The new Pope believes in demon possession. This is a problem. [View all]

[phantom power]

I touched on this briefly in a Slate post, but I want to dig in and talk about it some more. Anthony Faiola has an alarming piece up at the Washington Post about how the small but devout exorcist community within the Catholic church is getting a huge boost from Pope Francis. The claim that demons possess people and need to be exorcised hasn’t ever really been renounced by any popes that I know of, but it’s such embarrassingly obvious bullshit that recent decades have seen exorcists getting marginalized. (Arguably, they could have been wiped out completely if not for the book and movie The Exorcist, which painted exorcists like child-saving heroes instead of the dangerously delusional idiots they are.) Pope Francis is apparently reversing that trend and instead blowing kisses at the nutters who think demon possession is a thing that happens and that exorcism is a way to deal with it.

...

I want to be very, very clear—because this always comes up when I write about stuff like this—that I am not interested in the theological debates over this. (The classic breakdown about why debating theology is dumb.) Yes, technically the argument that demons possess people and need to be exorcised is no more or less ridiculous, based on evidence, than the more abstract theory that Satan sits underground and sends temptation vibes aboveground. But on the political, real world front, there are substantial differences between the two ideas. One kind of bullshit definitely does more damage than the other kind of bullshit. It’s one thing to pray for deliverance from Satan tempting you to cheat on your spouse or whatever. But pretty much all people subject to exorcisms are either mentally ill people who need actual help or people whose personal choices offend their families and who are being subject to an exorcism in order to punish and control them. Either way, the potential for damage is really high.

Indeed, just generally it’s irresponsible to push the narrative that demons are a thing that exist in the world. Take this story from Brazil, where a woman was accused of witchcraft on a local new outlet’s Facebook page, and the result is that some people took it upon themselves to beat her to death. Not that Americans should feel superior on this, as any perusal of the miserable history of Satanic panic in the 80s and 90s should demonstrate. The pope should be ashamed of himself for encouraging this nonsense.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/13/the-new-pope-believes-in-demon-possession-this-is-a-problem/