The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist (3 page)

Even worse, in Father Amorth's eyes, was the plight of the exorcist. In an interview published in the Catholic magazine
30 Days
in 2001, he said, “Our brother priests who are charged with this delicate task are treated as though they are crazy, as fanatics. Generally speaking they are scarcely even tolerated by the bishops who have appointed them.” Time and time again he chastised bishops and priests alike for their ignorance. “For three centuries, the Latin Church has almost entirely abandoned the ministry of exorcism,” he said. And while the problem might be bad in certain parts of Italy, he believed it to be downright appalling elsewhere. “There are countries in which there is not a single exorcist, for example Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.” Other countries, such as France, he claimed, had appointed exorcists who didn't even believe in exorcism.

On May 18, 2001, the Italian bishops’ conference, meeting in plenary assembly in the Vatican, issued an official statement: “We are witnessing a rebirth of divinations, fortunetelling, witchcraft and black magic, often combined with a superstitious use of religion. In certain environments, superstition and magic can coexist with scientific and technological progress, inasmuch as science and technology cannot give answers to the ultimate problems of life.”

According to the Associazione Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII (Pope John XXIII Community Association), about 25 percent of Italians, or about 14 million, are involved in some way or another in the occult. In the south of Italy, for instance, certain groups still practice Tarantism, the belief that a person can be possessed by the bite of a spider, while “card-readers” congest the late-night cable channels hawking their prophetic wares and “lucky” amulets. This is not limited to Italy. In 1996, for instance, France's version of the IRS disclosed that during the previous year, 50,000 tax-paying citizens had declared their occupation as healer, medium, or other such practitioner in the occult-related trades. At the time, there were only 36,000 Catholic priests in the entire country.

However, the Church was most concerned about estimates (some would say exaggerated) that as many as 8,000 satanic sects with more than 600,000 members exist within Italy.

T
HE COURSE
“Exorcism and Prayers of Liberation” was the brainchild of Dr. Giuseppe Ferrari, the national secretary of the Gruppo di Ricerca e Informazione Socio-Religiosa (Group for Research and Socio-Religous Information, or GRIS), a Catholic organization located in Bologna, Italy, that deals with cults and other new religions.

According to Dr. Ferrari, the idea came about in 2003 when he met with a priest from the diocese of Imola who told him that a growing number of his fellow clerics were being inundated by parishioners suffering from problems related to the occult: Either they wanted to quit and couldn't, or they in some way felt afflicted by demonic forces. In many cases, the priests felt so inadequate that they simply sent the people away.

In looking into the Church's approach to appointing and training exorcists, Dr. Ferrari saw how haphazard it was, with each exorcist left to his own devices. The solution was obvious: There needed to be some kind of university-level course that would train exorcists.

Dr. Ferrari led a group of various friends and colleagues, including a few theology professors, doctors, and an exorcist, who came up with a working syllabus. Students would be introduced to a wide variety of historical, theological, sociological, and medical topics, in order to go beyond the superficial and sensationalist aspect of exorcism. The aim was simple: Give priests the knowledge they need to discern when and where Satan is active. And give the few who would go on to become exorcists (such as Father Gary) the knowledge necessary to defeat him.

But where to teach it? It was then that Dr. Ferrari got in touch with the rector at the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, Father Paolo Scarafoni, and the rest of the pieces fell into place.

I
NAUGURATED IN
2000, the sleek and modern Regina Apostolorum campus, with its large glass windows and straight lines, is a huge contrast to the old-world ambiance of downtown Rome. The manicured pathways and sprawling grounds of the hillside campus could easily be confused for the headquarters of a software company in Father Gary's native Silicon Valley—if it weren't for the groups of priests walking to and fro in their black cassocks. Run by the conservative Legionaries of Christ, an organization that some have likened to Opus Dei, the university's curriculum is decidedly right of center, following the strict teachings of the Church hierarchy on a variety of issues, including stem cell research.

The course was being taught in a large state-of-the-art classroom. And if the modern exterior seemed an odd setting in which to study exorcism, the bright, futuristic interior felt even more bizarre. Indeed, lab-coated technicians would look more appropriate bustling about among the white-on-white walls and ceilings, large windows and skylights, than would Franciscans wearing brown robes, rope belts, and sandals.

