by Matt Baglio
DECEMBER ROLLED IN and Rome's famous sampietrini cobblestones grew cold and wet. The exorcism course had shut down for the month, so Father Gary took the time to enjoy the holiday season. There was a special mass and dinner held at the Casa on Christmas Eve; and then, on the following day, Father Gary was a Eucharistic minister at Saint Peter's Basilica during the midnight mass presided over by the pope. Afterward, despite the bitterly cold wind, the square was packed with revelers. By the time he and the other priests walked back to the Casa, it was 3:30 in the morning and the streets were absolutely still.
A few days later, Father Gary and another priest from the Casa, Father Paul Hrezzo, decided to take a little side trip together, traveling to Vienna for a few days and then on to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina for New Year's Eve. There, the two presided over mass for the English pilgrims visiting the shrine and spent five restful days meditating and praying.
ON JANUARY 9, the second half of the exorcism course commenced at the Regina Apostolorum. Much like the first half, things got off to a bad start for Father Gary. His translator was a no-show, forcing him to comb the halls looking for a replacement, which he couldn't find. As it turned out, the lecture was on Italian law, so it wasn't a huge loss.
Now that the holiday season was over and things were beginning to return to normal in Rome, he was able to finally get through to Father Carmine (pronounced Car-me-nay), the exorcist Father Bamonte recommended. In his best Italian, Father Gary tried to explain his dilemma. Father Carmine listened patiently for a few minutes and then cut in. “Yes, yes,” he said in Italian, “I'd be happy to help you, but you need to check with my superior first.”
Hanging up the phone, Father Gary was relieved. Maybe this is just a formality that Father Carmine asks all his apprentices to go through, he thought. When he finally got in touch with the superior two days later, however, he hit a dead end. Not only was the man not Father Carmine's superior, but he'd never heard of the exorcist. Funny, though, he did speak a little English and had relatives in San Jose, so Father Gary ended up chatting with him for quite some time. In the end, Father Gary figured that Father Carmine had probably given him the brush-off. He doesn't know me, he thought, he probably just wants to get rid of me.
The following Thursday at the exorcism course, he approached Father Daniel at the break and told him what had happened. As luck would have it, Father Bamonte was lecturing that day, so Father Daniel approached him to ask one last time if he would help Father Gary. After a few minutes, Father Daniel returned with a gloomy look on his face. “I don't know why, but he won't do it,” he sighed.
This is getting ridiculous, Father Gary thought. “I am going home soon and won't know the first thing about exorcism,” he lamented to Father Daniel.
“Try calling Father Carmine again,” Father Daniel said.
Back at the Casa that evening, Father Gary was on the verge of calling his bishop to tell him he would have to nominate somebody else but instead decided to go to the chapel to pray. “God,” he said, as he sat in a wooden pew, “if you want me to do this, you are going to have to help me.”
As he climbed the long flight of stairs back to his room, he decided to call Father Carmine one last time, though he was almost certain that no one would pick up. To his surprise, the Capuchin answered. Father Gary explained to Father Carmine what had been going on. The other end of the line was silent for a long moment before he heard Father Carmine say, “Okay okay but I need to see you first.”
“I'll come to you. Tell me when,” Father Gary responded.
“Come out Sunday morning and we'll talk.”
As he hung up, Father Gary couldn't believe Father Carmine had agreed to see him. Coming as it did on the heels of his prayer, he took it as a sign that God had to be involved.
SOME EXORCISTS ARE KNOWN to have a special “gift” for healing or discernment called a charism, which the Holy Spirit distributes to those who live devoted lives. One such exorcist was Father Candido Amantini. Reportedly Father Candido could diagnose demonic possession simply by looking at a person's photo. In addition, Father Gramolazzo remembers when a demonized person took a swing at Father Candido and the fist stopped only inches from his face, as if held there by an unseen force. Father Candido then blew on the raised fist and the man yanked it back quickly, as if it had been burned.
Laypeople also receive charisms, and more than a few exorcists include such individuals on their prayer teams to help with their discernment. The Second Vatican Council affirms the existence of these gifts but recommends caution: “These charismatic gifts, whether they be the most outstanding or the more simple and widely diffused, are to be received with thanksgiving and consolation … Still, extraordinary gifts are not to be rashly sought after … In any case, judgment as to their genuineness and proper use belongs to those who preside over the Church and to whose special competence it belongs, not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.”
Father Carmine, who studied under Father Candido, claimed no such “powers.” Instead he preferred to rely on his experience.
Father Carmine was born in 1953 in Salerno in the south of Italy, but moved to Rome with his family when he was very young. Even as a boy he had a strong desire to enter the priesthood. “It's not true that kids don't understand anything,” he says. “They understand everything.” When he was ten years old, he knew that he wanted to completely dedicate his life to God through prayer and penitence, leading the life of a Capuchin friar. Frequenting religious services in his parish of Saint Teresa in Corso Italia, as a boy he was always impressed by the friars, most of all by their way of praying, by their sacred liturgies. He entered the seminary in 1974 when he was just twenty-one.
His first experience with exorcism came when he was still in the seminary. One day while in the middle of a theology lesson, another priest interrupted to say there was a disturbance in the church. An old lady had brought in a girl who was cursing and screaming and drooling in front of the tabernacle. The superior immediately left to see what was happening. Later he returned and surprised the students with the observation that he thought the girl was possessed, so he had taken her to see the exorcist of the diocese. As Father Carmine recalls, the classroom erupted into laughter, and he thought to himself, This is ridiculous, something from the Middle Ages. Nobody believes in possession anymore, do they?
A few days later, the superior approached Father Carmine and another seminarian to ask whether they would be interested in participating in the exorcism. Father Carmine agreed, and the experience changed his life. “I saw horrible, horrible things,” he says. At one point during the exorcism, as the girl thrashed and screamed, her normally closed eyes popped open and she turned and looked at him. “In her eyes I could see the hate, such pure hate that it hurt me very deeply.” During the exorcism, he and his fellow seminarian also felt mysterious blows on their shins, as if someone standing in front of them had kicked them, yet no one was near.
Eventually, toward the end of the exorcism, the girl began vomiting huge quantities of human sperm, accompanied by a nauseating stench that nearly forced Father Carmine out of the room. “I was scared to death, shocked,” he says. “I realized that demons do exist, that the Devil is not that puppet with the horns that we see in comic books and laugh about. I had to reverse all my theological concepts, which up until that point were very superficial. I became aware that we are all under the threat of this enemy.”
After he was ordained in 1981, he spent some time in a mission in Bolivia before returning to Rome, where he began to study exorcism under Father Giacobbe, a disciple of Father Candido. Father Carmine remembers Father Candido's specifications for an exorcist's qualities. “He has to try to live an evangelical, virtuous life, a life of prayer; he has to have knowledge, meaning that he has to study theology, the Bible; and thirdly he has to have experience.” Father Candido also stressed the role that an exorcist should play with respect to the ministry. “He
is exhorted to be as generous as possible in helping the poor people who suffer because this is a ministry of assistance, of help for those who suffer.” Taking this advice to heart, Father Carmine began performing exorcisms in 1987.
AFTER MASS ON SUNDAY, Father Gary stepped out of the tranquillity that was the Casa and merged with the throngs of people heading down Via Vincenzo dei Lucchesi and toward the Trevi Fountain. Sundays are busy days for foot traffic in Rome, when people who live on the periphery make their way down toward the city's more famous piazzas to join the never-ending stream of tourists. And rather than ones and twos, most traveled in large clumps, creating havoc on the narrow streets amid snarling traffic, much to the consternation of taxi drivers who never hesitate to let their frustrations be known.
