The exorcist

There is this Anthony Hopkins movie coming up in January called "The Rite." Anybody else want to see it? I want to see it.

Well, I kind of want to see it and I kind of do not.

It is about exorcism!

I watched the trailer just now and I was impressed by the beginning, when the screen is covered with Latin. I heard on Catholic Radio that the rite of exorcism has never been translated into English. Do not crack any jokes about Latin being the devil's language. It is the language the devil is afraid of, is more like it.

If you talked to the devil in English the devil would just snicker at you.

This movie is based on a book written by a journalist from San Diego which, I do not know if he was there when I was there with Leonard Pennario, but it was just as well I did not know him. I would have wasted a lot of time. It is not as if I am obsessed with the dark side but I am interested in the situation, in the power we hold against the devil.

I read an interview with this author, whose name is Matt Baglio. He was saying that he followed a priest around who went to exorcism school in Rome. He talked about cases he had learned about, exorcism cases.

He also said that to avoid the devil getting his hooks into you what you should do is stay close to God, go to Mass, go to Confession. One thing he said gave me pause. He said that Confession is an exorcism. I am thinking, remember when I wrote that??? I had that feeling, that something was being pulled out of me. It was not my imagination. I was right!!

But there was something that really gave me the creeps.

The author was telling this story of this one woman who had a problem with some, ahem, sinister being and had contacted a priest, an exorcist, and had made an appointment. And one day she got a phone call. The phone call was from someone who told her the priest she was going to see was going out of town, that he would not be able to see her. "You do not have to come in," the caller told her.

Something gave this woman a funny feeling and she called the priest.

He said, "No, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. No, I want you to come in.Who called you and told you I was going away?"

That is a very good question.

Who or what made that phone call??

Brrrrrr!!

It is funny, here I am reading stuff about people screaming out in guttural devil voices and their skin turning green and whatever and what really gives me the creeps? The idea that the devil can make an ordinary phone call. It sounds ridiculous, I know.

But just imagine this thing, whatever it is, calling on the phone.

Thinking in its diabolical way, "This is how we can work this out. Fix it so she does not go in to see the priest."

Then the physics gets to me. How exactly does this happen, that the phone rings and there is someone on the other end of the phone? Where is the voice coming from?

Perhaps the movie will tell us.

Anyone want to see it?

Another one bites the dust

I am having a terrible time with priests.

It seems that so often whenever I run into one I especially like, something happens to him. I have this experience on a local and a not-local level.

On a not-local level I liked that celebrity priest Father John Corapi. I used to love his talks on Catholic Radio and they got me doing a lot of good things I might never be doing otherwise.

Then he went down in flames, spectacularly I must say, in a cloud of accusations of having a girlfriend and living with her, owning millions of dollars worth of boats and motorcycles, etc. As usual when you are dealing with the Catholic Church, the whole affair was shrouded in mystery and now it has faded to black and we will probably never hear how it comes out. But the long and short of it is, Father Corapi is gone.

On a local level there was a priest I especially admired who used to say the Latin Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians. His name was Father Bialkowski. I did not know him personally but I used to love his sermons and how he said the Mass and he always struck me as a very good man.

Remember, when I had that Mass said for Leonard Pennario, Father Bialkowski was the one who said it. I even mentioned him.

Then well, he was taken away. Because of a haze of accusations which, they seemed fishy to me, but what do I know. And what does it matter. The long and short of it is, Father Bialkowski is gone.

Now today I pick up the paper and I am warming up my computer and what do I see on the front page of The Buffalo News, albeit small and down in the corner, but there was this new priest at Corpus Christi I liked. Well, he was new last year. I mentioned meeting him on that wild Dyngus Day. Ha, ha! That is still one of my favorite posts. This picture ...

... I should win a Pulitzer for it. Note: That is NOT a priest, at least not to my knowledge. That was just a reveler on the bus.

But anyway. The priest's name was Father Matthew Wydmanski. A few months ago on Ascension Thursday I went to Mass at Corpus Christi and I was struck by the beauty of the Mass and how reverent he was. It was not quite a Latin Mass but it was close. Anyway, I liked this priest, Father Wydmanski, and I remember thinking how much good he was doing on Buffalo's East Side.

Today I read he got arrested for DWI and now he has fled back home to Poland.

That is just dandy, you know?

I had talked to him after Mass on Ascension and I was looking forward to seeing him again this weekend when I go judge pierogies at Corpus Christi. This is a bummer!

I mean, it is better than if he were stuck in the situation Father Bialkowski is in, but still.

The long and short of it is, Father Wydmanski is gone.

Not to sound like my great-grandmother, who according to my mother used to sit perpetually in the corner of the kitchen, praying the Rosary in German. But stuff  like this has to make you wonder if the devil is at work.

I believe the devil exists, I will tell you that right now, and I think he finds ways to rid us of the people who do the most good. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that, maybe they did what they are accused of, maybe they were accused falsely, it all comes out the same. The main thing is, these guys are gone.

Remember the creepy story about how the devil made a phone call?

If he can make a phone call he can do this.

In a weird coincidence not only will The Buffalo News' Web site not give me the story about Father Wydmanski to link to -- but the world "devil" is in the banger headline.

You got to wonder!

What possessed me?

That is the question I wailed to myself the other day as I was making chili sauce.

I had all these plum tomatoes from Bailey Clinton and they needed to be used up. So I had scalded all these tomatoes and skinned them. Then I chopped up about six huge bell peppers and six small ones. Now it was 90 degrees and I was stirring this brimful, boiling pot to which I had added three chopped up onions. There were three onions still to be chopped, and ...

What possessed me?

That is a good question.

I like that quaint phrasing. It is fun to take a phrase you hear kicked around a lot, and really think about it. In this case all you can picture is the devil.

Remember how the devil made that phone call?

That picture up above is of the devil making chili sauce!

This particular story ends happily. I did get the onions chopped. The sauce exactly filled nine pints and all the lids went "pop." I then went off to work on my book.

Which, that is a whole other story. On the one hand, I am seeing the end of the tunnel. On the other, I often still think...

What possessed me?