An exorcist speaks up

Here is an excerpt from the interview conducted with Fr. Gary Thomas, the exorcist whose real life story became the inspiration for the movie "The Rite."  You can read the full interview here.

Velazquez is the interviewer.

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Velasquez: Do you have any stories to tell of exorcisms?

Fr Gary: There was a situation in Rome once with a young woman who walked in speaking Italian to me, my exorcist trainer walked in and blessed her with holy water and she literally began screaming and picked up the chair, and was going to throw it at him. [If psychiatrists and Freedumbers were around they'll conclude otherwise. ]  Now, they’re not all like that. There’s the man I pray over and have been exorcising for two years, there’s huge manifestations, he’s improved dramatically, but, nonetheless, he opened himself up for a bunch of reasons. I can’t detail them on the phone, it would take too long.

Velasquez: In general, what do you recommend people avoid if they don’t want to become involved with demonic activity?  [now this is what every Catholic should read!]

Fr Gary: I think they should just stay away from everything that is pagan in the sense of ritual, so I recommend that people should stay away from dabbling in the occult; from dabbling in things that are idolatrous, from getting involved in things that are simply about self, and I don’t mean by that going to a club and doing physical exercise. Where people are into Wicca, earth worship of other kinds, witchcraft and spells, crystals, using metaphysical means to try and find answers to questions. [Exactly what Fr. Jojo Zerrudo, exorcist of the Diocese of Cubao said.]

Velasquez: So stay away from New Age practices?

Fr Gary: Yes, those are all the New Age practices. [teeth gnashing and nail scratching sounds coming from Euntes and SVT.  Woohoo!]

Velasquez: Do you think there’s a greater need now in the Church than in previous times?

Fr Gary: I do, because there’s more Catholics involved in more paganism and idolatry.  [isn't this a bit of a shock for you folks?  For me, yes and no.  Yes because Catholics should not be involved in paganistic rituals like Wiccan, Feng-shui and all that geomancy mumbo jumbo.  No, because it all came from nuns and priests who are into New Age thingies!]

Velasquez: Fr Gabriel Amorth agrees with you, according to his books. Why do you think that there’s not enough of this ministry?

Fr Gary: I think for a long time we just relied so much on the social sciences, Psychiatry and Psychology as sort of a new religion to figure out the mysteries of human behavior. [The new gods of so-called aggiornamento Catholics.  It is heavily taught in seminaries and formation houses.  So what do we expect?  New warlocks and witches!]  I think we felt we could just depend on science, and I certainly am a proponent of using Psychiatry and Psychology, but in the same breath, I think that there’s a limit to science and there’s the realm of the spiritual we know far less about. And because of our scientific mind and orientation as a Western society, I think we put these other kinds of things we can’t figure out on the shelf.  [And anything supernatural goes out of the window.]

Velasquez: So its our prejudice against a spiritual explanation for things?
Fr Gary: I think so.

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The video below is a special coverage of CNN about "The Rite" and about Fr. Gary Thomas.