood stepped in and did what it does best: giving the people what they want.

The Exorcist provides all the crucifixes, dog collars and cassocks you can stand. THRILL to the powerful poetry of an ancient religious rite (that Vatican II tried to get rid of)! SEE a grown man praying the rosary!

And the goosebumps don't stop there. One critic called The Exorcist, not so much a horror film as a Western. Sure enough: when those two priests gravely mount the stairs to Regan's haunted bedroom, I can almost hear a banjo plucking "Do not forsake me, O my darlin' ..." Puts a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.

Hitler and Stalin possessed says Vatican exorcist

2006-08-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Kathy Shaidle at Relapsed Catholic for the link.

Adolf Hitler and Russian leader Stalin were possessed by the Devil, the Vatican's chief exorcist has claimed.

Father Gabriele Amorth who is Pope Benedict XVI's 'caster out of demons' made his comments during an interview with Vatican Radio.

Father Amorth said: "Of course the Devil exists and he can not only possess a single person but also groups and entire populations.

"I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler - and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the Devil.

From drugs and despair to deliverance

2006-08-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a good story about deliverance from drugs and despair.
Read about it here:

“The primary emphasis of the Gospel is not to get you out of hell and into heaven to get near Jesus, but to get Jesus out of heaven and into your life -– all aspects of it,” Cobb said. He has a burden for those who “make a childhood deal with God” but forget all about it until the near-end of their lives. “Unless Christ touches the totality of our lives, we have no message,” he said.

Those who claim to know Jesus Christ must realize that earthly things will pass away, and only what is done for the Kingdom of God will last, Cobb said.

Regarding postmodern relativism, the pastor lamented that while the world may not always denigrate God’s Word, it doesn’t believe the Bible is worthy of serious consideration for its truth claims and substantive meaning.

The Defilers News

2006-08-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Nova Scotia. The picture shows my friend Actor, Writer and Comedian Judy Savoy and myself at Blessings Christian Marketplace in Halifax August 19 for a book signing.

My fellow Master's Artist Donna Shepherd has reviewed The Defilers here. I respond to her review here.

I'll be going to Dallas, Texas Sept. 21-24 for the American Christian Fiction Writers' Conference. Most of the Masters Artists will be attending, so I'll get a chance to meet my online friends.

The Defilers is now on the shelves in Chapters stores in the Ottawa area. It's also available at Salem Storehouse and Prime Crime Books in the Glebe.

If you'd like to hear my testimony, listen to the Michael Harris Live interview on CFRA 580 AM, click here.

Pictures of the June 1 Ottawa launch of The Defilers here, a news release on the event here, and Pastor Doug Ward's remarks at the launch here. Doug, who pastors Kanata Baptist Church, was my M.C.

If you'd like to buy a copy, you can go here or find it on Amazon here. Canadians can find it at Amazon.ca here.

The Defilers News

2006-08-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Michele Oaks bought a copy of The Defilers at the Chapters bookstore in downtown Ottawa recently. That's her in the top photo. That's me below her, examining the shelves where The Defilers is located. The novelty of actually seeing my book in a big box store has not worn off yet.

Looking ahead:
On August 9, I spoke at a devotional breakfast Wednesday a.m. August 9 at the Christian Booksellers of Canada trade show in Ancaster, Ontario.

From August 14-21 I'll be in Nova Scotia, covering the Catholic Women's League national convention in Halifax some of the time and visiting with my friend Judy Savoy, who is a gifted actor, writer and comedian.

Saturday August 19 I will have two book events in Nova Scotia. From 10:30 a.m. to noon I'll be at Blessings Christian Marketplace in Halifax. From 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. I'll be at the Blessings store in Dartmouth.

The Defilers is now on the shelves in Chapters stores in the Ottawa area. It's also available at Salem Storehouse and Prime Crime Books in the Glebe.

If you'd like to hear my testimony, listen to the Michael Harris Live interview on CFRA 580 AM, click here.

Pictures of the June 1 Ottawa launch of The Defilers here, a news release on the event here, and Pastor Doug Ward's remarks at the launch here. Doug, who pastors Kanata Baptist Church, was my M.C.

Mike Duran on the character of the artist

2006-08-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

Mike Duran responds to my Masters Artist post on the character of the artist.

Separating character from craft, the artist from her art, is a necessary, but often difficult act to perform. Chesterton said, “Art is the signature of man.” As such, the line between the art and the man is indeed fine.

And it's this notion of "lines" that blurs the issue.

Some would suggest there are none. For the most part, art criticism is a subjective affair, an inexact science. Even more murky, however, is the definition and critique of character. While postmodernism broadens the pallete of art appreciation, it also erodes traditional standards to which artists (and people in general) were once held. As a result, we develop tolerance for -- even acceptance of -- the quirks and indiscretions of the creative community. Nowadays, good work eclipses good behavior. So what if the glitterati can't pass a piss test or keep their pants on. As long as they write good songs and make decent movies, we'll continue to wink at their misconduct.

Read the whole post. He makes some great points.

Priest pleads guilty to abusing 47 girls

2006-08-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

From the Windsor Star Aug. 3

A retired Roman Catholic priest, who lives in Belle River, Ontario, has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 47 girls over a span of 34 years during his service in parishes from Windsor to London.

Many of the victims, now all women, were in a packed Chatham courtroom Thursday morning when Charles Henry Sylvestre, 83, entered his guilty pleas to 47 charges of indecent assault.

Several observers in the courtroom, including family members of the victims, wept as the court clerk read out the charges and Sylvestre responded in a calm, quiet voice.

The women ranged in age from nine to 14 years old at the time the assaults took place in parishes in Windsor, Chatham, Pain Court, Sarnia and London between 1952 and 1986.

The Defilers will rob you of a few hours sleep

2006-07-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Deborah Gyapong (Ottawa), who won the “2005 Best New Canadian Christian Author Award” for her now newly published book, The Defilers (Castle Quay Books, 2006), will surely rob you of a few hours sleep as you work your way through her first novel—a suspense-filled story set in rural Nova Scotia, involving the RCMP, clergy suspected of arson, abuse and murder and a credible rediscovery of Christian faith. One reviewer says Gyapong’s book is “mature beyond what one would expect for a first novel.” Learn more at www.thedefilers.ca.

Bizarre story about flamboyant priest under investigation

2006-07-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

Came across this story in the New York Times via this post at Get Religion via this post by Rod Dreher via this post at Relapsed Catholic.

Now to the NYT story:

Starting in 2000, Father Fay's star seemed to rise. Sacred Heart University honored him for community service in 2002, and the Bridgeport Diocese appointed him to a sexual misconduct review board that year.

For all his outward success, it was evident that Father Fay had an appetite for little luxuries, such as the blond highlights his Darien hairdresser said he put in his hair.

A small bridal shower he threw for a Sunday school teacher had a three-piece combo and jaw-dropping flower arrangements, a person who attended said.

Parishioners said he spent thousands of dollars sprucing up the church and expanding the house where the priests lived. When one parent questioned the cost of a tapestry, Father Fay cut her off by saying, "What makes you think it wasn't a gift?" said Regina Damanti, a parishioner who heard the exchange.

and

In the spring of 2005, Father Fay and his friend from Philadelphia, Cliff Fantini, a wedding consultant, jointly bought a $449,100 condo in Fort Lauderdale, property records show. Furnishings and monthly cable bills were charged to the parish, church records show.

The two men are also listed as tenants of a luxury apartment on East 63rd Street in Manhattan, the building's staff said. Mr. Fantini, known professionally as Cliff Martell, also stayed at the rectory for extended periods, Ms. Patafio said.

Ms. Patafio said Father Fay showered gifts, meals and trips on Mr. Fantini. "Jude was always chasing after him," she said.

The Get Religion post says this about the NYT story:

Talk about dancing around the subject and burying a lead. Here is the opening of a New York Times report by Alison Leigh Cowan about the financial sins of Father Michael Jude Fay, who is accused of misusing funds and some other minor problems.

The Rev. Michael Jude Fay had his hair highlighted each spring at a local salon at prices of $85 or more, his hairdresser said. His vacation getaway was an ocean-view condominium in Florida that he owned with a close friend from Philadelphia. And he repeatedly spent thousands of dollars on luggage, jewelry and designer clothes, even though his salary was a modest $28,000 a year.

To many of his parishioners at St. John Roman Catholic Church in Darien, Father Fay’s lavish ways came as a shock nearly two months ago when the Diocese of Bridgeport demanded his resignation because of questions about his suitability for the priesthood, his lifestyle and his financial stewardship of the church.

Oh, he also had a flair for producing local versions of Broadway shows.

That enough information? In light of certain Roman Catholic teachings, I think that even the most tone-deaf reader would have a pretty good idea of what is going on there. Nevertheless, readers needed to dig deep into this long story — in which many of the crucial details come from parish bookkeeper Ellen Patafio — to hit a detail that might, just might, have needed to go higher in the story.

Dreher writes:

I do believe, having seen the media's unwillingness to confront more openly the gay-culture aspect of the Catholic sex abuse scandal, it's pretty clear to me that the media, as a general rule, have a habit of sanitizing coverage that reflects badly on gay male culture.

Latest The Defilers news

2006-07-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I signed books at Salem Storehouse on Merivale Road in Ottawa. The first person who came had heard me on the Michael Harris radio program June 28. She had run out to buy a book after that show and brought it in for me to sign. Then she bought three more as Christmas presents. Michael had me on for the whole two hour show and gave me a chance to share the story of my adult conversion to the Christian faith.

Well, back to the book signing. I didn't have a big line out the front door and around the corner. We sold about eight or nine books, all the copies of The Defilers Salem had in stock except for one. Other book signings that I've been to though have been slower than that, so that's okay. But something happened that looks like a divine appointment. I sure hope so, anyway.

At 1:10 p.m. I headed out the door with my big poster of the book cover to my car and a woman came up to me in the parking lot and asked if she as too late. I told her there was one copy left. So I went back inside with her. Turns out she never listens to the radio, but happened to hear me on the Michael Harris program. She told me she stayed in her car to listen to the whole thing. Then two weeks later, she just happened to be listening to the radio again, this time at night and heard me on John Counsell's Ask the Pastor, also on CFRA radio. At the end of that show, I mentioned I was going to be at Salem, so she planned on being there. She came up from a town that's a good 45 minutes drive from Ottawa and got lost. She arrived just as I was leaving and only one book remained. She told me about someone she wants to give the book to and I have promised to pray for that individual.

Find the Michael Harris show here. (Thanks to CFRA and to Tony Copple, who put it online for me!)

Pictures of the June 1 Ottawa launch of The Defilers here, a news release on the event here, and Pastor Doug Ward's remarks at the launch here. Doug, who pastors Kanata Baptist Church, was my M.C.

Next book events will be in Nova Scotia. I will be at Blessings Christian Marketplace in Halifax from 10:30 to noon August 19 and that afternoon at the Blessings Store in Dartmouth from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

The 'safe vs. good debate' heats up

2006-07-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

Relapsed Catholic Kathy Shaidle has not only raised the ire of Protestants, she seems to have a number of Catholics incensed over this post and that one.

Some responses to her posts here led to a vintage tirade this morning about how people are missing the point.

