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The person subjected to exorcism may be restrained so that, in the view of the Church, they do not harm themselves or any person present. The exorcist then prays and commands the demons, which are supposedly possessing the subject, to retreat. The Catholic priest recites certain prayers – the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, and the Athanasian Creed.
The Catholic practice of exorcism is carried out solely by ordained priests who have received direct orders from the highest echelon of the Catholic church. The priest initially carries out a ' discernment ', when he believes that all biomedical attempts have failed to find the cause of the 'possession' he looks for 'spirits' or 'demons' in the ...
According to the Catholic Church, private revelations come from God, while false revelations come either from human or demonic sources. Just as in exorcism, the Catholic Church is careful to distinguish between supernatural events, mental illness, drug abuse, deception, and demonic activity. The church gathers a team of scientists, theologians ...
The Catholic Church played an important role in shaping of debate on demonology, but the discourse was not much affected by the Reformation. Martin Luther was also convinced about the reality and evil of witches, and facilitated development of Protestant demonology.
The incarnation of the demons has been a problem in Christian demonology and theology since early times. A very early form of the incarnation of demons was the idea of demonic possession, trying to explain that a demon entered the body of a person with some purpose or simply to punish that one for some allegedly committed sin.
In the 15th century, Catholic exorcists were both clerical and lay, since every Christian has the power to command demons and drive them out in the name of Christ. [ 21 ] The Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul V contained the Latin exorcism titled De exorcizzandis obsessiis a daemonio ("On the exorcism of the people possessed by Satan").
Luther's view of practitioners of magic as quasi-demons was at odds with the Catholic view that emphasized choice and repentance. He also argued that one of the most serious perversions wrought by magic was the threatened degeneration of traditional female roles in the family.
During this period, the Church was also a major patron of engineering for the construction of elaborate cathedrals. Since the Renaissance, Catholic scientists have been credited as fathers of a diverse range of scientific fields: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) pioneered heliocentrism, René Descartes (1596-1650) father of analytical geometry and co-founder of modern philosophy, Jean-Baptiste ...