The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel

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Hello Bishop. I would like to ask you what is your opinion of the exorcism of Anneliese Michel. Do you think the reason the exorcism was unsuccessful was because the the bishop had delayed any exorcism to be performed on her, or the exorcism was unsuccessful because of lack of faith on the part of Father Arnold Renz and Pastor Ernst Alt? - Ruben

 

Anneliese Michel (21 September 1952 – 1 July 1976) was a Roman Catholic who many believe was possessed by demons. She was born in Klingenberg, Bavaria, Germany,  and raised in a fairly strict family. A devout girl, she tried to make reparations for the sins of wayward priests and drug addicts by sleeping on a bare floor in the middle of winter.

In 1968, when Anneliese was sixteen and still in high school, she began to suffer from convulsions. Court findings have her experiencing her first epileptic attack in 1969. It was then that a neurologist at the Psychiatric Clinic Würzburg diagnosed her with grand mal epilepsy.

Anneliese soon started to experience demonic hallucinations while praying. She also began to hear voices, which told her that she was damned. By 1973, Anneliese was suffering from depression and had suicidal thoughts. Her behavior became increasingly bizarre. She tore off her clothes, tried to eat coal and licked up her own urine.

Being admitted to an unnamed psychiatric hospital did not improve Michel's health. Her depression began to deepen and she grew increasingly frustrated with medical intervention as it did not improve her condition. Long-term medical treatment proved unsuccessful. Her condition, including her depression, worsened with time.

Having centred her life around her religious faith, Michel began to attribute her condition to demonic possession. She became intolerant of sacred places and objects, such as the crucifix, which she attributed to her own demonic possession. Throughout the course of the Catholic rites Michel underwent, she was also prescribed antipsychotic drugs, which she may or may not have stopped taking.

In June 1970, Michel suffered a third seizure at the psychiatric hospital she had been staying in and was prescribed anticonvulsants for the first time. The name of this drug is not known, and it did not bring about immediate alleviation of Michel's symptoms. She also continued talking about what she called "devil faces," seen by her during various times of the day. She became convinced that conventional medicine would not work or help her situation. Growing increasingly adamant that her illness was of a spiritual kind, she appealed to the Church to perform an exorcism. That same month, she was prescribed another drug, Aolept (pericyazine), which is a phenothiazine with general properties similar to those of chlorpromazine: pericyazine is used in the treatment of various psychoses, including schizophrenia and disturbed behavior.

In November 1973, Michel started her treatment with Tegretol (carbamazepine), which is an antiepileptic drug. Michel took this medicine frequently, until shortly before her death.

In 1975, when Anneliese was 23-years-old, an older woman who accompanied Anneliese Michel on a pilgrimage concluded that Anneliese was suffering from demonic possession because Michel was unable to walk past a certain icon of Jesus Christ and refused to drink the water of a holy spring. An exorcist in a nearby town examined Michel and returned a diagnosis of demonic possession. The bishop issued permission to perform the rite of exorcism according to the Rituale Romanum of 1614.

She and her parents were convinced that she was possessed. After years of unsuccessful psychiatric treatments, they gave up on medical treatment and chose to rely solely on the exorcisms for healing. The rites of exorcism were performed over the course of about ten months in 1976. A total of sixty-seven exorcism sessions were held, one or two each week, some lasting up to four hours. Michel at this time was refusing medical care, refusing to eat, and talking about her death being a form of atonement for other people's sins.

On 1 July 1976, Anneliese Michel died in her sleep. The autopsy report stated that her death resulted from the malnutrition and dehydration due to almost a year of semi-starvation during which time the rites of exorcism took place.

After an investigation, the state prosecutor maintained that Michel's death could have been prevented even one week before she died. He charged all four defendants — Pastor Ernst Alt and Father Arnold Renz as well as the parents — with negligent manslaughter for failing to call a medical doctor to address her eating disorder.

The trial started on 30 March 1978 in the district court and drew intense interest. Before the court, the doctors claimed the woman was not possessed, although Dr Richard Roth, who was asked for medical help by Father Alt, allegedly said after the exorcism he witnessed on 30 May 1976, that "there is no injection against the Devil, Anneliese."

The priests were defended by church-paid lawyers, and the parents were defended by Erich Schmidt-Leichner. Schmidt-Leichner claimed that the exorcism was legal and that the German constitution protected citizens in the unrestricted exercise of their religious beliefs.

The defence played tapes recorded at the exorcism sessions, sometimes featuring what was claimed to be "demons arguing," as proof that Michel was indeed possessed. Both priests presented their deeply held conviction that she was possessed and that she was finally freed by exorcism just before she died.

