One of the saddest sermons I ever heard was by a young--perhaps some would say brilliant--priest who had majored in psychology in the seminary. The Gospel concerned the expulsion of a demon from a man possessed. His homily centered on how the Church no longer focused on demonic possession and how this was probably an allegory in which Christ healed someone with a deep psychological problem or a disease like epilepsy that was unknown at the time. I had read the books of Fr. Amorth and wanted to weep. To think that he was so deluded and then preached this from the pulpit!
As Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacie) says in the movie "The Usual Suspects," "the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was in convincing us he didn't exist."
Frank
I've met these religious graduates with psychology degrees. In fact, the Director of Counseling for the Laity in my diocese, a nun, called me a "victim of the Catholic Church". That was the last time I ever spoke with her or any other of these professionals. Yet one more example of how Satan tried to infiltrate the Church.
As Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacie) says in the movie "The Usual Suspects," "the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was in convincing us he didn't exist."
Fr. Gabriele Amorth would agree, an so would I.
Those who are not of the spirit, consider such things to be foolish because they are unable to discern them, not having a living spirit.
The phenomenon still occurs, so those who have not been regenerated and think of the spirit as foolishness will seek to instead explain such things in terms of the soul or the body.
It isn't any surprise that every soulish and physical symptom of demonic influence and possession is now characterized by soulish and physical descriptions of the phenomenon they perceive by their soul and body, yet ignore the presence of a separate person with a discernible spirit.
It is sad, though, when a priest communicates the same perspective as an unbeliever.
For myself, a much more fascinating topic regards demon influence and possession that might occur more commonly. Consider how we think of the domain of animals and go to the zoo, identifying different species. We also know of cats and dogs within the same domain, yet don't lump a quiet cat in the same category as a quiet cougar. Similarly, there might be fallen angels with characteristics not as immediately obvious in possession as we see in the movies.
This isn't to confuse the nature of many fallen angels,..they have very real personalities and exude them in their behavior, however, just as there are seemingly benign members of a foreign army, there may also be many seemingly benign members of the fallen nature.
I was considering this when recently I observed Saddam Hussein before the court. If you watch his behavior closely and listen to the meaning of his statements, consider the possibility that his thinking and soul might actually be possessed by a fallen angel or foreign spirit. Almost everything I witnessed is consistent with the type of behavior a coy fallen spirit might exhibit. Granted, we might be seeing the real Saddam, I found it more explicable that when he was asked to identify himself, he repeatedly avoided the question in a fashion to draw an inference from other people as to his identity.
Commentators scoffed at the tactic, locked in their thinking that this is just the simple, arrogant, ploy of a captured dictator. But this is also an arrogant point of view of people who don't respect the behavioral trend of others who lack power and attribute that lack of power to a thinking flaw. They also failed to exhibit any discernment of spirit in their analysis.
Even after salvation, we still have an old sin nature and are scarred in our thinking. As long as we remain in Him, He is sure and just to guide us appropriately, but where our thinking, our soul, lapses into it old self, we tend to sin.
We seem to get dumber by the minute. My favorite rejoinder:
Mt 4:12 His fame spread to all of Syria, and they brought to him all who were sick with various diseases and racked with pain, those who were possessed, lunatics, and paralytics, and he cured them.
Golly, it's almost as if those poor ignorant primitives could tell the difference between organic disease and possession. How about that.