Your obsession with making the world immaculately safe for your children is (ironically) ruining civil society by raising up a generation of risk averse, hyperallergic, conformist dimwits who've never been allowed to simply daydream or scrape their (heavily padded) kneecaps. We are living in a "Fun Toy Banned Because of Three Stupid Dead Kids" world. Aren't you satisfied yet?

For the millionth time: Make your own damn movies and music if you don't like Hollywood's. Stop boycotting and criticizing movies and books you'll never read anyway.

If you think of the cinema as nothing more than the source of 90 minutes or two hours of respite in the warm glow of (someone else's) fantasy; if it is nothing more to you than "a good story" (hopefully one with a cute dog and a happy ending and no swearing)...

You DO NOT deserve the movies. You are beneath them. Amuse yourselves with bingo or bake sales or some other intellectually undemanding pastime. If you can't understand the concept of the physical integrity of another person's creative work, an artifact that embodies a part of themselves in some metaphysical sense, that may even be touched with Spirit, whether you like it or understand it or not... oh, forget it. I'm guessing you bought the Thomas Kincaide that matched your couch, right?

Yes, yes, I know: raising children is the most important job in the whole wide world. When you present yourselves to God at the End of Days, you are getting straight into heaven, while I, the childless arrogant artiste, is going straight to hell, shouting out, "'Ode to a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of little old ladies" as I tumble into the sulfur.

On that we are all agreed.

Now: back slowly away from the moviola or I will kill you with my pudgy little hands.

Now, given the humorlessness of some of the people who prefer what is safe over what is good, (though granted there are books like Gilead by Marilynne Robinson that are both safe and good) I fear that some might think Kathy is actually making death threats.

She's joking folks!

But to the point she's making---there is a big difference if I as an artist decide to cut some scenes from a movie or a book for wider distribution and family viewing vs. having some third party do it without permission.

And the other point is this: what is perceived as safe may be far more pernicious than the odd profane word or graphic sex scene in a more theologically sound work of art.

"Christian art? Art is art; painting is painting; music is music; a story is a story. If it's bad art, it's bad religion, no matter how pious the subject."
—Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

I think the Left Behind series is bad art and consequently bad religion, though perhaps many people find they're prompted to say the Sinner's Prayer after reading one of these books about the End Times. And maybe some of those people are genuinely repenting. God can even make a donkey speak if He has to in order to reach someone, but that doesn't make the donkey anything other than a donkey.

God chose a book with some pretty mediocre writing aimed at junior high school level readers to turn my life around, so I can't deny that He sometimes uses the strangest means as a Shepherd's crook to hook someone.

I think there is great art that is also good but unsafe in the sense that it is disquieting, haunting, challenging, upsetting and illusion-busting.

Flannery O'Connor falls into that category. This is from an interesting essay about her I found online this morning.

She was writing for an audience to whom the incarnation had little meaning, and yet her fiction repeatedly showed common people encountering the terror, mystery and beauty of the Word made flesh. She might have predicted that many of her readers would be mildly puzzled, if not completely confounded.

That fiction contained truth was the conviction she lived with every day. The fact that this truth was sometimes odd or uncomfortable or violent, that it led often to the grotesque, O’ Connor faced unflinchingly. Quoting Robert Fitzgerald, she wrote, "It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth" (p. 343). What could be stranger than a God who decides to suffer with us? What could be more uncomfortable or more violent than the cross? What could be more comically grotesque than an individual trying to escape his own identity as God’s child and in his rush out the temple door smacking straight into the incarnation?

I believe there is also bad art that is unsafe and great art that has great merit in terms of skill, vision of the artist and so on, but is inherently evil and decadent.

Unfortunately, too often a lack of discernment will push what is good, great and unsafe into the great but evil category. So often that happens to the best writers who are not received as the prophets they are in their own times.

More on St. George from Get Religion

2006-07-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

My British friends — who all thought the change was logical — thought there was no way it would pass. St. Alban may get bumped up a few notches in the public eye, they said, but there was no way the flag of St. George was going to be lowered for good. That would simply create too much heat among the masses.

Read it all. Via Kathy Shaidle at Relapsed Catholic, who always has several good posts and links.

AFRUCA seeks to prevent exorcism abuse of children

2006-06-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

A MAJOR CONFERENCE to look at how churches can safeguard African children in the UK in the wake of allegations of child exorcism and witchcraft is to take place next month.

The event is being organised by the Africans United Against Child Abuse (AFRUCA) charity, and is seeking to set up a registration system for individuals who wish to establish places of worship in the UK. Currently there is no system in place to regulate the activities of churches which are not registered charities.

The conference will coincide with the release of a report by the government which is expected to show that there have been around 50 cases of child abuse of African children in London alone, with abuse ranging from shouting to beating, starving and, in one case, murder. There have also been allegations of exorcism and witchcraft taking place in some African congregations, particularly among churches made up of refugees from the Congolese community. However, a recent conference in London heard that many of these communities were not Christian-based.

Other recent cases include the court case involving Child B, the death of Victoria Climbie as well as allegations of child trafficking in some African churches. The case of Pastor Deya, the ‘miracle babies’ priest accused of illegally trafficking children from Kenya for illegal adoption in the UK has been widely reported

Belgium's pedophile murders

2006-06-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Brussels Journal reports on the sex murder of two children and the pedophile suspect in a crime that mirrors one that happened ten years previously.

This time the negligent Belgian authorities decided not even to give the pedophile a prison sentence. Instead they sent him to a mental hospital. Last December Aït Oud’s doctors decided that he was cured and let him go. He went to live in Stacy’s and Nathalie’s street in Liège. The authorities did not notify the neighbours that a man with a dangerous pedophilia record had moved into their street. Disclosing such information is illegal in Belgium, where the state cares more about protecting the privacy of criminals than about protecting the innocent children of law-abiding citizens.

If Aït Oud proves to be the rapist and murderer of Stacy and Nathalie, this case eerily resembles that of Marc Dutroux. He, too, was a convicted pedophile when he abducted and murdered four children and girls in 1995. He, too, had been released prematurely from prison for good conduct. When Dutroux was arrested (by chance!) in 1996, the police found four corpses in his garden but also freed two abducted children whom he kept locked up in his cellar.

There is great indignation in Belgium. If Abdallah Aït Oud proves to be the murderer of Stacy and Nathalie there might be an explosion of popular anger. If he is not the culprit the trauma among the public may be even worse, as this would mean that another pedophile psychopath is on the loose again.

Clearly, the Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the safety of its subjects. Citizens are even beginning to wonder whether the authorities are not just unable but actually unwilling to do so. As I pointed out here a year ago, in relation to another Belgian sex scandal, with Moroccan victims, “morality has gone berserk all over Europe, but nowhere to the same degree as in Belgium.” The country has been sliding into Gomorrah since the 1970s. This process is described in detail in my book A Throne in Brussels, which argues that it is the logical result of Belgium’s nature as an artificial construct, where the state deliberately undermines public morality.

First bad review of The Defilers

2006-06-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer, Linda Donner, is struggling to overcome severe childhood trauma, suffered when she was abused by a priest who came to counsel her. Linda's distrust of men and authority figures is causing her problems at home and in her work place. As she works to solve a death in the seamier side of town, Linda must come face to face with her fears.

The Defilers has a Christian message, including a salvation scene for one of the characters, showing how this person's life is changed afterwards. The author did a nice job depicting the new believer as a new creation in Christ.

There were many disturbing scenes in The Defilers. Although there weren't graphic descriptions, the images were very clear.

The writer goes on to say she would not recommend the book or pass it on.

Oh well. A review like this would make a reader like me want to read the book. At least she didn't say the writing stank or the Christian message was tacked on and hokey. And I believe there are lots of Christians out there who are like me and don't want safe writing.

Some good news about a priest who has supernatural gifts

2006-06-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Defilers, while it deals with some tough subjects such as child sexual abuse, is a story of redemption and hope and how, when religious leaders are faithful, wonderful healing and release happens.

Here's a good news story about an Ottawa-based priest who is traveling around the world praying for the sick--with signs following. Many people have experienced miraculous healings.

Word of mouth has brought the men and women to the Preston St. church to see the man the Catholic Church believes has healed hundreds of people since he was a teenager.

Since his ordination in 2002, Father Fernando Suarez has travelled the world, leaving a trail of testimonies from people who say his prayers and presence have restored their sight, cured their cancer and soothed deep spiritual wounds.

Every month, Suarez's superiors at his Ottawa-based religious community receive a half-dozen letters from people who say they've been healed after the priest prayed with them.

A few years ago, the 39-year-old Suarez was leading an ordinary life as a chemical engineer in his native Philippines.

When he was 16, his life took a fateful turn that would lead thousands of sick and wounded souls to his door.

Suarez was walking near his home when he saw a crippled woman on the street.

The teen asked the woman if she wanted him to pray with her. Suarez wasn't a churchgoer and had never prayed with anyone before.

"I did it out of pity. She nodded her head and I made the sign of the cross and said the Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be to God. They were the only prayers I knew," he recalls.

"All of the sudden she got up and walked. I ran -- I got scared."

Read the whole thing. I attended one of Fr. Fernandos healing masses and was impressed by his low key, totally unsensational style. The focus for him is totally on Jesus Christ and that shines forth.

Witch child abuse spreads in Britain

2006-06-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

The abuse of the children has ranged from shouting to beating, starving, slashing with knives and razors and, in at least one case, murder.

Lord Adonis, the education minister, announced in the House of Lords last week that the report, which he said addressed “very grave” issues, was likely to be published by next month.

The education department maintains that publication of the findings, which were delivered to Whitehall in January, has been delayed because they are being “studied by ministers”.

Porn and the Sacred Heart

2006-06-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

Please read the whole beautifully-written piece by Patrick Still over at Godspy.

I was eleven years-old when my best friend Eddie, who was Italian and Catholic, told me he knew what a woman looked like, naked—from the front. Of course I didn’t believe him. I knew what breasts were, and sometimes I thought about them, but I never imagined there was anything below the waist that should interest me. I soon found out how wrong I was.

I can close my eyes and still see what I saw on that stolen porn channel.
Eddie’s father had stolen cable television service from the cable company through a small black box. All I remember about their Chicago bungalow is that the TV shared the living room with a portrait of an effeminate Jesus exposing his Sacred Heart. Though I wasn’t Catholic, I was almost as interested in that alien, pasty Jesus as I was in that criminal cable box, which beamed shiny images of human sex into my adolescent mind.

When his mom left the house, Eddie kept watch while I flipped to the “bad channel” and saw womanly glory for the first time. Now, a decade and half later, I can close my eyes and still see what I saw on that stolen porn channel. And the Sacred Heart still burns, on the bookcase next to the television, His almost lonely eyes watching me, watching.

Some statistics on sexual abuse by priests

2006-06-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

From the National Catholic Reporter via Catholic Online:

Here’s the problem with the Catholic League’s analysis: It’s simply not true. It’s spin, designed to add heat rather than light to the discussion over the greatest challenge to confront the U.S. church since its founding.

