An exorcist on tattoos.

The following is from Fr Z's blog.

[The contributor is an exorcist, whom I know and trust. Fr. Z]

Our bodies do not belong to us to mar according to our whims. St. Paul never tires of reminding us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. Just as I ought not carve my initials in the wall of the Holy Sepulcher, so too, ought I not permanently mark my body. My body is not my property since I am not the author of it.

Tattoos, in their original usage, are a form of manifestation of allegiance to pagan deities. Paul tells us all that all the gods of the pagans are demons.

I have dealt with with people who thought they had innocuous tats on their bodies. When I asked one girl why the “t” in a word was an inverted Cross, she had no answer and was quite angry at the artist. She had no idea.

Sometimes tattoo artists have satanists curse the ink so that the bearer have a permanent malefice (demonic fortuna – something akin to an anti-sacramental, a physical object that bears a curse) in their body. Why do they do this? A proclivity to malice, for certain; but also so that they can earn brownie points from Satan for the amount of people they can infect.

When I decommission tattoos, I use the formula from the Roman Ritual for “Reconciliation of a Profaned Church”, altering the words where appropriate. I paint over it with exorcised oil, using a Q-tip. Sometimes they scream as if I were skinning them alive. Sometimes it just hurts a bit. Often they feel nothing.

I know an ex-nun who got some ink. When I did a mental exorcism of the tattoo (She wasn’t looking at me and didn’t know what I was doing in my mind) she jolted. Upon telling her that she was compromised thanks to the tattoo, she then told me that she had all the nuns in her former convent get ink from the same guy. All of them left the convent within 6 months.

I deal with this stuff all the time. Some of the suffering that has resulted from it is quite sad. Onthe other hand, the worst part of tattoos is that they offend the One Who made our bodies and owns them.

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Dr Bobus

Sep 4, 2020

Sorry for the delay.

1. Following your link Rituale Romanum, I only found an English translation. Roman Ritual. I read the text, even though I distrust translations.

Further, that is not the latest Rituale Romanum. I don't have access to the newest version, so I don't know what it says.

2. The text referred to by you, however, cites the Council of Trent. And that reminds me of a bigger problem. Trent says there are seven grades of Orders, but Ministeria Quaedam (Paul VI) says there are only three (Diaconal, Presbyteral, and Episcopal). Subdiaconate is de facto suppressed, and the Minor Orders are gone, replaced by Lay Ministries.

O tempora! O mores!

3. I have known Fr Zuhlsdorf well for almost thirty years, and I trust his judgment of the priest/exorcist. I will say, however, that I have known many really good priests and theologians who want no part of exorcisms. My impression has been that there is so much opposition to their ordinary duties, they're loathe to take on

BTW, the late Fr Amorth, the renown exorcist of Rome, was a fan of Medugorje

4. Re Tattoos: I was told some time ago by an Irish priest historian that the Irish monks had a single dot tattooed on their eyelids.

Ultraviolet

Sep 14, 2020

Point 1.) If you wish to show the English translation is faulty, go ahead. :)

Point 2.) Neither do I. I just checked my hard-copy of the Collectio Rituum (dated 1954) and I can say categorically there is no rite for "decommisioning tattoos". If it comes to it, I can photograph the actual index as proof. In a word, this priest is making up a Catholic rite that does not exist.

Nothing in the Catechism about tattoos, either. I know you won't bring up Leviticus 19:28 for the same reason centuries of clean-shaven Popes wouldn't, either. ;-)

Point 3a.) Knowing a man for a long time doesn't mean that man's judgement is inherently correct. argumentum ad antiquitatem.

Point 3b.) Bringing up Fr. Amorth is a red herring. I didn't mention him. His believe in Medugorje could count as a fallacy of composiion, too. Yeah, I'm nit-picking. You're one of a very few people here who are actually worth this sort of nit-picking.. ;-)

Point 4.) Was your "Irish priest historian" a fellow named J.M. Clark?? If not, he's almost surely quoting Clark from The Abbey of St. Gall As a Centre of Literature & Art (Cambridge: University Press, 1926) pg.27.. That's one of the few places where the "eyelid tattoo" story is mentioned. See note 16 here.

Either way, I'm glad you mentioned these Irish monks because it show, even with a purely "Western European" tradition, that tattoos are not inherently satanic. Quite the opposite, tattoos can be a powerful statement of faith, precisely because they're permanent.

Even Saint Peter denied Christ three times the face of anti-Christian persecution.

Egyptian Christians, living in what is now a Muslim-dominated country, do not deny Christ. They deny themselves the option of denying Him.

Dr Bobus

Sep 16, 2020

1. I mentioned Fr Amorth as an example of a renown exorcist whose opinion are sometimes circumspect. Whatever good these people do, they are not necessarily competent theologians.

