by Matt Baglio
It took a second for the words to register. Father Gary knew that the Ritual specifically prohibits the exorcist from talking to the demon, except in the case of trying to find out his name. It seemed to have something to do with how the person could become liberated.
“No, no, no,” the rasping, guttural voice kept repeating, followed by loud screaming. Like a doctor examining a patient, Father Carmine lifted Sister Janica's eyelid. Her eyeball had rolled completely up into her head. He then tilted her head to the side, poured a few drops of holy water into each ear, and slightly pinched the lobe with his finger as if pressing the liquid into her skin.
The nun immediately went into a fit, screaming and flailing so fiercely that she threw herself onto the floor, where she flopped around like a fish, grunting and growling.
Father Gary sat stunned. She hadn't fallen hard, but he was worried that she might have hurt herself. Before he had time to react, Father Carmine and Sister Janica's companion took hold of her and she sprang up off the floor almost like a bouncing ball, as if her body weighed nothing, and she was placed back in the chair.
Father Carmine continued without pause. The room was extremely hot and Father Carmine's forehead was dripping with sweat. “Recede ergo, Satan, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.” [Depart, therefore, Satan, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.]
A loud screech pierced the room, followed again by that hideous, guttural voice as Sister Janica railed against Father Carmine, grunting and hissing at him between clenched teeth. Finally, after a particularly vicious struggle, the voice said: “Chi é lui?! Che sta facendo qui?!”
Again Father Carmine turned to Father Gary, saying in English, “The demon just asked me who you are and what you are doing here. I told him that you were here to learn to do what I am doing.”
Father Gary's heart jumped into his throat. He looked at Sister Janica as she writhed in agony in the chair, her eyes clenched tight. Okay, he thought, why is the demon asking about me? He couldn't keep his mind from racing, wondering if somehow he'd been marked by this demon.
The exorcism continued for another thirty minutes, as Father Carmine followed the Revised Ritual with the older Ritual, and then brought back a few Psalms and prayers from the Revised Ritual. It was the longest and most extensive exorcism that Father Gary had seen Father Carmine perform, and he could tell he was pulling out all the stops, using every tool at his disposal to try to help Sister Janica. The room had become incredibly stuffy, and Father Gary saw that both Sister Janica and Father Carmine were wrung out. Finally when it seemed like the exorcism might go on for the whole night, Father Carmine smacked her lightly on the forehead, and after a few seconds she gradually came to, her eyes blinking open.
For a moment the room was still. Sister Janica looked as if she might fall out of the chair from fatigue; her black hair was matted with sweat and she panted like a marathon runner after a race.
Father Gary was at a loss for words. His experience this evening had completely changed his understanding of what happened during an exorcism. Was it over? Had the demon been cast out?
Father Carmine broke the spell. “I'm going to hear her confession now.”
Father Gary and Sister Janica's companion stood up and went out into the office to give them some privacy. Later, Father Gary would come to understand the significance of this gesture in the context of liberation. Now that the demon had been temporarily weakened by the exorcism, Sister Janica could truly confess her sins, something the demon would never have allowed her to do otherwise. For now, however, Father Gary saw the gesture as being more pastoral. Here again was an example of how being an exorcist meant more than just sprinkling holy water onto someone and saying a prayer. It was also about bringing the sacraments back into people's lives.
Father Gary and the older woman said nothing as they waited out in the office. He now had the proof he had been searching for—there was no doubt in his mind that what he'd witnessed was a demon. The pain she had undergone had been so intense. As if to underscore how dramatic this case was, he heard a thumping sound as Sister Janica once again started to bang her head against the wall. He turned to the older woman, who looked down at her hands in resignation.
Five minutes later, the door opened and Father Carmine and Sister Janica emerged. She was still a little dazed from her ordeal, so Father Carmine had her rest on his office sofa, into which she sank gratefully.
