Good Young Exorcists Are Hard To Find, Leading Priest Says

The Catholic Church is having a hell of a time finding young exorcists, says a leading practitioner.

“I told the bishop that I can’t find anyone willing to do this,” Father Vincenzo Taraborelli told the BBC in a story posted Tuesday. “Many of them are scared. Even priests can be scared. It’s a difficult life.”

For those who believe in demonic possession and that priests have the power to expel the evil spirits, Taraborelli is considered one of the prominent successors to Father Gabriele Amorth, who died last month at age 91. Amorth was said to have performed more than 160,000 exorcisms.

Taraborelli, 79, sees up to 30 people a day in a windowless room near the Vatican, the BBC reported. His most vivid case, a married woman being wooed by a Satanist, sounds like it came right out of a movie.

“When I told the devil: ‘In the name of Jesus, I order you to go away’, she started to vomit little metal pins, five at a time,” he said. “Aside from pins she would also vomit hair braids, little stones, pieces of wood. It sounds like something from another world right? Instead, it’s something from this world.”

In Argentina, a non-accredited exorcism school offers an “exorcist assistant” diploma. But that may be of little help to Taraborelli.

“Exorcists need to be certified to eliminate the practice of exorcism by untrained novices,” Taraborelli told the Daily Beast previously. “Otherwise it can be very dangerous for the person who believes he is under the devil’s possession.”