“If you mean Father Corinth,” the Cardinal replied carefully, “he is highly intelligent, and very serious. His ministry has, however, been limited mainly to the cases to which my predecessor directed him, so they have been few.”
The pope nodded.
“Your predecessor was not a believer in the power of exorcism.” Another flat statement of fact.
“I cannot say for certain,” the Cardinal replied diplomatically.
“…but you are.” The pope was unsmiling.
The Cardinal nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly.
“Why is this?”
“I have seen the rise of popular interest in the diabolical in recent years,” the Cardinal sighed. “Consistently, more and more cases of obsession and possession are brought to us from families desperate for help after medical intervention has proven unsuccessful.”
“To what do you attribute this?”
“To be honest,” the Cardinal took a breath, and then plunged ahead. “I believe this is emanating from some of the Western elites,” he finished forthrightly.
“What are your grounds for believing this?”
“An unrelenting focus on sexual depravity in the media, the huge amount of money being spent for legalizing this agenda, and the unrelenting pressure to normalize this and to teach these things in the schools.” The Cardinal was clear and concise. “And, personal experience in my own ministry.”
“What has been your experience?”
“I have heard anecdotally – and usually from their distraught family -- about the tastes of the super-rich and famous in America,” the Cardinal said. “And then, there’s been the murders.”
“Murders?”
“We had a very kind man in our archdiocese, a good Catholic man of means. He was responsible for bringing the Latin Mass to the Boston area, under my predecessor. This man was recently murdered in cold blood by his own 22 year old son. The boy approached his mother and father as they were leaving a restaurant after Sunday Mass, and stabbed his father repeatedly to death in full view of his mother and others.”
The Pope inhaled sharply and paused, his eyes fixed on the Cardinal’s.
“And why do you believe this was satanic?” When it came, the pope’s question was delivered calmly.
“The boy was found to have been involved with Satanists, a participant in their Black Masses. And, there was the experience of the exorcist.”
“Father Corinth?”
REGINA | 70