Ultimately, the accused were found guilty of manslaughter resulting from negligence and were sentenced to a six months in prison, which was later suspended, and three years of probation. Though a far lighter sentence than anticipated by many people, it was more than demanded by the prosecution who had asked that the priests only be fined and that the parents be found guilty but not punished.

Before the trial, the parents asked the authorities for permission to exhume the remains of their daughter. They did so as a result of a message received from a Carmelite nun from the district of Allgäu in southern Bavaria. The nun had told the parents that a vision had revealed to her that their daughter's body was still intact and that this authenticated the supernatural character of her case. The official reason presented by the parents to authorities was that Michel had been buried in undue hurry in a cheap coffin. Almost two years after the burial, on 25 February 1978, her remains were replaced in a new oak coffin lined with tin.

The official reports state that the body bore the signs of consistent deterioration. The accused exorcists were discouraged from seeing the remains of Michel. Father Arnold Renz later stated that he had been prevented from entering the mortuary.

Bishop Josef Stangl, who approved the exorcism and corresponded by letter on the case with the two priests a dozen times, also was investigated by state authorities. It was decided not to indict him or summon him to appear at the trial due to his age and poor health. The bishop stated that his actions were all within the bounds of canon law.

The courtroom case, called the Klingenberg Case, became the basis of Scott Derrickson's 2005 cinema film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I cannot sit in judgement on the faith, or lack of it, of those administering the exorcism or, indeed, whether or not the exorcism was successful or not. What I do know is that both priests stated that Anneliese Michel was finally freed by exorcism just before she died..

Be Not Afraid

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This view across the water with clouds looming is found where my Retreat is situated on the south coast. When I took the photograph my thoughts turned to an episode recounted in Luke's Gospel.

One day Our Lord was in a boat with His disciples, and He said to them, "Let us go across to the other side of the lake." So they set out, and as they sailed He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke Him, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" And He awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, "Where is your faith?" And they were afraid, and they marvelled, saying to one another, "Who then is this, that He commands even winds and water, and they obey Him?" (Luke 8: 22-25)

We are all on that same journey with God as the disciples where back then, we are all crossing that lake through life to reach the other side.

We can take heart brothers and sisters, the Lord is always with us, even though it may seem like He is sometimes resting. You can be sure that He is quite awake and very aware of what storms arise on our journeys.

We must know that there is no storm in life that God cannot calm. We may indeed come across many turbulent times when we think that our ship is almost sinking. We may fear the raging waves that come along, but with Faith and trust in God, there is nothing to worry about. “Do not fear, only believe” the Lord said. (Luke 8: 50)

God will rebuke any storm, no matter how large the waves, or how strong the wind. We are in the very safest of hands.

When we call out, will we be trembling with fear or with faith will we cast all our burdens onto Him? There is nothing in your life that God can not put straight, this we must believe and remember “For all things are possible with God," Jesus said. – (Mark 10: 27)

."Your faith has saved you; go in peace." (Luke 7: 50)

Christian Zionism

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Hello Bishop Manchester. I would first like to thank you for always taking the time to answer my questions. I would like to ask you what is your opinion of Christian Zionism? - Ruben

Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. Many Christian Zionists believe that the people of Israel remain part of the chosen people of God. I would oppose Christian Zionism theologically, challenging what is clearly a distorted interpretation of biblical eschatology that transforms the Prince of Peace into a Vengeful Warrior God. I recognise that the theology shaped by the Christian Zionist's distorted view of scripture too easily transmutes into a militaristic, anti-Palestinian, pro-expansionist ideology with negative consequences for all parties in the current conflict. It is supportive of the most extreme political positions of ultra-conservative Israelis and deliberately ignores political realities and the existence of other groups, including Palestinian Christians. It is oblivious to the suffering of non-Jews and the long term impact of Israel's suicidal policies. Christian Zionists translate their theology into concrete political influence on behalf of Zionism and the State of Israel.

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Christian Zionism revives issues thought to have been resolved during the first century of the Christian era concerning the nature of the Old and New Testaments, and Judaeo-Christian relationships.

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מאיר דוד כהנא‎

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Hello Bishop Manchester. I would just like to ask you what is your opinion of Rabbi Meir David Kahane? - Ruben

Meir David Kahane (1 August 1932 – 5 November 1990) was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-Zionist figure who founded both the Jewish Defence League in the USA and Kach ("This is the Way!"), an Israeli political party. In 1984 he became a member of the Knesset when Kach gained one seat in parliamentary elections, but in 1988, Kach was declared a racist party by the Israeli government and was banned from the Knesset. In 1994, following the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre perpetrated by a Kahane follower, Kach was outlawed. Kahane was assassinated in a Manhattan hotel in 1990 after concluding a speech warning American Jews to emigrate to Israel before it was "too late." He believed the imminent threat of a "second Holocaust" loomed. Kahane did not support equal rights for all people irrespective of racial or religious origins and proposed a Jewish state "according to the description given in the Bible."

