The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of AnimalsEvans, E. P. (Edward Payson)
History
The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals
Evans, E. P. (Edward Payson)
Animals -- Law and legislation -- History; Animals, Prosecution and punishment of -- History; Trials -- Europe
The Catholic Church has a general form of _Benedictio a daemone
vexatorum_, for the relief of those vexed by demons; and Pope Leo XIII.,
who was justly esteemed as a man of more than ordinary intelligence and
more thoroughly imbued with the modern spirit than any of his
predecessors, composed and issued, November 19, 1890, a formula of
_Exorcismus in Satanam et Angelos Apostatas_ worthy of a place in any
mediæval collection of conjurations. His Holiness never failed to repeat
this exorcism in his daily prayers, and commended it to the bishops and
other clergy as a potent means of warding off the assaults of Satan and of
casting out devils. In 1849 the Bishop of Passau published a _Manuale
Benedictionum_, and as late as 1893 Dr. Theobald Bischofberger described
and defended the practice of the papal see, in this respect, in a brochure
printed in Stuttgart and entitled _Die Verwaltung des Exorcistats nach
Massgabe der römischen Benediktionale_.
That these formulas are still deemed highly efficacious is evident from
the many recent cases in which they have been employed. Thus in 1842 a
devil named Ro-ro-ro-ro took possession of “a maiden of angelic beauty” in
Luxemburg and was cast out by Bishop Laurentius. This demon claimed to be
one of the archangels expelled from heaven, and appears to have rivalled
Parson Stöcker and Rector Ahlwardt in Anti-semitic animosity; when the
name of Jesus was mentioned, he cried out derisively: “O, that Jew! Didn’t
he have to drink gall?” When commanded to depart, he begged that he might
go into some Jew. The bishop, however, refused to give him leave and bade
him “go to hell,” which he forthwith did, “moaning as he went, in
melancholy tones, that seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth,
‘Burning, burning, everlastingly burning in hell!’ The voice was so sad,”
adds the bishop, “that we should have wept for sheer compassion, had we
not known that it was the devil.”
Again, a lay brother connected with an educational institute in Rome
became diabolically possessed on January 3, 1887, and was exorcised by
Father Jordan. In this instance the leading spirit was Lucifer himself,
attended by a host of satellites, of whom Lignifex, Latibor, Monitor,
Ritu, Sefilie, Shulium, Haijunikel, Exaltor, and Reromfex were the most
important. It took about an hour and a half to cast out these demons the
first time, but they renewed their assaults on February 10th, 11th, and
17th, and were not completely discomfited and driven back into the
infernal regions until February 23rd, and then only by using the water of
Lourdes, which, as Father Jordan states, acted upon them like poison,
causing them to writhe to and fro. Lucifer was especially rude and saucy
in his remarks. Thus, for example, when Father Jordan said, “Every knee in
heaven and on the earth shall bow to the name of Jesus,” the fallen “Son
of the Morning” retorted, “Not Luci, not Luci--never!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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