Having opted to take a five-minute train ride from Stazione San Pietro rather than the arduous hour-long slog through morning traffic on the bus, Father Gary made his way through the grounds, admiring the neatness and precision of the place. Inside, his favorable impression only grew as he climbed the marble stairs inside the brightly lit interior. By the time he arrived for the first lecture, a large crowd had already gathered outside the doors to the classroom, chatting amicably and looking over a stack of literature advertising the school, which had been placed on a nearby table. It looked to him like a good turnout, though he was surprised at the presence of the news media. Several TV cameras had been set up in the back of the classroom and along the far wall.

The first session of the course, launched in the winter/spring of 2005, had created quite a stir. Captivated by the idea of a university-sponsored course on something as arcane as exorcism, the media had shown up in force, and the headlines didn't disappoint: “Exorcists go back to school.” “Priests get refresher course on exorcisms.” The publicity actually served the organizers well, getting the message out that the Church was no longer ashamed of exorcism.

As a result of this success, the school decided to run the course again in the fall/winter of 2005 and 2006, with only minor changes. All the professors from the original course would be back, but this time lessons would be available via video conference to satellite locations in Bologna, Modena, and a few other cities. For the last class, several prominent exorcists were going to be invited to share their experiences and answer questions. And this time, rather than being limited to priests, the course had been opened to professionals such as psychologists and doctors who might, for example, want to hear how to distinguish between mental illness and possession.

When Father Gary had heard about the course from his bishop, he got in touch with a few Legionaries in his diocese to ask if there was someone he could talk to about it. They in turn gave him the name of a priest who was on the faculty at the university. A few weeks before he left California, Father Gary called this priest and was able to learn a bit about what to expect.

Though the course was scheduled to run for four months, from October to February, the budding exorcists would be meeting only one day a week—on Thursday morning from 8:30 to 12:30—for a total of ten classes. Five sessions would run from mid-October to late November, and the second half of the course from January to February 9. Perhaps the most important thing he found out was that the course was going to be offered only in Italian. Disappointed at first, he'd been reassured that since priests would be coming from all over the world, the school would provide him with a translator.

Now, however, when he approached a course organizer and inquired about the translator, he was told in an almost offhand way that there wasn't going to be one. Not today or, for that matter, not next week either. How was he supposed to learn anything if he didn't understand the language?

Dejected, he wandered over to the rows of desks as they were quickly filling up. The room was divided into two sections, consisting of long tables, almost like the pews of a church. At the head of a classroom stood a raised dais—the long and low kind you see at conferences and symposiums—with a blank screen behind it. Next to the dais was a cross, and on the back wall, a neorealist painting of Christ crowned with thorns. The row of tinted windows running the entire length of one wall looked down onto a large circular patch of grass, in the center of which stood a solitary olive tree.

A few minutes later, the chatter in the room died down and a line of priests and officials filed in silently behind the dais. Led by the organizer, everyone stood and recited the Lord's Prayer and then a Hail Mary in Italian. It was time for the course to begin.

The first speaker was a bishop whom Father Gary didn't recognize, though many in the room clearly did. His name was Andrea Gemma, and, at age seventy-four, he was a well-regarded exorcist and one of very few bishops who actually performed exorcisms. He had also written a well-received book,
lo, Vescovo Esorcista
(I am a Bishop-Exorcist).

As Monsignor Gemma spoke, Father Gary tried to make sense of it, but couldn't. Here and there he'd catch a word that sounded familiar; but before he could figure out what it meant, the bishop had already moved on to something else. After a while he gave up, becoming absorbed instead by the spectacle of media personnel who roamed the aisles, shoving huge TV cameras into people's faces. At the break he was tracked down by some English-language reporters and spent the remainder of the morning fielding questions about exorcism, telling them candidly that he knew nothing about it.

Afterward, as he sat on the train heading back into Rome, he was disappointed. He hadn't learned anything, and the circuslike nature of the first day made him wonder if this whole course would be a waste of time. It was an inauspicious start to his training. He certainly hoped the second session would turn out better.

CHAPTER TWO

THE CALLING

In our Catholic understanding, priestly ordination is a radical, total reordering of a man in the eyes of God and his Church, bringing about an identity of ontological “reconfigurement” with Christ. This priestly identity is at the very core, the essence, of a man, affecting his being and, subsequently, his actions.

—
Monsignor Timothy Dolan
, Priests for the Third Millennium

B
ack in September, once he'd gotten over the initial shock of Rome, Father Gary had settled in quite easily to life at the NAC. Originally founded in 1859, the NAC moved to its present site atop the Gianicolo in 1953. The massive six-story building—complete with its own church, auditorium, media room, library, classrooms, and dining hall—seems like a mini-oasis in the heart of Rome, set back from the noisy streets by a large security wall and gatehouse. The complex is big enough to house three hundred seminarians, with adjacent gardens and a million-dollar view of Saint Peter's Basilica. It is no wonder that Father Gary spent a few days exploring the inside.