Moving on toward Via della Stamperia, he steeled himself against a gust of wind that funneled down the tunnel-like street. On Via del Tritone he turned to his right and began walking up the hill in the direction of Piazza Barberini. A large group of people stood around on the sidewalk near a series of bus signs, and he took his place among them. He wasn't sure how long it would take him to get out to the Basilica di San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura (Saint Lawrence outside the Walls), but he'd given himself forty-five minutes just to be on the safe side.
THE BASILICA OF SAN LORENZO has a long association with death. Built on the site of Christian catacombs from the third century and adjacent to the sprawling citylike Verano Cemetery, the basilica houses the bones of three saints—Saint Lawrence, Saint Stephen, Saint Justin—as well as those of Pope Pius IX. From the outside, when compared to its siblings, such as Saint John Lateran or Saint Paul outside the Walls, San Lorenzo has a very simple, almost missionlike quality—a red-brick structure with white, columnlike teeth that slopes backward into the crypts and mausoleums. The church is extremely old—one section was built by Pope Pelagius II in the sixth century, while the second, including its simple porchlike facade, was built in the thirteenth century by Pope Honorius III. And unlike the encroaching suburbs of Rome, it appears that little about the building has changed over the years.
At one point, the basilica was surrounded by fields and vineyards, located along one of Rome's ancient roads, the Via Tiburtina, used by the wealthy Romans to escape the city for their country villas.
Walking down from the bus stop, Father Gary found himself in a relatively peaceful part of town. The basilica was set back from the street a little, located across an expanse of asphalt shaded by clusters of towering cypress and umbrella pines. Several flower stalls dotted the parking lot outside the arching gates of the cemetery, their owners sitting on cheap wooden chairs reading newspapers. Since he was fifteen minutes early, he wandered toward the basilica.
Built on two different axes, the medieval interior of the basilica with its tiers of arches and wooden roof almost appeared to have been carved out of the earth. As he meandered up and down the nave, Father Gary found the place to be too cold and dark, the air too musty and stale for his taste.
At ten o'clock, he walked across the small courtyard that separated the basilica from the friary. He pushed the tiny buzzer located next to the double doors and stood for a moment studying the two lion's head knockers that decorated the door, wondering about Father Carmine. He was grateful for being allowed the rare opportunity of seeing an exorcist in his working environment.
After a few minutes, the door opened and a barrel-chested man of medium height in the traditional friar garb appeared. He wore his hair short, and his three-inch beard was streaked with gray. Though his blue eyes were perhaps his most striking feature. Only narrow slits, they were sandwiched between a pair of ruddy cheeks and thin, dark eyebrows that arched playfully near the ends, giving him a jocular, almost mischievous appearance that made him seem much younger than his fifty-three years. After scrutinizing Father Gary for a few long seconds, a light seemed to turn on behind his eyes and his expression softened. “Ahhh, Padre Gary,” he said, “Bene, bene.” And then in heavily accented English, “Welcome.”
Stepping through the door, Father Gary entered a small reception room full of mismatched furniture; various framed religious photographs, including those of the previous five popes; and a three-foot statue of Mary on a pedestal near the doorway to Father Carmine's office. Two windows covered by incongruous lace curtains completed the picture of a room originally used for something else. Father Carmine hadn't yet taken down his Christmas decorations. A large, intricate Nativity set, adorned with blinking lights, occupied a corner. The room's only living inhabitant was a rather large, mangy tabby cat that lay completely still, curled up on one of the chairs. “Malato” (not well), Father Carmine said, indicating the cat. Father Gary, who wasn't a cat person, kept his distance.
“Come, come.” Father Carmine motioned, and led the way into his office, which had the same eclectic ambiance. A large, cluttered wooden desk took up most of the small room, while a faded floral print love seat and a few worn office swivel chairs constituted the room's only other furniture. The walls were practically covered with all manner of religious items (some apparently handmade) and photos he had collected over his years as a missionary in South America.
