Prominent exorcists Father Pat Collins says he is appalled by the lack of training in demon hunting for today’s priests
A priest has blasted the church for failing its flock by not offering exorcism training.
Prominent exorcists Father Pat Collins says he is appalled by the lack of training in demon hunting for today’s priests .
The trained psychologist, who claims to have experience in dealing with demonic spirits , says the church desperately needs to safegueard people from evil spirits.
Father Collins has recorded a documentary, Would You Believe, which is about evil, and says he can’t rule out human explanations of evil but believes it’s naive to exclude the supernatural dimension.
He explained: The Church is rightfully admitting its sinfulness in child sex abuse, that we did not defend children. Now it has all the safeguarding measures and that’s excellent.
But it appals me that we have no safeguarding from the evil spirits.
I say that in the sense that we don’t train anybody to deal with these cases. Priests – it’s not that they don’t care – but they don’t know enough about it.
In the second edition of the two-part documentary, Fr Pat said it was the responsibility of the Irish bishops to put this training in place.
The buck has to land on the bishop’s desk. Who have you trained in your diocese?
I would say to bishops, ‘Woe to you that neglect the spiritual care of the people’.
He said he is deeply bothered by the lack of priests with his training.
How many bishops in accordance with Canon 1172 have trained anybody or appointed anybody in the diocese of Ireland to help our poor unfortunate people who are oppressed and sometimes possessed by these awful spirits, Fr Pat said.
They have abandoned the sheep.
The Dublin priest said he believes there is a rising fascination with evil spirits in today’s world.
He added: There is a morbid interest in evil spirits in society. It’s interesting as people lose faith in God, they are increasing their interest in the devil and it’s purely morbid.
I’d say to anyone who’s got that morbid interest, ‘If you had to deal with evil as someone have to do, it is horrible, it is pure darkness.’
‘It is the essence of evil because it is totally opposed to God and totally opposed to love.’