Here’s what the study, conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, really found:

- Of the 6,089 victims assaulted by a priest with multiple victims, two-thirds were age 14 or younger, 20 percent age 10 or younger;

- Of the 1,178 boys assaulted by a priest reported to have abused one minor boy, 55 percent of the victims were age 14 or younger;

- Of the 1,159 girls molested by a multiple-abuser priest, nearly 77 percent were age 14 or younger;

- Of the 591 girls abused by a priest reported to have molested one girl, two-thirds of the victims were 14 or younger, nearly one-third age 10 or younger.

In the world of sociology, of data collection, these statistics can be parsed. What’s “not a little kid”? Is a 14-year-old “post-pubescent”? What about a 13-year-old? A 12-year-old? Is the crime of child rape mitigated by the age of the child? The ugly inference we are to take from this is that some (many? most?) sexually adventurous teens, largely gay, got what they were looking for.

The U.S. bishops play into this sociological-psychosexual mumbo jumbo. The department they established to deal with priest abusers is officially titled the “Office of Child and Youth Protection.” Child and youth. As if a 14-year-old, an eighth or ninth grader, is no longer a child. Amazing.

The League's New York Times ad with a different spin on the scandal is found here.

I'd quote it but it's in a format that doesn't seem to be easily transferable here.

My take? I agree with the League that an unfair emphasis is placed on Catholic priests and I wonder why the research hasn't been done to show the levels of pedophilia among public school teachers or athletic coaches.

However, I'm with the NCR in saying that a child is still a child at age 14, though experts I heard at the Cornwall Inquiry did make a distinction between prepubescent and postpubescent victims and state that those who are attracted to postpubescent children are the hardest to treat. I think it is ghastly that for Canada the age of consent for sexual activity is 14 and am grateful that today the Conservative government here is going to introduce legislation to raise the "age of protection" to 16.

A priest violating his vows with any child, whether a teenager or not, is a terrible betrayal of the child and of the faith he is supposed to represent. But I fear that some of the glee that people have in reporting these things comes from a desire to bash the faith and the institution of the Church as it does in unmasking the scandal. That's why I believe one must exercise caution and objectivity in looking at any of these figures.

The Defilers officially launched in Ottawa

2006-06-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

The Defilers launch June 1, National Archives of Canada

2006-06-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

The Defilers has been released! I had my first booksigning May 4 at Hull's Family Book Store in Winnipeg.

You can see a picture of the launch here.

The official Ottawa launch will be June 1, 7-8:30 p.m. at the National Archives of Canada.

The Defilers won the 2005 Best New Canadian Christian Author Award sponsored by Castle Quay Books, and administered by The Word Guild.

The Word Guild has just announced the finalists for the 2006 contest. Congratulations to the seven people on the short list. I have posted the press release here.

The Defilers can be purchased through the Augsburg Fortress online store and on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.

I hope to see you at the launch!!!!

I have posted below links to stories in the news that touch on some of the subject matter in the novel.

Deborah's Defilers antidote to The Da Vinci Code?

2006-05-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

Here's Sean Durkan's write up from Embassy: Canada's Foreign Policy Newsweekly

Deborah's Defilers an Antidote to Da Vinci's Code?

Hidden in all the fuss over the release of the movie version of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is the growing demand for good, exciting fiction with a positive Christian twist. Former CBC journalist Deborah Gyapong is hoping to tap into it with her first novel, The Defilers.

Ms. Gyapong, who left the CBC to work in the Canadian Alliance, and now covers Parliament Hill for the Catholic and Evangelical newspapers, will launch the novel at the National Archives on June 1.

Ms. Gyapong originally began writing her suspense novel a couple of years ago for the U.S. market, where the Christian-lit phenomenon had already taken off, but found the Canadian setting and gritty gothic plot did not work for publishers there.

"Much of what Christian publishing had to offer put me in danger of getting spiritual diabetes because the stories were so treacly sweet," says Ms. Guapong. "I fell between the cracks: too raw and controversial for the Christian market, too Christian for the secular market."

Ms. Gyapong stuck with the more "gothic" theme, hoping to appeal to Christians such as herself who had "not led sheltered lives." American tastes have apparently matured because the publishers have now decided to also release the gritty novel in the U.S. this year as well as Canada.

The story remains far from treacly sweet. Heroine Linda Donner is originally from Boston but moved as a kid to Nova Scotia. Seduced by a priest as a teenager, she stopped believing in God. Now a Mountie, she investigates a pastor she suspects is guilty of arson, murder and child abuse, and finds herself pitted against evil supernatural forces that drive her to the edge of a nervous breakdown. The twist is she finds herself seeking God's help -- aided by the very pastor she suspected of committing terrible crimes.

Ms. Gyapong says she hopes her novel will serve as a counterpoint to the Gnostic messages of books like The Da Vinci Code.

Australian priest accused of ritual sexual abuse

2006-05-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

THE Catholic Church has accepted as substantially true allegations that a Melbourne priest took part in ritualised sexual abuse in which a number of deaths occurred.

The Melbourne archdiocese paid $33,000 to the man who made the claims as compensation for repeated sexual and physical abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of the priest.

The archdiocese's independent sexual abuse investigator, barrister Peter O'Callaghan, QC, described details of the ritualised deaths and abuse provided by the victim as "extraordinary".

". . . but I have no reason or justification for doubting his credibility," Mr O'Callaghan said in a letter to the victim's lawyers in 2000.

Earlier, during a formal interview with the victim, which was recorded, Mr O'Callaghan said he was satisfied the man was telling the truth.

"I see no reason why I shouldn't accept what you say," he said. "Amazing as it is, I accept it."

The Melbourne archdiocese's Vicar-General, Monsignor Les Tomlinson, said Mr O'Callaghan advised Victoria Police about the allegations and was told the victim had already notified them that he had been "sexually abused and was a witness to murder".

"The police advised that inquiries had been made with the homicide squad and their missing persons records and intelligence was unable to confirm the allegations and that there was no current investigation into the matter," Monsignor Tomlinson said.

In a sworn statement given to the archdiocese, the 56-year-old victim said he was first abused by the priest in Melbourne in the early 1960s, when serving as an altar boy at a southern suburbs church and attending a Catholic school.

The abuse continued for three years and included being repeatedly abused during what appeared to be satanic rituals by the priest and others. He says the priest, who has since died, owned at least one firearm.

In his statement, the victim gives details of a number of rituals in which the priest was involved.

"A number of the things that I can remember are extremely gruesome," he said.

"I remember being told loudly and forcibly that God is evil and Satan is good and Satan is more powerful.

"On another occasion I was told that good is evil and evil is good, and that Satan is all-powerful and has control over the earth, and that I am evil and that is good.

"I have some gruesome memories of killings."

The statement details three deaths -- a young woman, a young man and a child -- gang rapes and other forms of sexual abuse that allegedly occurred during the rituals over a period of several years.

Animals were also killed during the ceremonies.

Pedophilia party launches in the Netherlands

2006-05-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

The newly formed Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party of the Netherlands has introduced itself to Dutch politics as a champion of children's rights and has vowed, "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"

The NVD is Europe's first political party dedicated to promoting and legitimizing pedophilia. In a press release, the NVD's spokesman and co-founder, Ad van den Berg said among their goals is lowering the age of consent for sexual activity from 16 to 12 and eventually eliminating it completely.

"A ban just makes children curious," van den Berg told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper. The party will also be working to decriminalize child pornography and to lower the age for which it is legal to appear in it from 18 to 16. The party suggests that in order to prevent "abuse" a governmental body be appointed to investigate whether children had been forced to appear in pornographic movies.

Pedophile Chic?

2006-05-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

Sylvia over at theinquiry.ca has links to troubling articles about pedophile chic here and here.

While the articles explore the ways that sex between men and boys, especially adolescent boys, is seen in some circles as not damaging to the victims and in some ways even beneficial, I'm not sure I agree with the authors that sex with girls is still taboo. Maybe in polite, literary and glossy magazine circles it still is, but go a little down market and girls are fair game.

Judging from the kinds of pornographic spam emails I've been getting, sex with teens and "teenies," incest porn and all kinds of other shocking things are being sent into mailboxes around the world. Since I have never visited a porn site and only look at some of the headers and titles because make a point of reporting these to Cybertip.ca, I can assume that men who do visit these sites get even more of this stuff than I do. The sheer quantity of this kind of sick material indicates to me lots of internal barriers to this kind of degrading and disgusting behavior are coming down.

Why? Because people will start to think, hey, I'm not alone with these proclivities.
Maybe it's not "chic" to be misogynist and to degrade women, but the authors should maybe have listened to 50 Cent and some popular gangsta rappers to see that the exploitation of girls is hugely fashionable.

I recall years ago hearing from a forensic psychiatrist that about one fifth of the population has pedophilic tendencies though only a tiny proportion fall into the sadistic, violent category. With the help of this barrage of porn, how many people might be tipped into that category? And the fact that weak, sick people hate what they crave, and blame it for their weaknesses, is it surprising that the porn is becoming more brutal?

It seems odd that sexual liberation has resulted in more literal slavery for women and children, both girls and boys.

40,000 women trafficked for World Cup

2006-05-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

In response to reports that 40,000 young women will be brought to Germany from Central and Eastern Europe to "sexually service" men attending the World Cup soccer championship next month, a Catholic group warns that many are desperately poor and will be "sex trafficked" against their will.

The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, or C-FAM, has launched a "Stop World Cup Prostitution" campaign on its website.

An estimated 3 million soccer fans – mostly men – are expected to descend on 12 German cities for the quadrennial sports event June 9 to July 9. Prostitution in legal in Germany.

The new face of slavery and human trafficking

2006-05-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

Slaves are cheap these days. Their price is the lowest it's been in about 4,000 years. And right now the world has a glut of human slaves - 27 million by conservative estimates and more than at any time in human history.
Although now banned in every country, slavery has boomed in the past 50 years as the global population has exploded. A billion people scrape by on $1 a day. That extreme poverty combined with local government corruption and a global economy that leaps national boundaries has produced a surge in the number of slaves - even though in the developed world, that word conjures up the 19th century rather than the evening news.

"For an American audience, their conceptualization of slavery is locked into a picture from the past," says Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves (www.freetheslaves.net), a nonprofit in Washington. "It's fixed in the slavery of the deep South and it's about African-Americans being enslaved on plantations with chains and whips and so forth."

Modern-day slavery has little of the old South. Of those 27 million, the majority are bonded laborers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal - workers who have given their bodies as collateral for debts that never diminish no matter how many years, or sometimes generations, the enslaved labor on. Cooking the books is an early lesson for slaveholders.

Yet despite this new largely unacknowledged slavery epidemic, Dr. Bales is optimistic. While the real number of slaves is the largest there has ever been, he says, it is also probably the smallest proportion of the world population ever in slavery. Today, he adds, we don't have to win the legal battle; there's a law against it in every country. We don't have to win the economic argument; no economy is dependent on slavery (unlike in the 19th century, when whole industries could have collapsed). And we don't have to win the moral argument; no one is trying to justify it any more.

The fact that it's still thriving, he explains, comes down principally to ignorance about the institution and lack of resources directed at eradicating it.

Lack of public awareness is strikingly apparent in developed countries, where few are conscious that it is not exclusively a third-world problem.

Although the numbers are small relative to the worldwide challenge, in the developed world slavery happens uncomfortably close to home. For instance, between 14,000 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States annually, according to the US government, most forced into the sex trade, domestic servitude, or agricultural labor. At any one time, between 52,000 and 87,000 are in bondage. And much of that is in plain view, in towns and cities across the country, experts say. People simply don't recognize it.