2. The Irish historian was the late Fr Liam Swords.

Whatever contribution made by Irish monks, it is problematic whether they were in the Western Tradition. They certainly weren't Roman and lacked, among other things, the civitas. And they predated Benedictine monasticism. They were great ascetics and travelers, more like friars than mons.

3. Why cite a 1954 instruction? The point is that these books were revised--for good or ill--after Vat II. And to a great extent they were never juridically replaced,

Further, any pre Vat II prohibition of changing the words of a rite is superfluous: 99% of diocesan priests didn't have the Latin facility to change the words. Of that 1%, probably 99% were well enough educated not to attempt it.

On the other hand, any post Vat II proscription would be all but useless because the use of the vernacular at least implicitly encourages priestly spontaneity in rites.

Ultraviolet

Sep 16, 2020

1. I fully agree.... begging the question if their boldly stated claims about the evils of tattoos have any theological support.

2. Since you brought them up, *shrug* If you want to criticize your own examples, I certainly won't interfere.

3. "Why cite a 1954 instruction?"

Precisely because it DOES pre-date Vatican 2. There is a popular argument that everything resulting from or presented after Vatican II is a.) modernism and b.) in error. All of it. Goes without saying that's 1.) a fallacy of composition and 2.) a genetic fallacy as well.

It's also rank hypocrisy because when BXVI released "Summorum Pontificum" such critics of the post-Conciliar Church didn't apply their standards evenly. For obvious reasons.

So, if post V2 books don't have a "rite" for "decommissioning tattoos", there will always be someone ready to claim more of the Church's great traditions have been lost.

Point is, no such "rite" existed in the Catholic Church -before- Vatican II, either. So whatever "rite" this exorcist is inventing, he's operating outside those of the Catholic Church.

Ultraviolet

Aug 24, 2020

According to the same Rituale Romanum this "exorcist" is citing, he himself is anathema.

"When I decommission tattoos, I use the formula from the Roman Ritual for "Reconciliation of a Profaned Church", altering the words where appropriate."

It is NOT "appropriate" to alter the words or the purpose of a rite in the Catholic Church.

This "exorcist" should read his Rituale Romanum a little more closely. :
---
PART I. GENERAL RULES FOR ADMINISTERING THE SACRAMENTS

2. "If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, wont to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be contemned, or arbitrarily omitted by the ministers without sin, or be changed into other new ones at the option of any pastor of the churches: let him be anathema."

The "formula" this "exorcist" uses is part of the RITE For Reconciling A Profaned Church.

A rite for reconciling a structure is not a rite for "decommisioning tattoos". There is no such rite. The Rituale Romanum says that a priest who changes the rites of the Church "into other new ones" is anathema.

This was also stated by the Council of Trent as an "excommunicable offense" as a violation of the Sacraments.

13. If any one saith, that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, wont to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin be omitted at pleasure by the ministers, or be changed, by every pastor of the churches, into other new ones; let him be anathema.

Dr Bobus

Sep 14, 2020

You have demonstrated a huge problem in the Church right now. There are two sets of instructions for almost everything, and priests often arbitrarily pick and choose from both.
Welcome to the Vatican II ChurchMore

Ultraviolet

Sep 14, 2020

No offense, but this isn't a problem created by the Vatican II Church. This is a problem created by a priest inventing a "rite" that does not exist and never has existed within the Church.

Dr Bobus

Sep 16, 2020

Dead wrong. See above: Latin vs verncular.
BTW, in most of the Novus Ordo masses I have attended, certain words of the rite are changed.More

Dead wrong. See above: Latin vs verncular.

BTW, in most of the Novus Ordo masses I have attended, certain words of the rite are changed.

Ultraviolet

Aug 24, 2020

"Tattoos, in their original usage, are a form of manifestation of allegiance to pagan deities."

Wrong The oldest tattoos found on a human body yet were a.) decorative and b.) used in some primative theraputic medicine.
www.si.edu/blog/ancient-ink-ice…

"I have dealt with with people who thought they had innocuous tats on their bodies."

"Thought"??? So the tattoos WEREN'T "innocous"? Over a thousand years ago someone got a tattoo of the Archangel Michael were they misled? ;-)
www.ancient-origins.net/…/high-tech-scan-…

Or the Copts who tattoo themselves with crosses as a way of pledging their faith in the face of Muslim oppression?
cruxnow.com/…/tattoos-arent-j…
copticorphans.org/iftattooscouldtalk/

"Sometimes tattoo artists have satanists curse the ink so that the bearer have a permanent malefice..."

[citation needed] Frankly, this sounds like the same fanciful nonsense promoted on daytime talk-shows during the "satanic panic".

More likely they don't. Only believers in satanism would bother doing so and most people are not satanists. No evidence tattoo artists are any exception.

Counter examples are easily found. Like this family of Christian tattooists who've been pushing ink for the last 700 years.
thefederalist.com/…/meet-family-tat…