An Exorcism Primer

Exorcisms have come a long way since the days of Hollywood's spinning heads

Father Gabriele Amorth, a Roman priest who was the world’s most famous exorcist. He died in 2016.

A reporter colleague called me after reading a New York Times profile of Nancy Pelosi in which her daughter, Alexandra, said, “I think that [the attack on PAUL PELOSI] weighed really heavy on her soul. I think she felt really guilty. I think that really broke her. Over Thanksgiving, she had priests coming, trying to have an exorcism of the house and having prayer services.”

“The Catholic Church doesn’t still do exorcisms, right?” I was probably the right person to ask. And it is not just because I was raised Catholic, served as an altar boy, and was taught by the Sisters of Charity in grammar school and the Jesuits in a college preparatory. Although I am not now a practicing Catholic, my friend figured I would know because I spent the better part of nine years investigating the Vatican for my 2015 New York Times bestseller about the church’s finances (God’s Bankers: A History of Money and…