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Following Kahane's death, no charismatic leader emerged to replace him in the movement, and Kahane's ideology declined in popularity among Israelis. Two small Kahanist factions later emerged; one under the name of Kach and the other Kahane chai (literally "Kahane lives"). The U.S. State Department added Kach and Kahane Chai to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations. Providing funds or material support to these organisations is a crime in both Israel and the USA.

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My opinion of the late Rabbi Meir David Kahane is that his way is quite obviously not The Way and that violence should play no part in the aspirations of a leader who claims to be a representative of his people's religion. Kahane argued that observance of the Torah was the only reason to be Jewish, and that "democracy and Judaism are not the same thing." While I agree that mainstream religions are not remotely democratic and that multiculturalism is inherently wrong, I cannot ever condone the extremely violent path embarked upon by Kahane and his followers and, therefore, must express my opposition to what he stood for in both politics and religion.

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"Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

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— Matthew 26: 52

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Healing Prayer

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Dear Jesus, Divine Physician and Healer of the sick, we turn to You in this time of illness. O dearest Comforter of the Troubled, alleviate our worry and sorrow with Your gentle love, and grant us the grace and strength to accept this burden.

Dear God, we place our worries in Your hands. We place our sick under Your care and humbly asks that You restore Your servant to health again. Above all, grant us the grace to acknowledge Your holy will and know that whatsoever You do, You do for the love us.

Amen.

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De Praestigiis Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis & De operatione daemonum

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What is His Excellency's opinion of Johann Weyer and his works? In particular, what is His Excellency's opinion of Weyer's Praestigiis Daemonum (especially the appendix to this work, Pseudomonarchia daemonum, which claims to list the major infernal princes)? I should also like to ask, what is His Excellency's opinion of Pseudo-Psellos' work, The Operations of Daemons? I have never read these works, and I should like to know whether or not they are worth reading (especially, I should like to know, are they orthodox or heretical)? I thank His Excellency for his time and consideration. In Christ, Theodore.

Johann Weyer (1515-1588) was a Dutch physician, occultist and demonologist, disciple and follower of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. He was among the first to publish against the persecution of witches. His most influential work is De Praestigiis Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis (On the Illusions of the Demons and on Spells and Poisons, 1563). Leaving Agrippa, Weyer studied medicine at Orleans and the University of Paris, where he received his doctor's degree in 1537 at the age of twenty-two. In the following years of general practice he came face to face with the witch hunts and was outraged at the pretensions of the Inquisition and its guide: Malleus Maleficarum. He railed vocally and in writing against the discussions in that book of the erotic perversions of the Devil with women, of the fantastic claims concerning the powers of the incubi and succubi, and of the persecutions of "silly old women” by Church and State.

His bluntly stated criticisms forced him to seek protection as physician to Duke William V of Julich-Cleve-Berg, and he spent most of the rest of his life with this intelligent man. After the Duke's death, however, Weyer was forced to turn elsewhere, and he lived the remaining few years of his life under the protection of Countess Anna of Techlenberg. He died in 1588 and was buried in the local churchyard, but his grave site is now unknown. His critical analysis of the scourge of witchcraft, his scientific, descriptive, observational approach to the problem, are the very roots of modern psychiatry. His was the first statement to demonstrate psychopathology as something completely apart from the work of the Devil and something which could be successfully treated. He was the first to outline such treatment. Weyer left evidence that human beings are vulnerable to mental illness and that sanity, to say the least, is a very fragile thing. It has long been recognised that the first book of the Lemegeton, Goetia, corresponds closely with Weyer's appendix of demons, though in Weyer’s text there are no demonic seals, and the demons are invoked by a simple conjuration, not the elaborate ritual found in the Lemegeton. The most striking difference between Weyer’s text and the Goetia is the order of spirits.

Michael Psellos

(image from the Monastery Pantokrator, Athos)

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Michael Psellos or Psellus was a Byzantine writer, philosopher, politician, and historian. He was born almost certainly in Constantinople in 1017 or 1018, and died some time after 1078. His family hailed from Nicomedia and, according to his own testimony, counted members of the consular and patrician elite among its ancestors. His baptismal name was Constantine. Michael was the monastic name he chose when he entered a monastery later in life. Psellos ('the stammerer') probably was a personal by-name referring to a speech defect.

