The Rite

3 stars out of 5

"The Rite" details the journey of an American priest who goes on Sabbatical to the Vatican for some training on being an exorcist. He was tapped by his bishop in the US to be one, and since there are very few ordained exorcists in the US, he had to go to the Vatican to figure out what was going on.

While at the Vatican, he takes a class on exorcisms and also apprentices with a priest who regularly does exorcisms. It takes a while for the priest to get used to dealing with exorcisms and a large part of the book is uneventful. It is informative in the sense that I know how the Catholic church views exorcisms and their doctrines surrounding it. I have read other books on exorcism and demonic possession and found them much more interesting.

When this priest goes in to apprentice, we get little to no backgrounds on the people coming to visit. The exorcism itself consists mainly of reading out of the exorcism rite prayer book. And according to the priests, they often treat people for years and years – some people showing gradual improvement and occasionally they have a full exorcism. This doesn’t strike me as particularly effective, but it could just be my general ignorance with respect to possession. I found books on the same subject by Malachi Martin and M. Scott Peck much more enlightening. There are some good moments in this book, but overall I was not impressed.