Posted on 10/31/2009 6:04:49 AM PDT by GonzoII
Oct 30th 2009
An Interview with Father Gary Thomas
by Paul Ciarcia
The day before I spoke with Father Gary Thomas was probably a typical weekday for most priests. For Father Thomas it was a typical weekday as well, except it involved a two hour-long, emotionally and physically draining battle with a horde of demons seeking to claim another person’s soul.
“(The demons) operate in packs,” said Father Thomas. “The more powerful ones are over the less powerful ones.”
“These demons have put up big fights,” Father Thomas said, recollecting the episode. “I think now we are into the more powerful demons. The last few sessions have been very tough.”
Father Thomas is pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Saratoga, Calif. His ministry as a priest has taken him on a path few fully understand and fewer dare to follow. It began with a journey to Rome for training in one of the most mysterious rites in Roman Catholicism: exorcism.
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Father Thomas was blessed with a strong Catholic upbringing. Entering the seminary in 1979 at age 25, he is a native San Franciscan just marking his 25th year in the priesthood.
How can a seemingly mild mannered priest contend with the devil himself? And what does it take to become an exorcist?
Obviously, exorcism is not for the faint of heart, which Father Thomas definitely is not: he is also a licensed embalmer, with experience working in the funeral business before he became a priest. Learning to stare death in the eye would be only a prologue to his duties as an exorcist, where he could be called upon to come face to face with a demonic presence. Performing the rite of exorcism requires a steely constitution, faith in Christ and a commitment to healing – virtues that go hand in hand with the true mission of the priesthood.
But it also requires something more: fearlessness.
“You can’t be afraid of Satan,” said Father Thomas.
“That doesn’t mean you are cocky and don’t give due respect to the demonic, but you cannot be afraid of Satan,” he explained. “You have to have faith. You have to believe in the reality of Satan.”
He also stressed that the exorcist must be able to hold his ground when the unsettling manifestations of possession appear in the individual, the movements and physical signs of diabolical presence.
These manifestations can run the gamut. As he noted, no exorcism is the same as another.
“People could appear to have a fit or seizure, rolling their eyes, drooling or taking on a snake-like or reptilian appearance. You cannot be afraid of that,” Father Thomas warned. “Or you won’t be effective.”
His bishop appointed Father Thomas to become the official exorcist of the Diocese of San Jose in 2005 after another priest opted out of the assignment.
Learning the art of the exorcist did not come easy. Father Thomas took courses on exorcism in Rome, a story chronicled in the recently released book “The Rite: The Making of A Modern Exorcist,” by journalist Matt Baglio, who attended Father Thomas’ exorcism classes.
While in Rome, Father Thomas felt he needed more hands-on experience to master the method of performing exorcisms. He became the understudy of a Roman exorcist, Father Carmine De Filippis, provincial for the Capuchin Order in Rome.
For three days a week, three hours at a time, for three and half months, Father Thomas plied away at his craft, learning to wage spiritual warfare from a seasoned Roman hand.
Father Thomas is aware of the need to protect himself and always remain on guard during the often intense exorcism sessions.
“You can get attacked. Demons attack you at your weakest places,” he said, adding that before each exorcism he prays a prayer for protection. In addition, Father Thomas usually fasts lightly before each exorcism and spends time before the Blessed Sacrament.
Over the past five years, Father Thomas has performed the rite of exorcism over five people, and he continues to work on two of those cases. He said his most recent case has been particularly difficult, having lasted over a year – and that in long term cases like this, some demons are intent on not leaving.
Fortunately, his latest subject is not under full possession – a very rare condition, Father Thomas noted, when the demon has full, physical control over the body of the afflicted individual.
“It has been incredibly exhausting,” he said, adding that the difficulty of the exorcism “depends on the power of the demon,” with demons higher in the hierarchy being the most difficult to remove. Overall, it is an ordeal to maintain one’s presence during the exorcism and pray with meaning.
An exorcism unfolds as follows:
The priest will say a prayer of protection, then one of authority. The solemn rite itself begins with the Litany of Saints. That is followed by the Lord’s Prayer, a Scripture reading and words of reflection.