In June, an Indian domestic in Brookline, Mass., won a court case against an Omani couple who had barred her from leaving their apartment unescorted for more than a year, forcing her to look after their four children, cook, and clean without proper pay or meals. An alert neighbor who caught wind of her plight helped her escape.

But that is the exception, suggests Tommy Calvert of American Anti-Slavery Group in Boston. "Law enforcement and legal professionals don't always identify a victim of slavery as such." And the public is even less likely to recognize the signs.

Last month, the State Department issued a fact sheet urging citizens "to help end modern-day slavery" and warned "it may even be happening in their own backyards."

It's where domestic violence was 35 years ago, Bales say. No one talked about it, no shelters existed, and no one had written a pamphlet laying out what it looked like.

That's about to change. A pamphlet on slavery is in the works, says Bales, who hopes to get it distributed to neighborhood watch groups around the US before the end of the year, if funding comes through. The draft, titled "How can I recognize trafficking victims" includes a list of "visible indicators" of whether an establishment is holding people against their will and the physical signs that a person might be enslaved. Once people are better informed, he expects a flood of cases.

Part of the confusion about slavery, says Bales, is that it has evolved over the centuries and what we traditionally thought of as slavery - chattel slavery - looks very different these days. But the definition remains the same: "Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised" (Slavery Convention of the League of Nations, 1926).

In his book "Disposable People," Bales says ownership is no longer an attractive proposition for most slaveholders because the price of slaves is so low. In 1850, a slave would cost about $40,000 in today's dollars. Now, you can buy a slave for $30 in the Ivory Coast. The glut "has converted them from being the equivalent of buying a car to buying a plastic pen that you use and throw away," he says. That makes maintenance of the "investment" a low priority, and little care is taken for slaves' well-being.

The most common type of slavery is debt bondage which traps 15 million to 20 million in loan agreements they can never pay off. Others are lured by false promises into forced labor situations, where they are coerced to stay under threat of violence. Slavery also includes the worst forms of child labor and sexual exploitation of women and girls.

The fastest growing type, however, is trafficking ("forcing and transporting people into slavery"). According to a Department of Justice report in June on human trafficking, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders each year (and millions more are trafficked within their own countries). Of those, about 80 percent are female, and an estimated 70 percent end up in the commercial sex trade, the report says. The United Nations estimates that the profits from human trafficking (about $9.5 billion last year) rank it among the top three revenue earners for organized crime, after drugs and arms. In 10 years, it's expected to be the top source of revenue.

This rapid rise has been met with new laws in the US (the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000, which was reauthorized and expanded last December), a rapid ratification of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime put forward in 2000, which also came into force last December, and greater sharing of information and coordination among nations to combat trafficking.

The UN declared 2004 International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition, even though, ironically, there are more slaves now than there were even at the height of the transatlantic slave trade.

Enforcement is one stalling point in its eradication. A Human Rights Watch report issued in July, for instance, looks at the pattern of exploitation of foreign domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. Although the Saudis are held to account for a judicial system that makes its almost impossible for foreign nationals to appeal their circumstances, says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Middle East and Africa for HRW, the sending countries shirk their responsibilities, too. "They need to better protect their nationals," she says. "Unfortunately, each one [of the sending countries] says, if we make it tough for Saudi [Arabia] then they will just go to Pakistan [for foreign workers]. And Pakistan says, if we make it tough, then they will just go to the Philippines. So it's a race to the bottom."

Even when law enforcement is not in question, uncovering cases can be like looking for clues in the dark. Last year, only nine trafficking cases were prosecuted in the US with a total of 17 convictions - the smallest sliver of those working the new slave trade. "The thing that is unique about human trafficking and enslavement," says Bales "... is that it's a crime of seriousness equal to kidnapping, torture, murder etc. and yet it has the 'dark figure' [a criminologist's term for crimes that remain hidden, unreported] of bicycle theft."

The conditions of those enslaved are usually filled with physical and mental abuse and violence - or at least the constant threat of it - and sometimes unimaginable deprivations. Girls are frequently "broken in" to the profession of prostitution, for instance, through beatings and rape, and if they are rebellious, they may end up dead. Long hours, sometimes 15 or more a day, with no days off, privacy, or adequate food are common.

For those who escape servitude, the road to freedom can be uncertain. A UN fact sheet on contemporary slavery hints it may be easier to free the body than the mind: "Even when abolished, slavery leaves traces. It can persist as a state of mind - among its victims and their descendants and among the inheritors of those who practiced it - long after it has formally disappeared.

Christian children kidnapped into the slave trade

2006-05-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

A SENIOR member of an Islamic organisation linked to Al-Qaeda is funding his activities through the kidnapping of Christian children who are sold into slavery in Pakistan.

The Sunday Times has established that Gul Khan, a wealthy militant who uses the base of Jamaat-ud Daawa (JUD) near Lahore, is behind a cruel trade in boys aged six to 12.

They are abducted from remote Christian villages in the Punjab and fetch nearly £1,000 each from buyers who consign them to a life of misery in domestic servitude or in the sex trade.

Khan was exposed in a sting organised by American and Pakistani missionaries who decided to save 20 such boys and return them to their homes. Using a secret camera, they filmed him accepting $28,500 (£15,000) from a Pakistani missionary posing as a businessman who said he wanted to set up an operation in which the boys would beg for cash on the streets.

Khan was observed driving from the meeting with a knapsack full of cash to the JUD headquarters at Muridke, near Lahore.

The base was funded by Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, in the late 1990s and the JUD’s assets were frozen last month by the US Treasury after it was designated a terrorist organisation.

The US State Department declared the JUD a front for another organisation, Lashkar-i-Toiba, a terrorist group banned in Pakistan which joined with Al-Qaeda in an attempt to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

Khan, who regularly stays at the JUD’s base, broke his promise to hand over the 20 boys on receipt of the cash and took the Pakistani missionary’s assistant hostage while he checked that the dollars were genuine.

The boys were eventually freed in a dishevelled and malnourished state after being locked in a room for five months during which they suffered frequent beatings.

Last week I accompanied six of the boys on journeys of up to 15 hours to their homes, where they were greeted with astonishment and jubilation by families who had given them up for dead.

The mother of Akash Aziz, who was kidnapped as he played with his friends after school, was so astonished that she could barely move or speak at first.

The undercover missionaries have demanded the prosecution of Khan and an investigation into his work for the JUD, which claims to have created a “pure Islamic environment” at Muridke.

Thanks to Jihadwatch for the link.

If you'd like to do something to stop this kind of atrocity, the International Justice Mission is supporting the kind of work those undercover missionaries did in rescuing those children.

Canadians can visit the International Justice Mission Canada site.

First book signing

2006-05-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

The Defilers has been released.

Last Thursday I had my first book signing at Hull's Family Book Store in Winnipeg.

Here I am with Hull's owners Margo and Kathie Smith.

Now I'm busy preparing for the official Ottawa launch June 1, 7:30 p.m. at the National Archives of Canada.

I hope to see you there!

Catholic Church rebounding after abuse scandal A new study has found that the scandal over sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has not caused Am

2006-05-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

This is good news from the New York Times. While sexual abuse is a horrible thing, certainly the majority of priests were guilty of nothing. It's good that a small proportion of bad priests have not been successful in ultimately destroying the faith of ordinary Catholics. Thanks to Kathy Shaidle at Relapsed Catholic for the link.

A new study has found that the scandal over sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has not caused American Catholics to leave the church, or to stop attending Mass and donating to their parishes.

The study shows that Catholic participation in church life and satisfaction with church leadership dropped noticeably at the height of the scandal in 2002, but has now largely rebounded to prescandal levels.

The only significant decline is in the percentage of Catholics who contributed to diocesan financial appeals, annual campaigns that are usually run by bishops. While the percentage of Catholics who contributed to their local parishes remained steady, those who gave to diocesan appeals dropped to 29 percent in 2005 from 38 percent in April 2002.

"There's been an expectation that there would be more Catholics exiting the faith, and clearly the polls show that there wasn't any evidence of that," said Mark M. Gray, research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, which conducted the study.

"It's a reflection of how resilient religious faith can be — that Catholics were able to disconnect their own personal faith from what was occurring among a group of clergy at a specific time in history," Dr. Gray said. "Their faith was bigger than these events. Clearly there was a lot of dissatisfaction, but people remain Catholic."

The center based the study on 10 national telephone polls of adult Catholics conducted since January 2001. Most included 1,000 or more respondents, but since the number of people polled varied each time, the margin of sampling error varied from plus or minus 2.1 percentage points to plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

The sexual abuse crisis, which first erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston in early 2002, eventually spread to nearly every diocese in the nation as accusers stepped forward and said priests had molested them as children and young adults. American bishops sent a delegation to Rome to meet with Pope John Paul II and instituted new rules for removing accused priests from the ministry. A report commissioned by the church found that from 1950 to 2004, more than 9,000 young people were victimized.

But the new study found that many Catholics knew little about the scope of the scandal, and that the percentage who said that they had heard about the bishops' responses to the scandal dropped to 40 percent in 2005 from a peak of 53 percent in 2004.

"They are just not very well informed of what is really happening," said John Moynihan, communications director for Voice of the Faithful, a Catholic reform group born in the scandal's wake.

The percentage of adult Americans who identify themselves as Catholic has remained steady at 23 percent, the study found. The percentage of Catholics who say they attend Mass at least once a week also held steady from September 2000 to September 2005 at 33 percent, with a slight rise to 39 percent immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the center's polls.

Donations at the parish level also held steady. Seventy-six percent of Catholics said in April 2002 that they had contributed to their parish collection in the previous year, compared with 74 percent in October 2005.

"This really confirms what we've heard as well," said Dr. Francis J. Butler, president of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities. "People are very strongly supportive of their own parish life, but contributions to national collections have dipped."

ABC News takes a look at Bob Larson and exorcism

2006-05-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

In a hotel conference room in Bakersfield, Calif., Bob Larson, who is not a Catholic priest, says he, too, can cast out demons. He and his staff exorcize thousands of people a year, traveling around the world to perform the rituals.

Larson said people were possessed by demons, not the devil himself.

"The devil can't be everywhere," Larson said. "God can be everywhere so the devil has to duplicate the omnipresence of God by sending demons out to do his work."

According to Larson and the hundreds of other Christian deliverance ministers, these evil spirits can cause people to commit horrible acts from small sins to murder.

"More people are possessed today than ever have been in history," Larson said. "We have more permission today to do bad things than ever before. That doesn't explain the mother in Texas who chops off the arms of her baby."

Larson concedes that throughout history people have suffered from mental illness, but he also says that people have always been possessed by demons.

Janelle Mallard was exorcized by Larson. During the ceremony she spoke in a strange voice and flailed around almost uncontrollably.

"I feel refreshed, like something's lifted off my spirit," Mallard said after the exorcism.

"I can't convince anyone this is real except to say look at the newspaper headlines day by day and see if you really think the immensity of the violence and crime are truly the result of just human nature gone mad," Larson said.