It was also true that the priests in the sabbatical program kept a pretty busy schedule, waking up for morning mass at 6:30, followed by breakfast and then classes until lunch, with more classes in the afternoon, then evening prayer and dinner. Afterward Father Gary might have just enough time to run down to the library to check the sports scores on the Internet. A rabid sports fan, he followed the San Francisco 49ers as well as the Giants.

He got along well with a majority of the priests in the program, most of whom were around his age and hailed from different parts of the United States. As usual, a few were of the more “antisocial” type, which always puzzled Father Gary, whose concept of “priestly identity” could best be described as “being present to people,” but he didn't let the aloofness of others dampen his own spirits.

One treat that staying at the NAC provided was the chance to rub shoulders with the seminarians who lived there. Like the priests in the sabbatical program, the seminarians represented a broad cross-section of cities and towns across America. Father Gary called them “kids” since most were in their mid-twenties. These were the bright young minds of the Church, priests who might one day become respected canonical lawyers or even bishops (some have nicknamed the NAC “the school of bishops”). Father Gary got into the habit of going out to lunch twice a month with a group of these seminarians, sharing with them some of the hard lessons he'd learned over the years.

E
VEN AT A YOUNG AGE
, Father Gary knew he wanted to be a priest. His mother, AnnaMay Thomas, remembers her son at the age of eleven, pretending to say mass in the kitchen of their South San Francisco home—holding aloft the round piece of Wonder Bread, his expression fixed in reverence as he said, “This is my body, I give it up to you …” Gary's younger brother, David, who was six at the time, remembers how seriously his older brother went about it. Everything had to be perfect—the kitchen table covered with a white towel representing the altar, the Bible placed in just the right position, candles arranged appropriately. Gary pressed his little brother into being the altar boy. David's most important task was to make the hosts, which he'd been told had to be flat and perfectly round. Unsure how he was going to accomplish that, Gary let him in on one of his trade secrets: “Use a cookie cutter,” he'd said.

Gary Thomas was born on November 2, 1953, in San Francisco, California, to San Francisco natives. AnnaMay, whose maiden name was Mahoney was raised in a blue-collar Irish Catholic family in the Mission District. Raymond Thomas, the son of Croatian immigrants with Eastern European Catholic ties, grew up in what is now called Catrero Hills.

When Gary was four, the family moved to South San Francisco, also known as South City. At the time, South City was still a growing community a decidedly blue-collar town populated mostly by people of Italian descent who'd settled there in the wake of World War II. The year they moved, Gary's younger brother David was born, followed by his sister JoAnn. In South City Ray worked as an electrician, doing mostly private contract work, and once the kids were old enough to go to school, AnnaMay worked as a school secretary. By all accounts, Father Gary had a pretty normal ail-American childhood. He played Little League, mowed lawns, and attended All Souls Catholic Grammar School, where he served as an altar boy until eighth grade.

Typically Gary's family would be the last ones to leave church, something Gary's dad often ribbed his mother about. For Gary, something about priests made him feel comfortable; he felt a “positive familiarity” when he was around them. He also had literal familiarity; an uncle on his dad's side was a priest and a cousin on his mom's side was a Jesuit.

In the fifth and sixth grade, when all those in his class put a picture on the bulletin board of what they wanted to be when they grew up, Gary had chosen a picture of a priest. When he told his parents about this, his dad just brushed it off, thinking his son would eventually grow out of it. While this would never happen, when Gary turned fourteen, a chance encounter knocked him off track for a while.

His mother took him to a funeral at the Nauman Lincoln Roos mortuary. After the service, Mr. Lincoln approached Gary and asked if he wanted to work part-time in the funeral home. Without much hesitation, Gary said yes. His work at Nauman Lincoln consisted of a variety of tasks: washing and waxing the cars, cutting lawns, answering the phones, arranging flowers for the ceremony, even taking people into the chapel. He found the work immediately rewarding. He appreciated the religious component of funerals (he had attended many over the years as an altar boy). Not unlike the role of a priest, the funeral director's job was to comfort people—especially in the days following the death of a loved one, when survivors need the most help.

