(October 25, 2019 at 7:02 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I was in Catholic school from 6th grade through high school graduation...mainly because the only schools in town were the Catholic schools. Only the kindergarten was public.
This was the late 60s to mid 70s and the diocese we were in was actually pretty liberal. When I hear stories of the things other went through in the Catholic school system, I realize that we were pretty lucky to not be part of the hard line Catholic doctrine.
Well it seems you were lucky because I remember that Michael Moore said how not only did they discuss exorcism in his catholic school but priests demonstrated it. For instance this is from his autobiography
Quote:Father Ogg was an exorcist. We were told by Father Ogg that he had a “one thousand percent batting average” when confronting Lucifer.
“I always win,” he said.
He told us that he would show us the ceremony but it would only be “pretend,” as none of us had shown any signs of being consumed by evil.
Yes, but wouldn’t this be better, I thought, if there were someone here at St. Paul’s who actually was evil? Of course it would! And of course there was.
“Father,” I said with fake sincerity, “before you start, I think Dickie O’Malley is going to be really upset that we left him out of this. He keeps saying he doesn’t believe you’re an exorcist and that he’d like to see you try it out on him. Can I go get him?”
“Sure,” Ogg said, somewhat miffed that anyone would question his devil-disappearing powers. “But make it quick.”
And so on
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