Psellos' best known and most accessible work is the Chronographia. It is a history of the Byzantine emperors during the century leading up to Psellos' own time. It was once thought that there was another Byzantine writer of the same name, Michael Psellos the Elder (now also called Pseudo-Psellos), who lived on the island of Andros in the ninth century, and who was a pupil of Photius and teacher of emperor Leo VI the Wise. Michael Psellos himself was also called "the younger" by some authors. This belief was based on an entry in a medieval chronicle, the Σύνοψις Κεδρηνοῦ-Σκυλίτση, which mentions the name in that context. It is now believed that the inclusion of the name Psellos in this chronicle was the mistake of an ignorant copyist at a later time, and that no "Michael Psellos the elder" ever existed. The term Pseudo-Psellos is also used in modern scholarship to describe the authorship of several later works that are believed to have been falsely ascribed to Psellos in Byzantine times. One of these is De operatione daemonum (The Operations of Daemons).
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These works are certainly worth reading from a researching student's or scholar's perspective. Otherwise I would approach them with a certain amount of caution, as they fall short of orthodoxy and are heretical in much of their content, particularly so in Weyer's case.

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Old Catholic Communion

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Hello Bishop Sean. I'd like to ask a question if I may? I am an Antiochian Orthodox Christian with an interest in Old Catholicism. Would being Orthodox mean I would be able to receive the Sacraments if I attended an Old Catholic Mass? God bless, David Carter-Green.

It would depend on the Old Catholic Mass you are attending. Obviously you may "attend" any Mass anywhere in any public building. Receiving the Blessed Sacrament is something else. There are differing manifestations of Old Catholicism, as the majority of jurisdictions are autocephalous and mostly independent of each another. Even the Utrecht Church from where Old Catholicism originally seceded in the eighteenth century is no longer deemed "Old Catholic" by traditionalists, despite Utrecht calling itself so. This is because of its drift into modernisn, liberalism and it being received into the Protestant Anglican Communion. Some jurisdictions who call themselves "Old Catholic" would be regarded as heretical by any standard. Others are traditional and recognise most of the same rules and strictures as the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, which means, notwithstanding special dispensations, their discipline prohibits those in a non-Catholic denomination receiving the Host. While obviously allowing Roman and Eastern Catholics to receive the Blessed Sacrament, traditional Old Catholics would leave any decision regarding whether an Antiochian Orthodox Christian might be eligible to the discretion of the bishop in question. One is bound to wonder why someone would want to receive the Body of Christ in a denomination and church not their own? The most obvious barrier to those who are Catholic receiving those who are not is the doctrine of the Real Presence, which is paramount in the Catholic Mass.

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There is also the matter of the Filioque, which became a point of contention between the Eastern and Western Churches in 867 when Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople declared it heretical. The controversy over the phrase contributed to the East-West Schism of 1054 and, despite agreements among participants at the Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439), reunion has not been achieved. The filioque clause was probably devised in response to Arianism, which denied the full divinity of the Son. To the Byzantines, however, the clause also appeared to compromise the primacy of the Father, which according to the Eastern Church is the source of deity. An unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the two points of view was made at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439. The Eastern and Western churches have remained separate, and the doctrine represented by the term Filioque stands as one of the principal points of difference between them.

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Tertullian, writing at the beginning of the third century, emphasises that Father, Son and Holy Spirit all share a single divine substance, quality and power, which he conceives of as flowing forth from the Father and being transmitted by the Son to the Spirit. While the phrase "who proceeds from the Father" is found in John 15: 26, no direct statement about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son is found in the New Testament, although perhaps indirectly discernible in John 20: 22 and other passages. In John 16: 13-15 Jesus says of the Holy Spirit "He will take what is mine and declare it to you", and it is argued that in the relations between the Persons of the Trinity one Person cannot "take" or "receive" (λήψεται) anything from either of the others except by way of procession. Other texts that have been used include Galatians 4: 6, Romans 8: 9, Philippians 1: 19, where the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of the Son", "the Spirit of Christ", "the Spirit of Jesus Christ", and texts in the Gospel of John on the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus (14: 16, 15: 26, 16: 7). Titus 3: 6 speaks of God pouring out the Holy Spirit "through Jesus Christ our Saviour", while Acts 2: 33 speaks of Jesus himself pouring out the Holy Spirit, having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father. The Eastern Orthodox interpretation is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent (at Pentecost) from the Father through the Son (ex Patre per Filium procedit). The Latin West states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son together (ex Patre Filioque procedit)..

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