Vatican University Debuts Satanism Classes

[davidinalameda]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/02/17/international/i013537S99.DTL

In a classroom ringed by Rome's pine-covered hills, 100 priests solemnly stood in prayer, made the sign of the cross and got down to business: a lesson on Satanism, demonic possession and exorcism.


Worried about ritual killings in Italy and simple adolescent angst, a Vatican-recognized university launched the course Thursday to help priests and seminarians understand what makes people turn to the occult. The class is billed as the first of its kind, with wide-ranging instruction by exorcists, psychologists and a police criminologist.


The Pontifical Academy "Regina Apostolorum" wants to clear up misconceptions _ especially about exorcisms, a practice most priests do not carry out.

[Bellamia]

1. Instructions by exorcists?????????

O, for heaven's sake (no pun intended) nobody believes in that stuff, do they?

[imenja]

2. the Church still does exorcisms

in very rare circumstances, after seeing that a serious of medical and psychological tests are conducted that could explain the person's problem. The Church keeps the whole thing very quiet, but I attended a Catholic instruction group where the priest showed a 20/20 piece on exorcism to us. It was fascinating.

[immoderate]

3. The Pope performed an exorcism about five years ago.

Heard about it on TV. Was not successful at removing the demon though.

--IMM

[trotsky]

4. Well, duh.

Everyone knows you need to have a pig handy to cast the demon into, so you can then make the pig run off a cliff.

Don't these people read the bible???