Excerpted from: Exorcisms Surge in Concert with Social Decomposition By Bill Donohue | November 21, 2018 | CNSNEWS.COM
The Christmas season has just begun, and so has the need for spiritual peace. By any measure, the number of troubled Americans, saddled with personal problems, is staggering. Some are so desperate as to seek ways to purge themselves of demons.
Take the case of Gary Dale Mort. This Muncie, Indiana man recently kicked his wife out of their house and set it on fire. He was shot by police after he flashed what turned out to be a pellet gun; he was not seriously injured. Last year, he slammed his car into a store. When questioned, he said the crash was intentional, an act he attributed to his being possessed by a demon. He had sought, unsuccessfully, to get a priest to perform an exorcism.
Is he possessed? Would an exorcism work? No one knows. Most of those who believe they are possessed are not; they suffer from a host of clinically diagnosed maladies. But not everyone can be helped by conventional psychiatric treatments. Some are indeed possessed and clearly benefit from an exorcism.
Mike Mariani has written a splendid article on exorcisms in the December edition of The Atlantic. Well researched and composed, he points to survey data that indicate that roughly half of Americans believe in demonic possession, and an even higher number believe in the devil.
In fact, Gallup polls show that in 1990, 55 percent said they believed in the devil; the figure jumped to 70 percent in 2007. More recently, an article in England’s Catholic Herald noted that belief in God was declining in the West but belief in the devil remained strong. Continue reading at CNSnews.com
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