{"id":7748,"date":"2011-02-14T17:28:44","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T23:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=7748"},"modified":"2011-02-14T22:50:18","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T04:50:18","slug":"scrutiny-exorcism-and-christian-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/14\/scrutiny-exorcism-and-christian-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrutiny, Exorcism, and Christian Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mention the word \u201cexorcism\u201d\u00a0and many people\u2019s thoughts immediately fly to horror flicks and scary stories about demonic possession. But there is another form of exorcism in Catholic liturgy that has a far wider application and significance, namely, pre-baptismal exorcism.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0very brief prayer of exorcism can be\u00a0found in the Catholic rite for infant baptism. More strikingly, Catholics have a series of rather well-developed exorcistic rites that normally take place during the Sunday liturgies of the season of\u00a0Lent. They are called the\u00a0Scrutinies, and they\u00a0come from\u00a0the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.\u00a0 They are beautiful, fascinating rites. What are we to make of them?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps, first of all, the celebration of the Scrutinies\u00a0can help us to acknowledge that the \u201creign of Satan\u201d is not all about high drama. Pervasive evil, and what Hannah Arendt called \u201cthe banality of evil\u201d\u2014the everyday acquiescence to things that ought not be\u2014is much, much more often the manifestation of\u00a0Satan&#8217;s power\u00a0from which\u00a0we\u00a0need Christ&#8217;s deliverance. We bring\u00a0a broad\u00a0range of\u00a0phenomena\u00a0to prayer\u00a0in the Scrutinies.<\/p>\n<p>I also believe that the Scrutinies have a unique role to play in the crafting of Christian identity. I\u2019ve written about this aspect of the Scrutinies recently in an essay that was published in the January 2011 issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ltp.org\/c-36-catechumenate.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Catechumenate Magazine<\/a>, called \u201cScrutiny, Exorcism, and the Construction of the Christian Self.\u201d The editors at LTP have kindly given their permission for us to share that article <a href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/ferrone-scrutiny2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> Some of our readers may want\u00a0to read something more general about the\u00a0Scrutinies. If so, you might want to check out <a href=\"http:\/\/teamrcia.com\/2011\/01\/14\/why-three-scrutinies\/\" target=\"_blank\">this<\/a>. For those who wrestle with the challenge of celebrating these rites well in the parish,\u00a0you are welcome to\u00a0participate in\u00a0a <a href=\"http:\/\/teamrcia.com\/bookstore\/team-resources\/webinars\/the-scrutinies-an-ongoing-process-for-completing-the-conversion-of-the-elect-feb-22-2011-webinar\/\" target=\"_blank\">webinar<\/a> hosted by TeamRCIA on Tuesday the 22<sup>nd<\/sup> of February (at 2 pm Eastern time) for which I\u2019ll be the presenter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do pre-baptismal exorcisms make sense today? It all depends on how you read the rite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15,91],"tags":[1103,510,1102,1104],"class_list":["post-7748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-initiation-rcia","category-liturgical-year","tag-catechumenate-magazine","tag-exorcisms","tag-scrutinies","tag-teamrcia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Scrutiny, Exorcism, and Christian Identity - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/14\/scrutiny-exorcism-and-christian-identity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scrutiny, Exorcism, and Christian Identity - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do pre-baptismal exorcisms make sense today? 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