Exorcisms

[arewethereyet]

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

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

My first exposure to the concept of exorcism was when I read the book 'The Exorcist'.  I was in early high school and scared the bejebus out of myself reading it one night while babysitting.

That was seriously the only thing I knew of exorcism.

We 'studied' Jesus Christ Superstar in music class.  Of course that was well before we could have watched it on VHS tape.  We listened to, and discussed, the soundtrack album.

I guess I got the 60s/70s hippie version of Catholic education.