Father Carmine took a seat behind his desk and Father Gary sat opposite. He handed the letter from his bishop to Father Carmine, who studied it, passing his right hand down his cheeks until his thumb and forefinger met at the tip of his beard. “Bene, bene,” he said. “The bishops are finally starting to get it,” he said in Italian. As the two talked for about a half hour, Father Gary again told a little about himself. He could tell that Father Carmine did not speak much English, but would slip an English word in here or there. More importantly though, he understood English pretty well, which meant Father Gary could at least express himself. Father Gary tried to speak some Italian, and though he often made mistakes, he'd learned enough to communicate the basics. “Si, si, io capisco,” pronounced in halting little jumps followed by a long flourish, was a frequent crutch. Yes, yes, I understand.
Father Gary liked the Capuchin immediately and felt he was in good hands. He always looked Father Gary in the eye as he spoke, and his gaze was unwavering as if he were searching for something, testing. Later, Father Gary would learn that most exorcists study people's eyes, as they are the “windows to the soul.” In fact, one of Father Carmine's criteria for discerning possession is when the victim is unable to look the exorcist in the eyes.
Father Carmine's description of how he performed the Ritual— even and calm—made a big impression on Father Gary.
At one point, Father Carmine pointed to a small wood-paneled room attached to his office, really no bigger than a walk-in closet. “I perform the blessings in there,” he said. Father Gary tried to make out what he could from where he was sitting and saw a few metal chairs and nothing much else.
After he seemed satisfied, Father Carmine brought the conversation to a close. “Va bate,” he said. “Why don't you come back tomorrow afternoon at five and we'll get started on the hardest cases first.”
Father Gary's fieldwork had begun.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE FIRST NIGHT
Midway on our life's journey, I found myself In dark woods, the right road lost. To tell About those woods is hard—so tangled and rough And savage that thinking of it now, I feel The old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter.
—Dante, The Inferno
For the remainder of the afternoon, Father Gary couldn't stop wondering what he might see at San Lorenzo the following day. Because Father Carmine had given no indication of what to expect, he pictured the worst—images like Father Daniel's experience of the woman's jaw unhinging and moving over to the side of her face.
All he had to go on was an audio clip he'd listened to on Father Daniel's MP3 player, a recording of Father Daniel confronting a woman who had interrupted mass by shouting at the congregation. Thinking the woman might be possessed, he'd taken her and her companion into a side room to try to calm the woman down. At that poin
t he turned on his recorder. To Father Gary, the voice on the audio clip sounded nothing like a woman's. Deep, raspy, guttural—a cornered animal came to mind. “Devi dire di no!” You have to say no! the voice screamed over and over, followed by periods of wailing and moaning that didn't sound human. “Devi dire di no!” The voice howled again, this time followed by Father Daniel's “Basta! In nome di Gesü Cristo ti ordino di smettere.” In the name of Jesus Christ, I order you to stop.
Recalling that voice, Father Gary imagined what it must have been like to be in that room, to realize that you were in the presence of pure evil. Father Daniel had told him how frightened he'd been at the time. Father Gary pictured himself listening to such a hateful diatribe in the room Father Carmine used, which was so small that he'd be practically on top of the person. If the person went crazy and started attacking, he'd be right in the thick of it.
That night, after his evening prayers he spent a few extra minutes asking God for the strength to overcome whatever lay ahead.
ON MONDAY AFTERNOON, Father Gary again stood among the crowds on Via del Tritone waiting for a bus. He was wearing his black clerics and carried a small bag containing the purple stole he would wear during the ritual, as well as the small red Ritual book itself. He'd purchased it a couple of weeks before at a bookstore on Via della Conciliazione. Even though he was out of practice with his Latin, he planned to follow along anyway.
Sitting on the bus as it lurched through the narrow streets, he wondered how this experience would change him.
He arrived at San Lorenzo around five in the evening, just as the sun was starting to set. Traffic was heavy on Via Tiburtina, and all the rubber tires traversing the cobblestones created a high-pitched whine that seemed to stalk him like an angry swarm of insects as he walked down to the basilica.
