The first official English-language translation of the ritual book Exorcisms and Related Supplications is now available from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Distribution of the text is limited to bishops. Exorcists, other clergy and scholars can only obtain a copy with a bishop’s permission. However, a separate booklet, Prayers Against the Powers of Darkness, is being sold by the bishops for general use and is made up of prayers from the main book’s appendix.
Fr Andrew Menke, executive director of the US bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship, said having the ritual available in English “should make it easier for a bishop to find a priest who can help him with this ministry”.
“Given that there’s less facility in Latin than there used to be, even among priests, it opens the door to more priests to do this. Until now, not only did the priest have to be wise and holy, but he also had to have strong facility in Latin,” he said.
“It makes it easier for a priest who might otherwise be a good exorcist but who would be intimidated by a requirement to use a Latin text. Having it available in the vernacular means he can concentrate on prayer and on the ritual, without needing to worry about working in another language,” he added. The translation is from the Latin rite revised after Vatican II. It was promulgated in Latin in 1999 and amended in 2004.
The revised text draws on rituals used for centuries.
The US bishops approved the English translation in 2014. The Vatican gave its approval earlier this year.
Priest ‘sensed evil’ in room used by Las Vegas shooter
A priest asked to bless a hotel room used by the Las Vegas shooter has said he felt the presence of evil there.
Fr Clete Kiley, who had visited the Mandalay Hotel to comfort its traumatised staff, was asked by its manager to bless the room that Stephen Paddock stayed in. Fifty-eight people were shot dead and 546 injured after Paddock fired through a hotel window.
Fr Clete told Newsweek that as he approached the room he said a prayer to St Michael, the Archangel, which begins: “Defend us in battle. Be our defence against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.” When he opened the door, he said, he felt something indescribable.
“I felt like I was being pushed back, like ‘Don’t come in here,’ ” he said. “On the inside, I’m going, ‘Oh no, you have to go.’ ”
Fr Kiley, a priest from Chicago who was visiting Las Vegas as part of his work for Unite, the hospitality workers’ union, said the blessing was comforting to staff.
“You could see people go, ‘Thank God, that’s good,’ ” he said. “I really saw the whole thing as part of a healing process. A small part of a healing process.”
Dictator: Pope healed my hand
Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has suggested that a prayer from Pope Francis helped to heal his fractured hand. Mr Museveni, an Evangelical who has ruled Uganda since 1986, told Catholics at the Uganda Martyrs Shrine that he met Francis at a UN general assembly after he had injured his hand. “He prayed for me and it got healed,” he said. The Pope, he added, was a “good friend”.
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