Father Gary would have preferred to take a moment to digest what he had just seen and to ask Father Carmine a few questions, but that did not seem appropriate with the women still in the room. Besides, Father Carmine had already opened his office door and was motioning in two young women in their thirties. As they entered the small room, Father Gary followed them. It was time for the next exorcism to begin.
Father Gary realized that exorcism could indeed be a lot more explosive than the first two days had suggested. He sat more alertly as Father Carmine began the Ritual this time. As it turned out, the exorcism was similar to those he'd watched the other two nights. As Father Carmine prayed, he touched various parts of one of the women's bodies with the crucifix—her knee, her elbow, her back. Here again was something that the course hadn't talked about. When he touched the back of her neck, she covered her ears and howled in pain. Father Carmine left the crucifix there for a few seconds while he kept his other hand on her forehead and prayed. The exorcism lasted the standard twenty minutes.
After they were finished, Father Carmine went into his office to see how Sister Janica was doing, while Father Gary stayed behind inside the small room. He could hear the two speaking but couldn't quite make out what they were saying. Once his Italian improved, he would realize that the conversation was quite banal—Father Carmine was scheduling her next appointment.
Father Carmine saw three more people after that: a young man dressed in painter's overalls who screamed “Ahhhhhhhh!” loudly over and over as if his feet were being roasted over hot coals; an older woman who went completely rigid; and a housewife in her forties who groaned, whined, and coughed.
Afterward, with about fifteen minutes to kill before evening prayer, Father Gary took the opportunity to ask a few questions. Sister Janica was still very much on his mind. “I have never seen anything so dramatic in all my life,” he said to Father Carmine.
Father Carmine nodded, his face looking perhaps more wan than usual as he confirmed that Sister Janica was indeed a nun.
“How could a nun become possessed?” Father Gary asked.
“It is very sad,” Father Carmine sighed. “It involves the whole family. She is from Austria and her father used to perform satanic rituals in the house; some were performed on her when she was a child.”
Father Gary was astonished, but even more surprised when Father Carmine told him that she had been coming to see him for nine years.
“Nine years?” Father Gary repeated with incredulity.
Father Carmine nodded. “She is incapable of functioning. It is a terrible thing.”
The streets were dark and cold when Father Gary stepped out from the friary and headed up the driveway that bordered the cemetery. His mind was racing. What he had seen that night had completely reversed his opinion on the reality of demonic possession. It wasn't something that only happened in the history books, but was a living, breathing reality in the twenty-first century.
He couldn't get the voice of the demon out of his head, the unnatural way it sounded. He thought back to when the demon had questioned Father Carmine about his presence in the room. He wasn't one to be overly sensitive, but for a split second he couldn't help but wonder, “Is there a demon following me home?”
He wondered if Father Carmine was ever afraid. He had never seen the Capuchin lose his cool, or seem to doubt himself, which was reassuring. In the end, Father Gary knew he had to trust that God would protect him.
ALL THROUGH THE BUS RIDE HOME he sat deep in thought. He was beginning to see how what he'd witnesse
d that night would ripple into the rest of his life. He wondered how many people had such an evil force operating in their lives. Probably more than anyone realized. After just one week of participating in exorcisms, he was amazed that so many of his ideas about what constituted demonic possession had been reversed. Apparently it didn't have to be an all or nothing affair; there were obviously different levels. What constituted those levels or even why they existed would be questions to ask Father Carmine.
Walking through the crowded streets of downtown, he moved like a ghost—savoring the human interaction yet somehow removed from it. He decided to stop in a pasticceria near the Trevi Fountain to buy some cornetti for the following morning. Just the simple act of buying a pastry helped to bring back a sense of normalcy. The bar was filled with the aromas of sweetened dough and fresh espresso. Unable to resist, he opened the bag and started eating one of the cornetti on the spot.
