When Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wrote Ghostbusters, I don’t think they foresaw it one day being used as a clumsy metaphor to open a Planet Ivy article. Yet here we are 29 years on.
With that in mind, the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, Antonio MarÃa Rouco Varela, has selected eight recruits who will be specially trained to combat the recent rise in cases of “demonic possessionâ€. These handpicked soldiers of fortune will battle Satan as expert exorcists. A veritable crack unit of ghostbusters.
The decision was taken following a huge increase in reported cases of demonic interference. The alleged victims of otherworldly attacks claimed to have opened a door to hell by practicing ‘black magic’ and other stalwarts of the occult such as Ouija, palm reading and fortune telling.
The Catholic Church Catechism explains what constitutes an exorcism: “When the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism.†The recruits will be trained using the work of author José MarÃa Zavala, Here’s How To Beat the Devil.
The laconic nature of the book title aside, it is easy to see why his work was chosen. In his book, the expert and knowledgeable Zavala outlines how “John Paul II was the first Pope in four hundred years to face down the devil in a rite of exorcismâ€. The grizzled veteran went head to head with Beelzebub himself. A young girl, the target of the possession, “did nothing but spit, writhe, and crawl on the ground.†Pope 1 – 0 Satan.
In other news, I hear Aykroyd and Ramis will be penning the screenplay; Bad Pope: Crisis of Faith.
