"The Catholic Church is reporting that the number of demands for exorcism have tripled in the last year."
The article suggests that Catholic leaders believe that only one in 50K situations in which exorcism is requested are genuine. When you factor in the tiny percentage of people who request them —and 49,999 out of 50,000 of those are fake — that leaves a pretty small number.
Although I don’t think that demon possession is very common here in the U.S., I would guess it would be more than that.
"The Midrash Detective"
Per Ed’s comment, Acts 19:15 comes to mind in light of the decisions of the Council of Trent, which codified faith + works and the rejection of all of the Solas. Now God in His mercy might decide to remove demons afflicting Catholics during exorcisms, but if indeed the rejection of the Solas (and heavy modification of the 1st Fundamental) amounts to the rejection of Christ—and this is of course standard Protestant doctrine—I’m not persuaded that a priest would, as a rule, be blessed in this endeavor.
Transitively, I would also wonder how well they’d do at recognizing valid cases for demon possession.
On a side note, I would also wonder, given the at least superficial similarity of the behavior of possessed people in the NT to the symptoms of some mental illnesses, whether the larger proportion of the possessed in the U.S. might be found to a degree in the mental health systems of our country.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion