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Rituals

Rite of Exorcism

Purification Rituals

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Origin from 1614

The Rite of Exorcism is the Catholic Church's formal liturgy for expelling demonic possession: the solemn or major exorcism, performed only by a priest with the express permission of his bishop, over a person judged, after examination, to be possessed. Its classical text is the chapter De Exorcizandis Obsessis a Daemonio of the Rituale Romanum of 1614, replaced in 1999 by the revised rite De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam. The rite consists of prayers, psalms, Gospel readings, the laying on of hands, the sign of the cross, holy water, and the exorcism formulas themselves, in both a pleading and a commanding form. The church's own norms insist on caution: medical and psychological explanations must be weighed first, and the solemn rite is rare.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
from 1614 1
1614 is the year the Rituale Romanum fixed the rite's classical text, De Exorcizandis Obsessis a Daemonio, later replaced by the revised 1999 rite its own text also names.
Origin Period
Ancient practice; standard rite codified 1614, revised 1999 2
Place of Origin
Rome 1
Historical Origin
The Catholic Encyclopedia traces the church's formal rite for expelling a demonic presence to the ministry of exorcism already exercised in the early church, later codified into an official ritual text requiring a bishop's explicit permission before use. 2
Text
Source Text
The Catholic Church's own procedure is set out in the Rituale Romanum's section on exorcizing those disturbed by a demon, revised in 1999 as part of the wider post Vatican Two reform of the church's ritual books. 2
Attributions
Tradition
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church situates the Rite of Exorcism within the wider Roman Catholic tradition of exorcism, distinguishing solemn exorcism performed under a bishop's authorization from the minor exorcisms embedded in the rite of baptism. 1
Purpose
Invokes the authority of the Church to command the departure of a diabolical presence from a person, performed only after other explanations have been examined and with the local bishop's authorization. 2
Form
Implements and Materials
The Catholic rite as revised requires a priest specifically delegated by his bishop, holy water, a stole and a text of prescribed prayers and formulas of command rather than any improvised address to the presumed spirit. 2
Status
Current Status
Restricted today to priests holding specific episcopal authorization, following revised norms the Catholic Church issued in the late twentieth century to guard against its misuse. 2
Meaning
Literal Meaning
Exorcism comes from the Greek exorkizein, to bind by oath or solemnly adjure, not from any word meaning to expel or drive out. The Greek verb describes the act of commanding a spirit under oath to depart, which is why the rite's classic form is a spoken formula addressed directly to the spirit rather than a physical procedure performed on the possessed person. 1
Practice
Who Performs It
Clergy or ordained officiants 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Practitioner Detail
Only a priest expressly authorised by his bishop 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Frequency
As the occasion requires 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Cadence Detail
As the occasion requires, and rarely: only after medical and psychological explanations are weighed 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Learn More
The Solemn Rite and Its Safeguards

The Catholic rite distinguishes carefully between kinds of exorcism, and the distinctions are most of the theology. Minor exorcisms are ordinary and unremarkable: every baptism includes prayers renouncing evil, and blessed water and salt carry exorcistic formulas in the older books. The major or solemn exorcism is another matter, a reserved liturgy that only a priest appointed by the bishop may perform, and only upon a person, never merely a place, judged after serious investigation to be possessed.

The Rituale Romanum's famous rubrics, largely carried into the 1999 revision, are a checklist of scepticism: the exorcist must not readily believe possession is present, must distinguish it from illness and melancholy, and is directed to the classical signs, knowledge of hidden things, unlearned languages, strength beyond nature, together with vehement aversion to the sacred.

Modern norms add the modern sciences: psychiatric and medical evaluation is expected before the rite is considered, and exorcists' own associations describe the overwhelming majority of cases brought to them as needing doctors rather than the rite. When performed, the liturgy is sober: the Litany of the Saints, psalms, a Gospel, the laying on of hands, and the two formulas, deprecative, asking God to free the person, and imperative, commanding the spirit in the name of Christ to depart. The dramatic conventions of cinema, born of the 1973 film and its successors, sit far from the rite's actual texture, which is closer to a long, insistent prayer service than to spectacle.

From the Third Century to the 1999 Revision

Exorcism belongs to Christianity's oldest self-description: the Gospels present the casting out of unclean spirits as a signature of Jesus's ministry, and the early church institutionalised the power with striking speed. By the mid-third century Rome had a formal order of exorcists, one of the minor orders through which clergy passed for seventeen centuries, and catechumens preparing for baptism underwent repeated exorcisms as a matter of course. The medieval church multiplied formulas of very mixed quality, and it was to discipline that abundance that the Rituale Romanum of 1614, part of the Tridentine standardisation of the liturgy, published one authorised rite with rules for its use, a text that then served essentially unchanged into the twentieth century. The Second Vatican Council's reform reached exorcism last of all the liturgy: the revised rite De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam appeared only in 1999, strengthening the requirements of episcopal permission and prior medical judgment and softening some imperative formulas, to the public disappointment of some veteran exorcists who found the old commands stronger; the older text remains usable by permission.

The rite's recent history is a paradox: as Western dioceses grew cautious, demand rose, driven by film, by charismatic deliverance ministries outside Catholic discipline, and by global south Christianity's lively demonology, and the church has responded institutionally, with training courses in Rome and an international association of exorcists recognised in 2014, seeking to keep an ancient rite inside its own guardrails.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity, Religions
Roman Catholicism, Denominations

Conducted By

Priest, Religious Offices

The solemn exorcism is performed by a priest holding the express permission of his bishop.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Priest, Religious Roles & Titles
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Held Differently

African Initiated Churches, Religious Movements

Deliverance is prayed by prophets and by the congregation, and it addresses witchcraft and ancestral affliction, which the mission churches would not name and could not treat.

Source Zion and Pentecost: The Spirituality and Experience of Pentecostal and Zionist/Apostolic Churches in South AfricaAllan H. Anderson
Charismatic Movement, Religious Movements

The reserved rite is not the movement's instrument. Deliverance is prayed in the congregation and by the laity, which is precisely the point on which the churches that host the movement have had to rule.

Source Malines Document I: Theological and Pastoral Orientations on the Catholic Charismatic RenewalLeon-Joseph Suenens
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
2. The Catholic Encyclopedia
Charles George Herbermann et al. (eds.), Robert Appleton Company, 1913View the Source
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