While the night's events had revealed several important things to him, perhaps what mattered most was his realization that if called upon he would be able to perform an exorcism himself. Maybe it was the calm way that Father Carmine had gone about praying the Ritual, or the pastoral flourishes he brought into the process. It certainly didn't hurt that he had seen some pretty terrible things himself as an embalmer, which had prepared him in a way. Beyond the spectacle, what had touched him most was the victims’ profound suffering. And while he knew what it was like to suffer, this suffering was like nothing he had seen before; it went beyond simple pain, much deeper. If he could do anything in his power to help these people, he felt it was his duty. “These people suffer so much,” he thought. “May God help us.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE FALL
The problems or crises which arise, due to no fault of our own, are part of the human condition we call mystery and related to our own vulnerability, our mortality.
—Father Gary Thomas, Town Crier, 1996
One of Father Gary's idols, the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin— who died of cancer in 1997—wrote, “Whenever we are with people who suffer, it frequently becomes evident that there is very little we can do to help them other than be present to them, walk with them as the Lord walks with us.” For Father Gary, such feelings of power-lessness had manifested in the form of guilt. As he helped others overcome tragedy—whether administering last rites in a hospital or comforting a spouse dealing with a nasty divorce—he was well aware that he'd gotten off relatively scot-free. While he certainly didn't wish horrible things upon himself, he couldn't help but wonder, Why hasn't anything happened to me?
IN THE SUMMER OF 1997, Father Gary was pastor at Saint Nicholas Parish, a position he'd held since being promoted from associate pastor in 1993. Initially, he'd started out with high hopes for the parish. Saint Nicholas was a quaint 250-seat church located a few blocks from the upscale boutiques and coffeehouses of downtown Los Altos. There was a real sense of community here; it was the kind of town where he could get to know each and every one of his parishioners. A few things needed fixing; but on the whole, with the right leadership, the parish had the potential to be a good Christian community. In addition, he relished the challenge of dealing with important leaders (one of the founders of Adobe was a parishioner), and he hoped his actions would foster an environment in which prayer and the Eucharist would inspire them to make the right decisions.
After four years, though, his vision hadn't panned out. Try as he might to engage some of his parishioners, apathy seemed to prevail. Was he setting his expectations too high? Perhaps. After all, not everybody has enough time for work and family as it is, let alone time to volunteer at the church. Los Altos being smack-dab in the middle of Silicon Valley and the technological rat race didn't help either. Perhaps he was frustrated at the materialistic society in general, which forces people to dedicate so much time and energy to work in the first place. He also took responsibility. Why hadn't he been able to motivate his parishioners? Was he doing enough? These were questions that bothered him during the spring and summer of 1997.
AROUND THE SAME TIME, Jim Michaletti, a former parishioner of Father Gary's, was undergoing similar soul-searching. Originally from Palo Alto, Jim and his wife had moved to a town in the foothills of Yosemite called Twain Harte, where Jim worked as a teacher in a school for troubled teens. Father Gary had vacation time, so the two decided to get together and turn to the Lord for help.
They went for a hike with Jim's two golden retrievers (Buck and Spitz) to a place called Three Pools, which was near the Lion's Lake Reservoir. The day was incredibly hot, and Jim carried a backpack with a Bible and two water bottles. On the way out, they hiked up a dry riverbed, which snaked through the South Fork Stanislaus River Canyon. Here and there the ground was broken by rocks and boulders, some as big as small cars. While not treacherous, the hike could be tricky. At one point, while making his way over a large rock, Father Gary slipped and sprained his ankle.
As a result, on their way back, Jim decided they should take a different path. A little deer trail bordered the riverbed, and it seemed easier to negotiate. After a few minutes of paralleling the riverbed, however, the trail rose steeply until eventually the two were walking along the edge of a sixty-foot cliff. When they came to a section of the trail where some rocks were covered by moss, Jim's dog Buck slipped and tumbled over the edge, disappearing from view.
Imagining his dog twisted and dead among the rocks below, Jim peered over the edge, but was unable to see anything. “I've got to go down and see if Buck is alive,” he called, tossing the backpack to Father Gary. “Stay here with Spitz and keep him away from the cliff. And watch out for that rock.” He pointed to the moss-covered rock.
