RITE OF EXORCISM

QUESTION?

Briefly, how did the Rite of Exorcism develop in the Church?

ANSWER!

Fr. Jeffrey Grob (Chicago Exorcist): Early on in the Church, figures such as St. John Chrysostom and Tertullian said that anyone in virtue of their baptism could exorcise. It wasn’t a rite but a name—the name of Jesus. But this notion is grounded in scripture. The Apostles suffered persecution for the sake of Jesus’s name. That was the case for the first several centuries of the Church. Then at the Fourth Council of Carthage [398] we see for the first time the ordination of the exorcist. It remained a minor order for centuries.

At Mundelein Seminary here in Chicago, visitors to the chapel can see printed on the steps leading up to the sanctuary each of what the Church considered the minor orders, including that of exorcist. The exorcist continued as a minor order until 1972 when Blessed Pope Paul VI revised the minor orders altogether.

But in the development of the Rite of Exorcism, it isn’t until 1614 that we see a formal rite of exorcism for the universal Church, which was, like much else in the Church at the time, such as the seminary system and liturgical books, formalized and standardized during the time of the Reformation. There were many indigenous, localized prayers used, and a few small manuscripts here and there, many of which contained the Prologue of John as a principal scripture piece in those prayers. Effectively, from 1614 down to 1998, there were a couple minor changes to the rite down through the centuries. In 1998, the revised rite was promulgated, which was already called for as a result of the Second Vatican Council - https://adoremus.org/2018/01/14/understanding-exorcism-interview-father-...