Priest found guilty of murdering nun

2006-05-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

From Catholic Online:

TOLEDO, Ohio – Father Gerald Robinson, a retired priest of the Diocese of Toledo, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison May 11 for the murder more than 26 years earlier of Mercy Sister Margaret Ann Pahl.

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Father Robinson, 68, was taken from the courtroom in handcuffs after the verdict was announced and Common Pleas Judge Thomas Osowik sentenced him. He could be eligible for parole in 15 years.

The jury deliberated for six hours and 25 minutes before handing down the verdict.

"This is a sad day for the Diocese of Toledo," Bishop Leonard P. Blair said in a statement. He called for prayers for Sister Margaret Ann, her family and the Sisters of Mercy; the judge, jury, attorneys and witnesses in the trial; and Father Robinson.

"Let us hope that the conclusion of the trial will bring some measure of healing for all those affected by the case as well as for our local church," the bishop added. "The diocese has remained steadfast in the work of the church and its ministries throughout this trial, and will continue to do so."

Bishop Blair said Father Robinson, who was suspended from all public activity as a priest in April 2004 after his arrest and retired two months later, remains barred from any public ministry.

Sister Margaret Ann, 71, was strangled and then stabbed 31 times in the chapel at the now-closed Toledo Mercy Hospital, where she and Father Robinson both worked at the time.

Prosecutors said the fact that the murder occurred on Holy Saturday and some elements of the crime – such as stab wounds in the shape of an upside-down cross, an "anointing" in blood on the nun's forehead and the use of an altar cloth in the murder – indicated that the killing had a ritualistic or Satanic nature.

Father Robinson was not charged in Sister Margaret Ann's murder until 2004 after a woman accused him and others of sexual abuse, Satanic activity and other crimes. The jury did not hear testimony about those accusations, however.

Attorneys for the state also presented evidence linking a letter opener in Father Robinson's room at the hospital to the nun's wounds, and two witnesses testified that they had seen the priest near the hospital chapel on the morning of the murder, although he told police he had not left his room during that time.

Priest's murder of nun not satanic says prosecutor

2006-05-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

TOLEDO - The slaying of a Roman Catholic nun in 1980 was sparked by a priest's simmering anger over her domineering ways and not part of a "satanic cult killing," a prosecutor said Wednesday in closing arguments of the priest's trial.

The Rev. Gerald Robinson not only choked and stabbed Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, but he also humiliated her in death, Assistant Lucas County Prosecutor Dean Mandros told jurors.

Robinson stabbed her in the chest in the shape of an upside-down cross, anointed her with her own blood and stripped off her underwear "to degrade her, to mock her, to humiliate her," Mandros said.

"Was this is a satanic cult killing? No," Mandros said. "A man got very angry with a woman. The only difference is that the man wore a white collar, and the woman wore a habit."

Robinson, 68, is accused of killing Sister Pahl while she was preparing the Mercy Hospital chapel the day before Easter in 1980. She was choked and then stabbed 31 times.

Robinson was a chaplain at the hospital and worked closely with Sister Pahl, 71, and presided at her funeral. He was a suspect early in the investigation but was not charged until two years ago.

Robinson faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted of murder. Jurors deliberated for about four hours Wednesday after nine days of testimony. They will resume today.

The defense told jurors that DNA evidence doesn't link Robinson to the crime. The nun's underwear and fingernails had traces of DNA that was likely from a man but not from Robinson, defense attorney John Thebes said.

"It points somewhere else," he said.

The priest's attorneys also questioned the memories of witnesses who said they saw Robinson near the chapel no more than an hour before the nun's body was found inside. Defense attorney Alan Konop said the witnesses gave conflicting accounts of where and when they saw Robinson.

Robinson, who sat in the courtroom wearing a priest's collar, has been solemn throughout the trial. "Do you really think Father Robinson is some sleek killer?" Konop said. "Or is he a mild, meek man?"

Gunman told friend he needed an exorcism

2006-05-11T05:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a fascinating story from Potomac News Online that touches on an area that fascinates me and that is where one draws the line between mental illness caused by chemical imbalance in the brain and demonic involvement. I remember interviewing a priest who took part in deliverance ministries who told me that he believe demonic forces could take advantage of organically caused mental illness.

In the minutes before Michael Kennedy died after firing 70 rounds on Fairfax County police, the teenager told a friend that he needed an exorcism.

Virginia Commonwealth University student Daniel Sforza said he was exchanging instant messages by computer with Kennedy on Monday afternoon until about 3 p.m. Less than an hour later, police say, Kennedy ran through a police station parking lot near Chantilly with an AK-47, shooting three officers and killing one of them, Detective Vicky Armel. Kennedy, 18, died when police returned fire.

"He was very upset," Sforza said Tuesday. "What he told me was he wanted to get an exorcism because he felt like medication, therapy, doctors ... nothing helped him. There's something possessing him to make him feel so miserable. And he said, 'The last thing I can think of is an exorcism.' "

Kennedy told him nothing of his plans to gun down the officers as they left the Sully District police station, Sforza said.

Sforza said he encouraged Kennedy to do his best to figure out what would help him.

"He was always searching for an answer to his problem," Sforza said.

-snip-

Neighbors said they saw little of Kennedy or his father at their residence, although the teen's younger sister frequently rode a scooter near the London Towne townhouse section where the family has lived for the past decade.

"He was quiet. He stayed indoors a lot," Mavis Powell said.

On Kennedy's MySpace.com site earlier this spring, some friends had expressed concern about his whereabouts.

Friends said Kennedy's mental health had deteriorated in the past few months and that he had delusions and hallucinations.

Sforza, who graduated with Kennedy last year from Westfield High School in Fairfax County, said that Kennedy's struggles with his mental health became apparent during their senior year.

Sforza said he would often drive to Kennedy's house to pick him up after Kennedy argued with his parents. He would listen to Kennedy's suspicious railings against the government and world conspiracies, and felt that Kennedy in turn listened to him.

"He thought he was Jesus. He talked about aliens," said Brandon Baker, a friend of Kennedy's since sixth grade. Baker said Kennedy told him he sometimes took medication. "He was talking about how he was superhuman."

Kennedy had also recently changed his MySpace profile name from Kennedy to "Herr Azriel," in reference to an angel of destruction.

On his Web site, Kennedy wrote: "sorry to all the people i hurt." It was not clear when he wrote that apology.

-snip-

High school classmates knew Kennedy as someone who played video games and felt harassed because of his appearance and dark clothes, according to Christine Craig, another friend and Westfield graduate.

-snip-

After graduation, Kennedy attended Northern Virginia Community College and worked at a drugstore, Sforza said. He considered Kennedy one of his best friends.

"I know what he did was horrible, but he was just so confused."

A.J. Hostetler is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Times-Dispatch staff writers Kiran Krishnamurthy and Rex Springston contributed to this report.

Why we must be so careful about not jumping to conclusions

2006-05-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

Not every priest accused of sexual abuse is guilty.

Read the whole story at Catholic Online.

“Father Murphy is coming down from a long period of turmoil,” said his attorney Timothy O’Neill. “Unfortunately, the institution’s been fighting to protect itself, not the individual priest.”

“But to be fair, the church has been totally overwhelmed by the number and extent of abuse claims,” O’Neill said. “I’m not denying the holocaust, but you can feel pretty helpless when you’re removed from ministry and you know you didn’t do anything. These guys are pretty much on their own.”

The accusations made national news when the story broke. He and 14 others were named in a civil suit that claimed alleged abuse of students at the Boston School for the Deaf between 1944 and 1977. Father Murphy, who is hearing-impaired, served as director of counseling there in the 1970s.

All the claims were later withdrawn or dismissed by the court. But the story of Father Murphy’s exoneration by the church made only local news. It rated a brief release in The Pilot, Boston’s archdiocesan paper.

According to the archdiocese’s Office of Child Advocacy, 71 complaints were filed against Boston-area priests from July 2003 to December 2005. In 32 of those cases, the review board did not find that probable cause of sexual abuse of a minor had occurred.

The norms of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops state: “When an accusation has been shown to be unfounded, every step possible will be taken to restore the good name of the person falsely accused.”

Boston archdiocesan spokesman Terrence Donilon and review board members declined to explain what steps are taken to restore a priest’s reputation.

“We call it the Humpty-Dumpty restoration process,” said one Boston priest. Another said, “That policy is just lip service.”

The defendants’ attorneys in the Boston School for the Deaf cases had portrayed the plaintiffs as “opportunists trying to cash in on publicity surrounding the $85 million paid in 2003 by the archdiocese to victims of clergy sexual abuse,” according to The Patriot Ledger, a suburban Boston paper. At the time of that record settlement, Forbes magazine noted, “Litigators have parlayed the priest crisis into a billion-dollar money machine. Lawyers are lobbying states to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, letting them dredge up complaints that date back decades.”

“Father Murphy’s case was totally without substance,” said O’Neill. He was first charged just with walking into a room where a girl was changing. When it was obvious that charge would get dismissed, O’Neill said, the same woman then later filed another claim charging the priest had fondled her.

Occult ritual involved in nun's murder says expert

2006-05-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

Toledo -- A priest schooled in the occult testified that the 1980 slaying of a nun was filled with dark symbolism and signs that a ritual transpired.

And only "a nun, a priest or possibly a seminarian" would have the full knowledge of what all the signs meant.

A priest is on trial in the slaying -- the Rev. Gerald Robinson.

He is accused of stabbing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl 31 times -- in cluding nine times in the form of an in verted cross.

The Rev. Jeffrey Grob was the prose cution's first witness Monday morning and the 23rd since the trial began last week. He has studied and written about exorcism, the occult and religious rituals.

Prosecutors have claimed that some sort of ritual occurred when the nun was slain 26 years ago, and reports of satanic cults have circulated through northwest Ohio, both in relationship to the case and independently of it.

On the witness stand, Grob said, "Some sort of ritual activity has taken place."

He listed numerous symbols and Roman Catholic rites that appeared to be deliberately perverted during the nun's slaying.

"These are not random acts," he said.

More in the Cleveland Plain Dealer here.

Clergy have encountered "satanic" forces

2006-04-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

THE Church of Scotland is planning to train ministers to deal with evil spirits after research showed half the clergy believe they have directly encountered "Satanic" forces.

The Kirk is considering lessons on the supernatural because a growing number of pastors are seeking advice on issues ranging from poltergeists to "possessed" parishioners.

According to research by one of the Kirk's leading experts on the subject, more than half of the church's 1,200 ministers report personal experience of "dark spirits" and "evil powers".

-snip-

Rev Douglas Cranston, the convener of the Ministries Council, said: "Most ministers come across something like this at some time in their pastoral lives. The training would be given as part of a broader context of healing ministries in general."

The Rev Douglas Nicol, who helped draw up a report for the Kirk's Deliverance Group on the supernatural, confirmed that despite living in a materialistic age, many in the Kirk say they have encountered the dark side.

Nicol, the minister of Priesthill and Nitshill Kirk, Glasgow, said: "It's clear from our research that more than half of ministers have had direct experience of this sometime during their ministries. I might be contacted about eight or nine times in a year whereas a few years ago it might have been three or four times. There's more awareness of this now. In recent years there is much more openness about discussing the subject."