The priest also says a prayer asking for forgiveness of his own sins. Then he will command the demons to announce who they are, and specific prayers of exorcism are said. Father Thomas concludes the rite with a general prayer of thanksgiving.
Priests do not receive a report of possession and rush to the scene to perform an exorcism straight away. Exorcism is a deliberative, rigorous and scientific process, whereby the priest, in conjunction with a team of experts, must first determine that the cause of affliction is not psychological.
“You are trying to pinpoint whether the core reason is supernatural or psychological,” Father Thomas said. His own team includes a physician, a clinician and a psychiatrist, all practicing Catholics, and “all who believe in the possibility of Satan’s existence.”
“When someone comes to me and says, ‘I need an exorcism,’ my answer is, ‘We are yet to determine that,’” Father Thomas said. “The last thing an exorcist does is an exorcism – with good reason. If you do them haphazardly you can harm the person emotionally or psychologically.”
He estimated that at least 75 percent of the time, the root cause of the person’s affliction is psychological, and that medical care is the proper solution.
Most people are not at risk of satanic possession, Father Thomas added, and possessions are usually not random occurrences. Somewhere along the line, the demonic element has been invited in to a person’s life either directly or through a third party.
Involvement with the occult, “a doorway to the satanic,” might lead to an encounter with a demon, Father Thomas said. Another instance might occur if parents engaged in satanic worship, and their child “grows up and starts showing signs.”
“So through no fault of their own, they have been exposed to things of the satanic nature,” he said.
Father Thomas does not mince words when it come to the reality of evil and what he sees as a growing reticence within the Church to realize or accept that Satan exists.
“There are priests and bishops who don’t believe that,” he said. “They think it is a superstitious, outdated modality that no longer exists, which is quite honestly a denial of the inspiration of the scriptures and the teachings of the church.”
Father Thomas expressed frustration over those in denial or ignorant of Satan’s presence.
“I have a lot of Catholics who say to me, ‘Oh, you still do that,’ as if we went through the Satanic era and it’s over now,” he said. “Satan is present both in and out of season. Always has, always will be until the end of time.”
“Why did Christ come? He came to defeat Satan,” Father Thomas said. “He did not only come to say, ‘By the way, I love you,’ he came to defeat Satan. That was the expression of his love for us.”
Father Thomas believes the need for exorcism in the modern era is as great as ever and that there’s a relationship between the chaos of the world and “Satan’s prominence in the everyday life of people.”
Father Thomas shared statistics he learned during his formal training in Rome: Twenty-five percent of Italy’s population practices some form of the occult, and only three percent of Italians in the Catholic country go to church on a regular basis.
“It isn’t a matter of people saying, ‘I want to be a pagan,’ Father Thomas explained, “but when people put everything ahead of God and have obsessions about those certain things – about pleasures or work, it’s idolatry.”
He said that Satan’s influence can be found not only in the occult but in the mundane.
“When parents go off for entire weekends and do nothing but soccer tournaments and forsake the Eucharist, that is idolatry,” he said. “The seduction is that they don’t know.”
“When I bring these things up with parishioners, they sometimes get offended as if, ‘how dare I,’ Father Thomas said. “People have allowed their lives to be overtaken by the frenzy of activity, searching for things that will bring them the sorts of meaning to sustain them, but meanwhile, none of this stuff does.”
Is there hope?
“The occult is all about power – whether it is the power or knowledge that gives people what they want in this life rather than the next life,” he explained. “People can’t continue the life they have been living if they wish to be delivered. They have to develop a prayer life. They have to start receiving the sacraments of the Church.”
With the recent publication of Baglio’s “The Rite,” renewed attention has been gained for exorcism. Father Thomas hopes the book will help inform people about the reality of evil and shed some of the mystery surrounding the rite of exorcism, in which Father Thomas finds great meaning despite the hardships.
“It’s a ministry of healing,” he said. “It really is. It is bringing consolation to people.”
We better call it quits for today.
Quit? So, are you now saying that "demons" do cause diseases? Something's gotta give here...
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