JUST days after the International Association of Exorcists warned that rank amateurs were encroaching on their area of expertise comes news of a warning they’ve issued about the ‘misappropriation by occultists’ of images of a ‘revered’ Venezuelan doctor who is due to become a Catholic saint.
According to worried association members, pictures and statuettes of the good doctor have been hijacked by Santería members – and this risks not only confusing simple” Catholics but may lead to an epidemic of “fake” healings.
The association argued that shamans and magicians will take advantage of Hernandez’ beatification to “further confuse Catholics in Latin America,” particularly those who are “practically illiterate” in their faith.
The association now wants the Catholic Church to step in and reclaim their property by ordering followers of the African diasporic religion to cease and desist from involving the doctor in any of their rituals.
The association said in a statement:
It would be very fitting for the Latin American Church to prepare for the important event of the beatification of José Gregorio Hernandez with a great work of purification of the image of his person as used by occultists, unmasking their lies.
Only then will this beatification be a moment of grace for the Church and not of further stumbling and confusion for simple people.
They neglected to say what precise actions are needed to halt this “abuse”. I can’t imagine Santería followers taking threats of excommunication from the RCC with anything other than a pillar of salt.
The association describes Santería as:
An image provided by the exorcists showing how Catholic imagery is being ‘misappropriated’ by followers of Santería
A form of witchcraft widespread in South America which requires animal sacrifice and, in some extreme cases, even human mutilation.
It added:
In fact, Dr José Gregorio Hernandez is considered by practitioners of Santería to be the head of the ‘Medical Court’ [of the religion’s hierarchy]. This has stirred up serious confusion around the figure of this doctor and will produce even more in the Latin American people, if this misappropriation of him is not made clear.
The exorcists explained that Santería posits 21 “courts” of spirits, and its practitioners invoke the spirits of the “Medical Court”, including Venerable José Gregorio Hernandez, in the hope that they will perform cures.
In one ritual, the sick supplicant is asked to bring an image or a photograph of Hernadez to the ritual. After these and other objects, like bottles of water and alcohol, have been consecrated, the supplicant is told to build an altar to Hernandez at home. There he must place Hernandez’s image and the other items. The idea is that the venerable doctor ‘operates’ on the supplicant during the night while he is asleep.
The exorcists warn that this is not spiritually harmless.
The needy person thinks that the doctor, a real historical figure, truly intervened, working miracles with God’s permission, but in reality the spirits of the Court have performed a fake healing, asking the shaman, medium or magician to give them the ‘patient’s’ soul in exchange without him knowing.
The exorcists believe that the use of Hernandez’s image is a relatively late example of Santería’followers abusing Catholic imagery, including ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’, his mama, St Joseph and other saints.
To back up their “misappropropriation” allegation, the association provided evidence in the form of photos of statuettes of Hernandez grouped together with other images, including – oh my ears and whiskers! – a bare-breasted woman.
Using these images, the shamans, mediums and magicians trick the people, by saying that they are doing white magic or even saying that God allowed them to mediate between the saint and the people who have turned to them. We know well, however, that magic is absolutely against the Christian faith and that ‘good magic’ does not exist.
The exorcists stated that many Christians are tricked into participating in witchcraft and told the story of a woman religious whose mother practised the Venezuelan form of Santería. This sister was in poor health, so her mother took her to a “pharmacy” to be cured by a man who claimed to be a “brother mediator” between the Venerable José Gregorio Hernandez and sick people.
Not only did she not recover, the sister suffered more damage to her physical health as well as to her spiritual health, which still causes her great suffering,
The problem of pagan practises encroaching on the Catholic faith in Latin America cropped up in Rome during last October’s Synod on the Amazon when several images of the aboriginal “earth mother” or “Pachamama” were used in rites at the Vatican and displayed in a Catholic church. They were eventually thrown into the Tiber River by a young Austrian Catholic lunatic called Alexander Tschugguel, above.
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