Jim then hurried down the nearby cliff, scrambling and half sliding until he reached the bottom. When he finally made it over to Buck, the dog was miraculously still alive—sitting up on a patch of dirt between two clumps of jagged rocks. Had he landed a couple feet in either direction, he would have been killed. Instead, his only injury was a badly broken leg.
Relieved, Jim started back up. However, as he scaled the steep incline hand over fist, he heard Father Gary shout, “Oh God!” followed by the sickening thud as his body hit the ground a few moments later.
From where he was, Jim couldn't see where Father Gary had fallen, but there was no question in his mind that his friend had just died. Oh my God, he thought, I have just killed a priest.
When Jim finally reached him, Father Gary was lying on his back, just a few feet from Buck. Like the dog, he'd narrowly missed the jagged rocks, but his face was covered with blood and he wasn't moving.
Expecting the worst, Jim was surprised to see that Father Gary was still alive, but just barely. His face was cut and one eye was basically a pool of blood, his kneecap appeared to be shattered, and it was impossible to know whether he had any internal injuries.
“Father, can you hear me? It's me, Jim!” he shouted.
Father Gary moaned.
Jim reached out and Father Gary gripped his hand tightly, which Jim took as a good sign. Trying to establish how cognizant he was, he asked him to recite the Lord's Prayer in Latin.
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. …” Father Gary began weakly, continuing until he finished the prayer.
Jim was relieved. No obvious brain damage, but his friend's breathing was very shallow. At that point, Jim faced a difficult decision. Should he stay with Father Gary or run for help? Going for help would mean going back down the riverbed—over the rocks and boulders— for about a mile and a half before he'd reach South Fork Bridge, where he could hope to flag down somebody with a cell phone. If not, he'd have to hoof it into town, another five miles down a dirt road. Father Gary might not last that long. He agonized over the decision for a few seconds before realizing he had no choice. He bent down and gave Father Gary a little blessing on his forehead. Then he turned and ran.
Sprinting over the uneven ground, he screamed for help. It was like one of those nightm
ares when his legs couldn't carry him fast enough. While he ran, he prayed: “Lord, please keep watch over him, please keep him alive.”
Finally he reached the bridge and was able to flag down two old men in a beat-up pickup truck. Neither had a cell phone. “A man is going to die!” he screamed. “We have to get help.” Perhaps alarmed by Jim's appearance—in his rush to get to the bridge, he had somehow lost his shirt—the men balked. With his adrenaline pumping, Jim reached out and throttled one. “Get in your car right now and let's go!” They acquiesced and, once they'd all piled in, drove off. Much to Jim's dismay, however, the old heap would go only about twenty miles per hour. About a mile down the road, they passed an SUV heading in the opposite direction that Jim was able to flag down. Luckily this couple had a cell phone. After describing what had happened, he left them calling 911 while he took off back in Father Gary's direction, hoping his friend would be alive when he got there.
When Jim finally reached the cliff, he saw that an amazing thing had happened during his absence. Three hikers who'd heard his calls for help had come to investigate. As Jim came sprinting up, he saw one, who turned out to be a nurse, bending over Father Gary and talking to him.
The nurse had mopped Father Gary's face using Jim's discarded shirt and had kept him alert by talking to him. However, Father Gary was going in and out of consciousness and his vital signs were low. “He could go at any time,” she warned Jim. Still, their only option was to wait for help. Moving him would risk further damage.
Over the next two hours, Jim and the nurse stayed with Father Gary, praying with him, consoling him and each other.
Finally, rescue personnel—including paramedics, members of the Tuolumne County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team, and a few Stanislaus National Forest Rangers—began arriving. After doing what they could to stabilize Father Gary, the paramedics called in a helicopter, only to learn that all were out doing rescues in Yosemite. They would have to wait for a helicopter to fly up from Lemoore Naval Air Station near Fresno, nearly a hundred miles away.