Nicol said full-blown exorcisms, where ministers believed that a person had been fully "possessed" by a devil, are so rare that he had never come across one.

He added that the situation which most Kirk "demon-busters" encountered was better described as "oppression", a lesser form of possession, where - it is claimed - a spirit will afflict a person, perhaps by causing mood swings, physical pain or depression.

Describing one case, he said: "I was speaking to a woman who felt she was being oppressed by a spirit and wanted help. Then the atmosphere changed and she started being hostile to me. I then addressed her by name, we'll call her 'Mary', and I said, 'Is that you speaking to me, 'Mary'?' And she said nothing. So that told me I was dealing with something supernatural."

Such a case is typically dealt with by a "deliverance" service, rather than full-blown exorcism, which the Kirk recently decided not to adopt.

A typical "deliverance" can last up to an hour and will involve two ministers, one ordering the spirit out of the victim and the other praying for the minister doing the delivering.

Nicol and others in the Kirk's small team of experts insist they are cautious in "diagnosing" a person as being oppressed by a spirit, and only intervene after taking medical and psychiatric advice.

Last year, Nicol conducted a deliverance service for Val McInnes, from Glasgow, who had a "spirit of pain" prayed out of her.

She told Scotland on Sunday: "I was suffering from this dreadful pain in my hip and I was convinced it came from a spirit in me which was giving me physical pain. I had tried painkillers and been to the doctor.

"This was very different from any pain I had felt before and I have arthritis. Douglas prayed and ordered the spirit out of me, and I could feel the spirit leaving my body, going all the way down through my leg and then leaving me completely. I believe that the spirit came into me during a difficult time in my life when I was feeling angry with others and I was vulnerable to that spirit."

Flora Robinson Black, also from Glasgow, had a "spirit of fear" taken from her by Nicol.

She said: "I felt under a deep spiritual depression. All the joy had been taken out of my life. I had suffered a bereavement, but this sadness was much deeper than that and lasted much longer, I was at the doctor, I tried antidepressants. My doctor was worried about me. I believe it was a spirit in me making me sad and fearful."

The Rev Douglas Irving, a former lawyer who convened the Deliverance Group for the Kirk - and who has himself dealt with a poltergeist - said: "Jesus commissioned us to preach the Gospel, heal the sick, and also cast out demons. It is a part of healing, even if just a small part. I don't like the Hollywood image of the exorcist and don't even use the word 'exorcism'. I want to take the sensationalism out of the whole thing."

But secular scientists urge caution in seeing diabolical work in people's ailments.

Dr Andrew Gumley, an expert in psychosis at Glasgow University's department of psychological medicine, said: "This is a fascinating subject but I would urge people to be careful about seeing all these kinds of occurrences in terms of the supernatural and possession by the Devil. For example, hearing voices at some stage in one's life is relatively common, affecting up to 25% of the population and it can be a common feature in people recovering from extreme trauma."

Demon possession extreme example of battle for the soul

2006-04-23T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hillaire Kallendorf tells the Dallas Morning News:

I see demonic possession as merely an extreme example of the battle for the soul. That's not to say everyone's possessed; that would be absurd. But it's to say that exorcism gives us an opportunity to look up close at a very exaggerated form of what happens to everyone.

I have an article in which I look at deathbed scenes from art, and I read exorcism manuals that deal with the moment of death. This bleeds over into a different genre, the "art of dying." These authors are trying to write something to help people die well. At every single deathbed [scene], there is an angel at the head of the bed and a demon at the foot, and they are fighting over who'll get possession of that soul.

So I don't think that it's wrong to say that demonic possession is just an exaggerated version of what happens to everybody, in every life, with every moral choice.

There is a constant war going on between good and evil. That's what we can learn from it. It's relevant.

Have you ever seen an exorcism?

Not really. As a child, I did go to charismatic revival-type prayer meetings where there were strange things going on. I did have, in the past couple of weeks, a woman contact me to request an exorcism. She had been heavily involved with the occult. I walked her through the steps to salvation and referred her to a priest.

But really, I study the Renaissance, I study literature and art and representations of exorcism. I do believe there's something there, but there are a lot of fakes. In the Renaissance, there were lots of fakes.

People ask me all the time, "What do you believe?" In my dissertation, I had 80 historical cases of exorcism. We have no idea what really happened there. Reading the accounts, some of them you can be fairly certain were proved to be adolescent children who wanted attention, and the pamphlets printed about them were useful to charlatans who wanted to fake the symptoms of possession. But in some cases, it does seem like something was going on, but nobody can say what it was.

But that's what religion does: fills in the spaces between what we can understand and what we can't. Personally, I wouldn't want to believe in a God I could fully understand. Then he wouldn't be God.

Demonic ritual beating a possible in child's brutal death

2006-04-23T16:06:00.000-07:00

CADE - By all accounts, 3-year-old Kaloey Laigh Kittiraj's death was brutal. Deputies called to a home late Wednesday found her battered and bloodied at the hands of her father, Sengdao Kittiraj, 32.
He continued beating the girl as they watched. They ordered him to stop. They sent out a dog to attack him. Ultimately, they shot him to death. But it was all too late to save her life.

The toddler died from her injuries Thursday morning at Lafayette General Medical Center.

-snip-

Capt. Ginny Higgins, spokeswoman for the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office, said deputies shot and killed Sengdao Kittiraj after several failed attempts to stop him from beating Kaloey.

Higgins said Kittiraj refused to obey deputies' orders, and a K-9 unit did not deter him.

"Ultimately, an officer with our department was compelled to discharge his service weapon to protect the child, himself and other officers on the scene," she said in a news release.

-snip-

Kaloey died at 4:30 a.m. Thursday at Lafayette General Medical Center, Higgins said. Cedars said the girl died from a punctured lung after being impaled on some sort of instrument.

The beating might have been part of some bizarre sort of ritual for Kittiraj, he said.

"I wouldn't necessarily use the word religious, I think the word demonic might be a better description," Cedars said. "I've heard there might be some overtones of voodoo or something along those lines, but that's all heresay and preliminary."

Meanwhile, the deputy who fired the fatal shot has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation. Higgins said this is a common practice for the sheriff's office.

Once the investigation is complete, it will be forwarded to the district attorney's office and to the sheriff's office, which both will determine whether any additional actions are merited.

Cedars said that while everything still is in its most preliminary stages, he doesn't foresee any charges being filed against either deputy.

"My dealing with them reflects that they have always conducted themselves professionally," Cedars said. "They are well trained, experienced police officers.

"It's one thing to evaluate the conduct in the peace and tranquility of an office, however, they were confronted with a very ugly, brutal, rapidly evolving situation. I am certain that their judgment based on what I know of them, was more likely than not, appropriate."

Priest on trial for murder of nun

2006-04-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

We have to be wary of these satanic ritual abuse stories, remembering that innocent people have been found guilty of preposterous charges. Yet at the same time we must not go into denial that horrific abuse can and has taken place in other instances.

The trial of Reverend Gerald Robinson, a 68-year-old Roman Catholic priest, begins today in Toledo OH for the ritualistic murder of a nun, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, some 26 years ago. Jury selection starts today in a case that has galvanized the Catholic community of this Ohio metropolis for a quarter century. Rev. Robinson has pleaded not guilty and faces a possible life sentence if convicted. He has been on leave from the priesthood since 2004.

The investigation of the murder had been stymied since 1980, but a letter from an alleged victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Robinson came to light when the Toledo leader of Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Claudia Vercellotti, forwarded it to the Ohio Attorney General. The alleged abuse victim had tendered the letter to diocesan officials in Toledo in 2003, having requested reimbursement for psychological counseling. The woman claimed to have been the childhood victim of Robinson, and also victimized by other priests in satanic sex rituals. The unidentified woman fingered Robinson as one of several priests who sexually molested her and forced her to participate in obscene rituals. Another woman and her husband filed suit against the diocese in 2005, also alleging sexual abuse and satanic rituals.

See more in the post below.

Priest faces trial for murder of a nun

2006-04-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

TOLEDO, Ohio -- There are no little murders. But Gerald Robinson is about to go on trial in Toledo for one that is unusually large, judging by the interest.

He is a Roman Catholic priest. The victim, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, was a nun, and the slaying occurred more than 20 years ago, in the chapel of a hospital where they worked.

The crime is anchored to Easter Sunday -- the most sacred, defining day in Christendom. It occurred on Holy Saturday 1980, the day before Easter and what would have been the nun's 72nd birthday.

Robinson's murder trial begins Monday, the day after Easter 2006, when a Lucas County Common Pleas judge begins empaneling a jury under the glare of national -- and quite possibly international -- media attention.

And why wouldn't the media descend?

There are intimations of a ritual killing, satanic cults, organized sexual abuse and an institutional cover-up.

Someone strangled and stabbed Pahl at least 30 times -- the wounds defining an inverted cross. Some of her clothes were pulled off, suggesting a sexual assault.

-snip-

The evidence -- and the allegations about rituals -- surfaced only a few years ago, when one woman pressed complaints about her own sexual abuse onto a diocese that many think did not want to hear, believe or act on them.

She identified Robinson as one of her abusers, when she was a child, and her claims ran to satanic rituals that involved at least one other Toledo-area priest.

Note that word "ritual," because it is a refrain in this case, sounded by many voices.

Another Toledo woman and her husband filed suit last year against the Toledo diocese, alleging the same kind of abuse and satanic rites.

Catherine Hoolahan is a lawyer representing about two dozen people, half with lawsuits against the diocese and the rest pressing their claims through a mediation process.

Hoolahan had doubts about the satanic and ritual abuse until three people with no connection were saying roughly the same things. Two were her clients, and both linked Robinson to ritualized abuse.

The Rev. Jeffrey Grob is associate vicar for canonical services with the Chicago Archdiocese. He has been called as an expert witness in Robinson's trial and is expected to testify about the significance of ritual in the case.

Grob, contacted by telephone, would not disclose his knowledge of the case, except to say that "some kind of ritual took place." He said that in general, the possibility of satanic ritual is not far-fetched, even where priests are involved.

"A priest is just as susceptible as anyone else," Grob said. "In some ways more susceptible." There is the allure of power, and "if anyone believes in God, there is a firm presumption they also believe in the demonic."

Hispanic professor studied exorcism

2006-04-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

Hilaire Kallendorf is on a personal crusade to put the human back in the humanities by intertwining spirituality and academia.

The Hispanic studies professor at Texas A&M University researches religion in Spain and has tackled such topics as exorcism, demons, sins and morality in her research. Recognizing God and religion as an academic pursuit is important for the native West Texan, who grew up Catholic and considers religion her main inspiration.

-snip-
"Religion is often dismissed in academia," she said. "But there is a whole realm that can't be explained away by science. If we ignore that aspect of the human experience, we ignore what it means to be human."

Kallendorf, a 31-year-old graduate of A&M who received her master's and doctorate from Princeton, was awarded the $50,000 Hiett Prize in the Humanities for 2006 by the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.

-snip-

Kallendorf's work deals with religious experience, especially as belief relates to literature and culture. She is the author of the book Exorcism and Its Texts: Subjectivity in Early Modern Literature of England and Spain.

She was inspired to delve into the eerie world of exorcism by her father, Cliff Richey, a professional tennis star of the 1970s.

