So, you want to be an exorcist?

At this stage in the game,it's unlikely that I'll have a second career that's much different than the one I've held up to now. But you never know, and I'm always on the lookout for interesting jobs. Thanks to a recent article from the Washington Post (reported in the Boston Globe), I know that if I spoke Polish, and if I were a Catholic priest, I could consider the job of exorcist.

The Rev. Andrzej Trojanowski, a soft-spoken Pole, plans to build a "spiritual oasis" that will serve as Europe's only center dedicated to performing exorcisms. With the blessing of the local Catholic archbishop and theological support from the Vatican, the center will aid a growing number of Poles possessed by evil forces or the devil himself, he said.

It certainly can't be just Poland, however, that has a growing population "possessed by evil forces". This has got to be worldwide. so forget about having to speak Polish. There remains the priesthood thing...

Although Italy has more exorcists, Poland must be something of a center - think Silicon Valley of Exorcism - because they hosted the fourth International Congress of Exorcists there last July. (I wonder if they had booths for exorcism-related gear, and whether they held any demonstrations. Or was it just boring old scholarly paper and shop talk?

It's a classic case of supply and demand, with the growing number of "people plagued by evil" prompting more and more priests to seek out exorcism training. Who's on the demand side? At least in Poland:

Typical cases, [a priest who does exorcisms] said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said.

Well, Internet addicts I can kind of see. (Blogger be gone!) But yoga devotees? Who'd've thunk it?

Not all countries are jumping on the exorcism bandwagon.

In Germany, in fact, they've been verboten since the mid-1970'2, when a young Bavarian woman died as a result of serial exorcisms. The exorcists, along with her parents, were convicted of negligent homicide. (The Church eventually admitted that the woman had been mentally ill.)

But Poland, as we all know from film reels in The World at War is just a blitzkreig away from Germany, and Germans frequent the Polish exorcism center.

Germany is looking in to having their own cadre of exorcists. A spokesman for the Church in Cologne cited "the abundance of apocalyptic images circulated by the media as a factor" in the uptick in requests for exorcism in that area. (Germany's exorcists will work in teams with doctors and psychiatrists.)

Overall, however:

"Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession,'' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters.

Too bad. For while exorcist was looking like a true employment growth sector.

Source for information from the German perspective: DW-World.