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Exorcists in demand to purge Mexico's demons
Jo Tuckman in Mexico City Thursday February 15, 2001 The Guardian .
The exorcist and his helpers began to relax, convinced they had beaten back the demons attacking Arturo Sanchez who looked on vacantly, too weak to move. Then suddenly Arturo leapt into the air, his body contorted and eyeballs rolled back, and the struggle for his soul resumed.
"In the name of Jesus Christ get out, you have no business here!" ordered Pastor Hugo Alvarez. Amid broken phrases of Hebrew he sat astride the writhing 25-year-old salesman who responded with a low-pitched inhuman howl.
Two helpers held down Arturo's legs, while others moved around the church hall shooing away the evil spirits they saw massing in the corners, in the lights that flickered and went out, and behind Arturo's distressed wife who looked on in horror.
Gradually the exorcist regained control, the lights came back on, Arturo vomited and was declared "liberated" - for the time being at least.
"That was a tough one," Pastor Alvarez said after their three-hour sweat-drenched spiritual battle. "I'm going to lose a lot of weight with you," he said smiling at Arturo.
Pastor Alvarez is one of Mexico's foremost exorcists, claiming to have chased the devil from over 5,000 people since taking charge of the Divine Saviour Ministry of Liberation in a working class area of Mexico City 18 years ago.
He says demonic presence is on the increase and his services are in ever more demand.
But this jeans-wearing pastor with his roll-up-your-sleeves, get-down-to-business approach to Satan is only one option for the tormented in Mexico, who may prefer a more traditional exorcism from a Roman Catholic priest.
"I don't do exorcisms just like that," said Father Alberto Alvarez, one of eight priests named by the bishop of Mexico City to serve as the capital's official exorcists. "I need to check out each case, and I need to prepare myself."
Father Alberto said he saw about a dozen disturbed people every week, but most were not genuine cases of possession.
"Each case is a matter for investigation and diagnosis, and if the person is not possessed I tell them straight out that they have a different problem," he said. But once he has dispelled any doubts, Father Alberto said he takes the whole affair "very very seriously".
"It is a beautiful rite, a very solemn and serious celebration," he said.
A new translation of the Latin exorcism liturgy issued by the Vatican last year changes little of the 16th century original, although it does authorise exorcism of places and objects as well as people, and extends the scope of the ritual to include demonic influence as well as possession. It also expressly bans the curious public from the ceremony.
Things do go wrong, however. Last year in central Mexico a priest was accused of torturing a young girl during a non-authorised exorcism in which she received candle wax burns.
And a completely non-institutional exorcism carried out by a shaman left seven people dead, apparently suffocated by incense that filled the sealed room where the ritual was performed.
-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), February 16, 2001