"My father was always talking about fighting his personal demons," she said. "I wanted to take a look at what that would mean in a different time and place."

Deal with the devil investigated in family murder

2006-04-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

ROME: Police are investigating whether the killing of four members of a family from southern Italy was carried out by a relative who believed he had done a deal with the devil.

The family members were buried on Friday. The chief suspect in the quadruple homicide is Claudio Tomaino, 28, the nephew of the slain family's father.

Nine bullets were fired in all, most to the victims' heads. The youngest victim was the 18-year-old daughter, Maria, who sang in the local church choir.

Police are investigating a Satanic oath which Tomaino was said to have written before the killings

"Tomaino wrote that he had a deal with Satan to sell him his soul if Satan assured him he would make him rich and make sure he wasn't sent to jail for killing his uncle Camillo and the rest of the family," Salvatore Curcio, lead prosecutor in the southern city of Catanzaro, told a news conference.

Curcio added forensic tests had proved the "contract" was signed by Tomaino in his own blood.

Pro-life advocate says his wife and daughter need exorcisms

2006-03-31T12:46:00.000-08:00

From the Fredericton Daily Gleaner:

An anti-abortion activist told a court Thursday he needs a delay in his tax trial due to family illness, claiming his wife and stepdaughter are possessed.

David Little, 60, is scheduled to go to trial May 23 on charges of failing to file income tax returns for the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.

He said he refuses to pay taxes because he contends tax money is used in part to fund abortion procedures. He argues that to force him to indirectly participate violates his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

He was in court Thursday, seeking to have his trial delayed because he has to focus his attention on ailing family members.

On March 1, Judge Leslie Jackson told Little to return to court with evidence of the nature of those illnesses and how long it would take for those personal matters to be resolved.

Little said Thursday his wife and stepdaughter are suffering from "demonic oppression" and need to undergo exorcism rituals in order to be healed.

Prosecutor Suhanya Edwards said Little's open-ended request for an adjournment is unreasonable.

She said there was no specific evidence as to how long he thought it would take for his family to get well.

Little said some exorcism rituals resolve the problem after only one session, but he's also aware of one exorcism that has been ongoing in Rome for 16 years.

"Lucifer was the most intelligent of all the angels," he said, and the Devil won't be "pigeonholed" into a timetable.

The battle between God and the Devil "is a war, a real vicious war," he said.

"I'm going to stay with (my wife) until she's well."

Little filed letters and documentation with the court from his wife and from a woman he said is familiar with exorcism rituals.

-snip-

During his submissions, Little said his wife has already undergone one exorcism ritual Monday and further sessions were expected.

He said two Christian but non-Catholic women performed the rituals in the area and have done so with success many times. He did not name them.

Little also said he'd been in touch with Bishop Faber MacDonald, bishop for the Diocese of Saint John, of which Fredericton is a part.

He said the bishop was performing "prayers of exorcism" on his family's behalf.

When contacted at his office Thursday afternoon, MacDonald said Little's representations that he's performing exorcism prayers is not entirely accurate.

"That's his interpretation," the bishop said.

He described what the Little family members are going through as something of "a deliverance" and "an awakening of the mystery of evil."

The bishop said they are wrestling with personal demons and trying to improve their lives through God.

"Spiritual crisis is a good expression," he said.

MacDonald said it is not a case of a separate, demonic entity inhabiting a person's body.

"It's a very personal matter," the bishop said.

20 Satanic groups identified in Italy

2006-03-31T08:39:00.000-08:00

Rome, Italy, Mar 30 - Satanists are known to meet in deconsecrated churches or woods, donning dark garments, wherein chanting exhortations to Satan and conducting esoteric drug and sex-based rituals, which include animal and even human sacrifices. Between 1998 and 2004 Italy witnessed a surge in violent Satanist murders, the last of which involved the so-called "Beasts if Satan". Experts describe the phenomenon as a cultural residue of medieval credence, opposed to modern culture, but the phenomenon has presently extended all walks of life and all ages. The Interior Ministry's 1998 report on "Satanic Sects and New Religious Movements" identified some 20 Satanic groups accounting for 300 odd members. That figure is probably a large underestimate of today's situation, especially in the face of mass culture and new communications tools: through rock music, films, cinema, literature, TV and internet, Satanism has breached into youth culture.

CNN report on Bob Larsen and demonic deliverance

2006-03-28T07:09:00.000-08:00

On Anderson Cooper's 360 last night, CNN played a short documentary about Bob Larsen and his work as an exorcist.

When Sherri roared like a bull, rolled her eyes into her skull, and lunged against the three men who were holding her, Bob Larson says he saw the devil. He should know. Larson is one of the leading practitioners of modern, Christian exorcisms, and here I was in a hotel conference room in Tulsa, Oklahoma, right across from Oral Roberts University, watching him wrestle with demons.

Larson performs his exorcisms in rooms full of people -- sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands. One religious scholar says 600 Protestant churches have established what they call Redemption Ministries in recent years, which feature exorcisms or something like them.

At the heart of all this is a basic belief that demons are real and move among us, inhabiting people's bodies and driving them to all manner of bad behavior.

On this night, as Larson stood with his Bible in hand and called out demons, a half-dozen people howled, cried, and bellowed in strange voices, while he ordered their possessors back into the pit of hell.

I am naturally skeptical of things that cannot be proven, so I had to ask: Is all this just a show?

Larson and the folks he confronted say absolutely not. Larson freely admits he has been called a charlatan, a flimflam man, and a snake-oil salesman. But he clearly has legions of followers -- people who believe exorcism can help them in the eternal battle between heaven and hell. Sherri says she feels a great weight was lifted from her through the experience.

So what do you think: Are modern exorcisms a legitimate religious practice or spiritual vaudeville?

The comments are pretty interesting.

Last nights piece was pretty straight--mentions the money angle, but then points out that Larsen uses it to train up other exorcists. I'm a little uncomfortable with the word "exorcist" which has a more Catholic connotation and involves a specific rite. I prefer the word "deliverance" for Protestant circles, but these days the word exorcist is being more broadly used.

Anyway, you can take a look at the video here. Has a couple of pretty graphic depictions of deliverances in progress.

Interesting.

Earlier I posted a link to a story that Bob Larsen had met with Rome's chief exorcist.

Minister's brother on trial for suffocating child during exorcism

2006-03-28T07:01:00.000-08:00

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (Court TV
) -- The brother of a minister on trial for suffocating an autistic child during an exorcism told jurors Thursday that it was God who "took" the child, not the defendant's intense ritual.

"I'm the pastor and God has ordained my brother to be an evangelist, he has the gift to cast out devils," David Hemphill testified.

Ray Hemphill, 47, who prayed and sang over 8-year-old Terrance Cottrell's chest as parishioners held him down on August 22, 2003, stands trial for felony physical child abuse. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.

On Thursday, the defense called David Hemphill, known as Bishop Hemphill to his flock. He is the pastor of the independent Faith Temple of the Apostolic Faith Church, which he founded in 1977. He also ordained his brother into the church.

A medical examiner ruled Terrance's death a homicide by asphyxiation, due to intense pressure on his chest.

Terrance, who was diagnosed with autism at age 2, hated to be touched and was often unable to express his needs, according to previous testimony. Terrance died after receiving the 12th in a series of prayer services from Ray Hemphill.

The boy's mother, Patricia Cooper, and two other female parishioners told investigators that they made the child lay on his back on the floor of the strip-mall based church. They then helped to restrain him while the defendant laid perpendicular across Terrance's chest for almost two hours, praying and whispering aspersions at the devil into the boy's ear.

David Hemphill, 63, was not in attendance that evening, but he told jurors he gave his brother permission to perform the exorcisms as an attempt to save the boy from what they believed was demonic possession.

"I've seen God heal some people, and then I've seen God didn't heal some. So all we're asked to do is to believe in the word of God," David Hemphill testified during direct examination by Hemphill's attorney, Thomas Harris.

Hemphill told jurors it was his church's belief that God sent Jesus to heal those who are sick, and in turn, several members of his church, have been given the "gift" of healing hands.

"Is there any sickness or disease that's too hard for God or believers [to heal]?" Harris asked.

"No, there's nothing too hard for God, and nothing too hard for his believers," Hemphill testified, adding that they only pray for sick people who ask to be healed.

In Terrance's case, his mother told investigators she joined the church several months before her son's death in the hope that appealing to a higher power would help him, as medication alone did not seem to be working.

Terrance had been taking the antipsychotic drug ziprasidone, also known as Geodon, at a dosage of 200 milligrams per day. The defense has asserted that it was the medication, not Hemphill's actions, that killed the boy.

Occult symbols and their meaning

2006-03-26T11:44:00.000-08:00

From Stanley Monteith's Radio Liberty site:

Occult symbols are fast replacing Christian symbols in our culture. Therefore, we encourage you to use this list to warn others, especially Christian children who intentionally wear and display them because they are popular.

Keep in mind that some of these symbols have double meanings. For example, the pentagram has been used to transmit occult power in all kinds of rituals for centuries, but to Christians the same shape may simply represent a star -- a special part of God's creation. The image of a fish may mean a sign of the zodiac (astrology) to some, but to Christians it has meant following Jesus and sharing the message of His love. We will continue to delight in the cross, while recognizing that others use the same image to represent their dark forces.

Please don't pass judgment on those who happen to wear these symbols. Instead, let us seek God’s will and discernment so that we might all honor Him with our lives. Remember, "each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block. . . in our brother's way." (Romans 14:12-13)

He has quite an array of symbols and their spiritual meanings at the above link.

Pornography and horror imbedded in art?

2006-03-26T10:53:00.000-08:00

I've been getting a number of visitors to this site over the past few days who have Googled Rape of the Soul, or imbedded images in Catholic art.

World Net Daily has picked up the story.

Five experts speak on the different aspects of the artwork, including Michael A. Calace, an Italian director, actor, writer and producer who is also a devout Roman Catholic.

Calace embarked on a mission of "Merging Media with Morality" to create family-oriented films of true life drama for Silver Sword International, his production company. While doing so, he uncovered a series of religious scandals. Calace puts to use his experiences of more than 20 years of expertise to discover a huge amount of offensive images of carefully embedded sexual and occult horror. He explains the techniques used to embed the images, and he presents discoveries from his investigations.

"The deeper I dug, the more I discovered, not just in regard to contemporary art, but works dating back more than 500 years, from some well-known and respected artists. Sex and horror is the fuel that promotes the scandalous behavior in the Church. This is the answer why, and Church leaders don't have to look very far, because the problem is coming from within the Church itself," said Calace of his research.

I haven't seen the documentary. I wonder though, whether the images have caused the problem, or whether deviant attitudes, attractions to lust and horror already present in various individuals, have perhaps put them there, as a sign of their dissent.

Satan's greatest success? Convincing people he does not exist says chief exorcists

2006-03-22T13:29:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from an interview in Spero News with Rome's Chief Exorcist Gabriele Amorth. (this is a re-publication of a 2001 interview)

You are locked in daily battle with the Devil. What do you see as Satan’s greatest success?