Around the time that he was warming up to a career in the funeral business, Gary began to notice that the priesthood might not be everything he'd originally thought. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Catholic Church went through tremendous upheaval in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, which advocated that the Church open its windows to the modern world. As a result, many priests began losing the sense of connection they'd once felt to the traditions that had attracted them to the priesthood. This had a disastrous effect. Priests began leaving the Church in large numbers. The entire order of nuns that taught at Gary's high school, Junipero Serra, disbanded. In the midst of this general confusion, Gary became disillusioned about his chosen vocation.

I
N
1972 H
E ENROLLED
in the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit-run school in the heart of San Francisco. He and a friend, Robert Eagen, would be among the first generation of kids from South City to go to college. Thinking he might one day run his own mortuary, Gary majored in business management.

The tuition was $1,600 a year, which Gary paid himself by working as a busboy for $250 a month during the school year as well as at the mortuary during the summer. Because of tight finances, he lived at home, commuting to school in a rust-colored 1971 Chevy Càmaro that he bought from a neighbor for $2,000.

As Gary matured, his responsibilities at the mortuary changed. When he turned eighteen, he went on his first “removal,” mortuary parlance for picking up a dead body. Surprisingly, despite all the funerals he'd attended and his time at the mortuary, he had yet to actually see a naked corpse. This particular body belonged to a patient who'd died at San Francisco General Hospital. To this day Gary remembers that the sight of the corpse, lying bare on the metallic slab down in the morgue, made him nauseous. Eventually, he got used to that, but the experience of performing removals never became routine—especially not when he had to drive to homes and remove a body while under the watchful eyes of a roomful of grieving family members.

Meanwhile, in the spring semester of his final year at USF, mutual friends set Gary up on a blind date with Lori Driscoll (now Lori Armstrong), a freshman nursing student at San Francisco State. The two immediately hit it off and began dating, usually attending sporting events with groups of friends. “He had this ability to put other people first and make them feel special,” Lori recalls.

Sometimes, however, Gary's mortuary job threw a kink into their plans. Lori remembers a few occasions when she'd gotten all dressed up, only to have Gary cancel at the last minute because he had to do a removal. Despite being disappointed, she'd soothe her bruised ego by telling herself that if he was to become a funeral director, she'd better get used to this now rather than later.

In 1975, Gary graduated from USF and immediately entered a year-long program at the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science in order to get his embalming license. He continued to live at home while attending the mortuary school, easily making friends and even picking up a nickname. One course he took was on funeral services as practiced by different religious denominations. Because of his long exposure to Catholic tradition, Gary was asked if he'd be willing to teach it to the other students. Before long, everyone began calling him “Father Thomas.”

He excelled at the school, finishing the program in only nine months, after which he went to work as an apprentice for a mortuary in South City. Then in 1977, at the age of twenty-four, Gary got his embalmer's license and moved to a funeral home in Los Altos. The mortuary had a little cottage on-site, where for the first time in his life, Gary lived on his own.

During mortuary school, he had discovered a sort of “marvel to the human body as a system,” especially the circulatory system, which embalmers use for draining the blood and inserting the embalming fluid. And rather than being sickened by what he witnessed, if anything the constant exposure to death helped to “elevate” his spiritual life. Oftentimes, while inserting the eye caps—small plastic devices with edged “teeth” that keep the eyes closed—he would find himself staring into the lifeless eyes of the deceased. The first time he did this, he could tell there was something odd about them; a presence was missing. To Gary, this was clear proof that there is eternal life, that the soul leaves the body at death.

During his time in Los Altos, a feeling Gary thought was long gone began to gnaw at him; he started thinking seriously about the priesthood again. Despite having a rewarding career, he felt deep down somewhere that he was destined to do something different. He began asking himself a hard question: Was the life he had mapped out for himself as a mortician the one God intended?

There was also his relationship with Lori to consider. In the end he knew he couldn't be fair to her if he continued to harbor doubts. A few weeks later, one September afternoon, he and Lori drove to Vasona Lake Park in Los Gatos for a picnic. Lori had no idea what was coming, though perhaps she should have seen the writing on the wall. For five months, Gary had been dropping hints about his interest in joining the priesthood. Lori's mind, however, had been focused elsewhere. In fact, she had expected to get a ring for her twenty-first birthday in August. At the park, the two wandered out to a shady spot on the grass, overlooking the lake. There they sat for a few minutes, watching the water, each looking at a different world and contemplating a very different future. Gary could see himself alone, a priest dedicating himself to a life of celibacy and service to God. Lori saw herself as a mother and wife of a funeral director. At some point, Gary turned to face her and their worlds collided. Though dumbfounded, Lori realized she could not stand in Gary's way.