Saturday, December 18, 2004

bootleg exorcism

noun. An exorcism performed by a priest (or other enterprising person) who has not been officially appointed to spray holy water and drive demonic beings out of their earthly hosts.

Real citation: "Up until the mid-1990s, there were only one or two officially appointed priests in the United States. As of 1994, my best sources tell me there was only one. Now there are a dozen closing in on 15. There was a tremendous demand for official exorcisms, yet people couldn't get them. What happened then was that a flourishing underground exorcism movement arose within Roman Catholicism where maverick priests would wind up doing bootleg exorcisms. It was the second best thing. "
(Michael W. Cuneo interviewed by Suzy Hansen, "The Devil's playthings," Salon, http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/16/exorcism/print.html)

Made-up citation: "I put my daughter through Catholic high school selling bootleg exorcisms on eBay."

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