Exorcisms Part 4. Sorry. ... It doesn't add up....

 The publicity on television and in the newspapers was all about "Illegal Exorcisms".

It was said that an "expert" was to coming from Rome to hold an investigation into the "Illegal Exorcisms". The fact is that we may never know why the Apostolic Visitation was called. It may be disappointing for the people who thought it was indeed about the "Illegal Exorcisms" but the facts do not seem to add up to that being the reason at all. It could have been a 'smoke screen' for something else. It could be that the people complaining were a convenient occasion.

For the world it looked to be about "Illegal Exorcisms". But "Illegal Exorcisms" are not difficult to decide. Legal or illegal Exorcisms are a simple matter of arithmetic. You simply count the Faculty Letters issued by the local ordinaries and match them with the people who received the Rite of Exorcism. That does not take two months of Apostolic Visitation to sift.

The fact is that the Apostolic Visitator never asked any member of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer any questions about Exorcism. 

The Apostolic Visitator never asked to see any paperwork at all, about anything at all. He wasn't interested either in asking questions or receiving answers.

Concerning Exorcisms this is all that came back from Rome:

"Exorcisms
The Bishop of Christchurch has put a stop to all unauthorized exorcisms. Some exorcisms performed by FSSR priests in the past may have been approved but other seem not to have been."

Comments:

1. The first sentence makes no sense at all: How can authority put a stop to what is unauthorised? If it is unauthorized, it means that authority was ignored in the first place. So if authority is ignored, how could authority put a stop to what was, and would always be, excluded from? 

2 The second sentence concludes nothing at all. It is not arithmetic. "some... may have... other seem not." This was a question of straight arithmetic. The answer was easy to find. Certainty was possible.

We had headlines! We had TV exorcism graphs on the map! Experts. Unfortunately it produced nearly two lines and thoroughly concluded nothing when a conclusion was certainly possible. Whatever it was all about, it certainly wasn't sincerely looking into Exorcisms and finding the truth about them. Nor was it about anything we were questioned about.

Believing the experience of the Apostolic Visitation was a sincere event in our lives is proving to be a challenge.