AMORTH: The fact that he has managed to convince people that he does not exist. He has almost managed it, even within the Church. We have a clergy and an Episcopate who no longer believe in the Devil, in exorcism, in the exceptional evil the Devil can instill, or even in the power that Jesus bestowed to cast out demons. For three centuries the Latin Church – in contrast to the Orthodox Church and the various Protestant professions – has almost totally abandoned the ministry of exorcism. So because they no longer perform exorcisms, or study them, and never having seen them, the clergy no longer believe in them. And they no longer believe in the Devil. We have entire Episcopates trying to counter exorcism. We have countries completely devoid of exorcists, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. This is a shameful shortfall.

and

But is a person’s faith still intact, which is to say, is a person’s faith still Catholic even if he or she does not believe that the Devil exists?

AMORTH: No. Let me tell you a story. The first time I met Father Pellegrino Ernetti, a famous exorcist who served for 40 years in Venice, I said to him: ‘If I could meet the Pope, I would tell him that I encounter too many bishops who do not believe in the Devil’. The next afternoon, Father Ernetti came back to me to tell me that, that morning, he had been received by John Paul II. ‘Your Holiness’, he said, ‘there is an exorcist here in Rome, Father Amorth, who would tell you if he met you that he knows too many bishops who do not believe in the Devil’. The Pope replied bluntly: ‘Anyone who does not believe in the Devil does not believe in the Gospel’. That was what the Pope said and I say it again.

Again, are you saying that many bishops and priests are not, consequently, Catholic?

AMORTH: Let us just say that they do not believe a Gospel truth. So, if anything, I would stop them propagating a heresy. But, to be clear about this, a person is officially a heretic if he or she is accused of something and persists in the error. No one today, given the situation in the Church, is accusing a bishop of not believing in the Devil, or in demonic possession or of failing to appoint exorcists because he does not believe. And yet I could give you the names of so many bishops and cardinals who, on their appointment to a diocese, stripped exorcists of their faculty to perform the rite. Or there are bishops who openly say they don’t believe, that these are things of the past. Why is that? Unfortunately, we have had the insidious influence of certain biblists and I could mention some illustrious names. We who are in daily physical contact with the ‘other world’ know that this influence is evident in numerous liturgical reforms.

For example?

AMORTH: The Second Vatican Council asked that some texts be revised. Disobeying this command, they set about re-writing them completely with no thought for the danger of making things worse instead of better. So many rites came off badly from this mania to throw out the old and start from scratch, as if the Church to date had always conned us and as if only now the time had at last come of the great geniuses, the supertheologians, the super-biblists and the super-liturgists who know what the right thing is for the Church. This is a lie: the last Council simply asked that the texts be revised, not destroyed. The Rite of Exorcism, for example, should have been corrected, not re-written. It contained prayers born of 12 centuries of experience. Before cancelling prayers which are so old and which proved for centuries to be so effective, we should think long and hard. But they did not. All of us exorcists in trying out the prayers of the new ad interim Rite have proved that they are totally ineffective. But then again, the Rite of Baptism of children came off worse, too. It was totally re-worked so that exorcism against Satan has been all but eliminated. Yet, this always had such great importance for the Church that it was called the exorcism minor. Paul VI also publicly protested against this new Rite. The new Rite of Benediction is not as good now. I read every line of it, all of its 1,200 pages and every reference has been removed to the fact that the Lord must protect us from Satan and the angels must protect us from attack by the Devil. They removed all the prayers for the benediction of homes and schools. Everything used to be blessed and protected but, today, we have no further protection from the Devil. We no longer have any defences or even prayers against him. Jesus himself taught us a prayer of deliverance in the Our Father: ‘Deliver us from the Evil One’, ‘Deliver us from Satan’. This has been erroneously translated so that we pray: ‘Deliver us from evil’. The inference is generic evil whose origin we know nothing about. Yet, the evil we were taught how to fight by Our Lord Jesus Christ is a real person – Satan.

and

AMORTH: When Cardinal Poletti asked me to become an exorcist I prayed to Our Lady: ‘Wrap me in your mantel and I will be safe’. I have had numerous threats from the Devil but he has never done me any harm.

Are you ever afraid of the Devil?

AMORTH: Afraid of that beast? He’s the one who should be afraid of me because I work in the name of the Lord of the world. He is only an ape of God.

Satanism is spreading more and more. The new Rite makes it difficult to perform an exorcism. Exorcists are prohibited from participating in a Papal Audience in Saint Peter’s Square. What exactly is happening here?

AMORTH: The smoke of Satan gets in everywhere, everywhere. Perhaps we were kept out of the Papal audience because they were afraid that all those exorcists might have cast out the legions of demons that have installed themselves in the Vatican.

You’re joking, aren’t you?

AMORTH: It might sound like it but I don’t think it is a joke. I have no doubt whatever that the Devil is tempting the upper levels of the Church, above all, just as he tempts every upper level – political and industrial.

Are you saying that here, too, as in every war, Satan’s aim is to capture the enemy leaders?

AMORTH: That’s the best strategy. It has always been so and especially when the defences of the enemy are down. Satan tries to apply this, too. But thank heaven the Church is upheld by the Holy Spirit: ‘The gates of hell will not stand’; this, despite the defections and despite the betrayals which should come as no surprise to us. The first traitor was one of the apostles closest to Jesus – Judas Iscariot. In spite of it all, the Church presses along its path. It is upheld by the Holy Spirit and so all of the battles Satan wages can only bring partial results. The Devil may, of course, win the battles, even important battles, but he will never win the war.

Pornographic and satanic images imbedded in art?

2006-03-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

This sounds interesting. Not sure what to make of it though until I read more about it.

NEW YORK, March 17 /PRNewswire/ -- While movie-going audiences nationwide
will be waiting for the May, 2006 release of the highly anticipated film, "The
DaVinci Code," a new feature-documentary, that opens tomorrow in New York, Los
Angeles, and other select cities, gives audiences the real explanation of
embedded images in art. "Rape of the Soul" documents and extracts
pornographic and satanic images embedded in religious art, and presents
shocking evidence that a major contributing factor to the rising incidence of
priestly abuse can be attributed to prolonged exposure to the strategically-
placed images found in the everyday religious art that surrounds them.
"Rape of the Soul" (http://www.rapeofthesoul.com) is a comprehensive look at the
widespread use of embedded sexual, satanic, occult and anti-Catholic images in
historical and contemporary religious artwork, and its inexplicable acceptance
at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
Child psychology author, lecturer and expert on the harmful effects of
pornography, and president of The Institute for Media Education, Judith
Reisman said, "These images, unrecognized by the untrained eye, can be a
ticking time-bomb to an individual who is unaware of their presence."
Reisman, who supports the revelations about the religious art embeds
continues, "Sexually explicit and graphic images are taken in by the
subconscious mind, to the point where the person, most-often against their
will, will act upon them without even knowing why they did it." She adds,
"This film reveals the lewd and demonic images that priests have been exposed
to on a daily basis in their surroundings. I have no doubt in my mind this is
a strong contributing factor to the proliferation of sexual abuse amongst
Catholic priests."
"Artists from DaVinci to Botticelli have embedded subliminal images into
their art for centuries," said producer/director of "Rape of the Soul,"
Michael A. Calace. "In this case were found penises on crucifixes, occult
symbols, swastikas, demonic faces and in modern works even the word 'sex'
embedded into the images. The works in question include modern artist's work
currently on the covers of hymnals that at this very moment sit in the pews of
churches throughout the U.S. and on children's religious teaching aids.

International child porn bust results in charges against 27 people

2006-03-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

Authorities have charged 27 people in Canada, the United States, Australia and Britain in connection with child-porn chat rooms, which allegedly included live streaming video of adults sexually molesting children.

-snip-

Nine of the accused are from Canada, 13 from the United States, three from Australia and two from Britain.

Authorities allege that some users of the chat rooms made pornographic images of children and then circulated those images, including live shows, to members through the internet.

One suspect produced live streaming video of himself sexually molesting an infant, [U.S. Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales alleged.

"The behaviour in these chat rooms ... are the worst imaginable forms of child pornography," he said.

-snip-

The case began in May 2005 with an arrest in Edmonton. A 49-year-old man was charged with distributing child porn after police raided his home Jan. 26 while he was at his computer.

It's about time!

2006-03-16T06:45:00.000-08:00

Net and finance firms are joining up to stamp out commercial child pornography.

The newly formed Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography brings together 18 organisations including Bank of America, American Express, Mastercard, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft.

The group will share information about websites that sell child porn and stop payments passing to them.

The group aims to make it impossible to profit from selling child porn within two years.

Tourette's syndrome confused with demonic possession

2006-03-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

Davidson, 34, has an extreme form of Tourette syndrome, a neurological condition characterised by involuntary, repetitive movements and vocal outbursts. It leads him to swear and shout offensive comments. His life story sounds like a throwback to the Middle Ages. There was an attempted exorcism by religious fanatics dressed in white and carrying crucifixes. He has been attacked with bricks and crowbars. As a teenager, his doctor prescribed Valium injections every three hours, which turned him into a virtual zombie. Teachers took to shutting him in cupboards. Even now, he is regularly ejected from buses and trains.

Demonic manifestations in Massachusetts

2006-03-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

A wise and bracing homily by Fr. Robert J. Carr that lists some of the ways a person can open him or herself to demonic influence.

Sometime ago, I was talking to a man who had undergone a form of healing from the Linn Brothers. You may remember they were two Jesuits who engaged in healing ministry in the 1970’s and 1980’s. They are still around. Now, I am only relating the story. He said that the Linns did some kind of deliverance ministry and several demons were cast out of him. Deliverance is a form of ministry that is not as strong as exorcism. However, to be honest the most potent form of any form of such ministry even more potent than deliverance is in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist.

One of the Linns asked the man how the demons got into him in the first place.

WHERE DID WE OPEN TO THE DEMONIC?

Let me ask you the same question. How did we come to a point in our existence where God’s creation was so terribly distorted? What doors did we leave open. Where was our understanding of faith lackadaisical? Where did we take our salvation for granted?

-Maybe it was thirty years ago when a group of Catholics used the rosary to mock the Church and her Cardinal during busing protests in Boston.

-Maybe it was due to the activity in the capital city of the occult just up the road from here, where witchcraft is only the beginning. One of the most spiritually dangerous products used to be manufactured there: a board where children hold séances in dark rooms for fun. The Author of An Exorcist Tells His Story says that is not a door to the demonic, that is a direct connection, no door involved to the demonic.

-Maybe it is because we are considered "The Capital City of Education" and our universities rejected the wisdom of God and embraced the darkened reasoning of the world. One of those universities has as its slogan Veritas, the latin word for truth. There are those in that university that not only reject The Truth they actually teach that only the stupid believe in God.

-Maybe it was because a community organizer at that university used a text book that praises the Devil (Rules for Radical by Saul Alinsky) and the people gave themselves over to a process rooted in the demonic.

-Maybe it is because of priests who preached paganism and embraced homosexuality who to this day are embraced by those in government, universities and media as examples of true Catholicism. Others were caught up in their own mess after destroying the lives of many.

-Maybe it was because people took the facts from a tragic crisis and twisted them around so that they could run out the spiritual descendent of the Apostles, an act by the way that comes with a curse.

-Maybe it is for many reasons. The fact is that it is here and we are surrounded by it.

Yet, as St. John’s Gospel tells us the darkness cannot overcome the Light.