San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone says exorcism prayers in Latin, because “tends to be more effective against the devil because he doesn’t like the language of the Church”.
Cordileone recently performed an exorcism ceremony outside a Catholic church in San Rafael, where protesters had earlier toppled a statue of Father Junipero Serra.
Serra was an 18th-century Spanish missionary priest, long praised by the Church for bringing Catholicism to what is now the western USA.
His critics say Serra, in converting Native Americans to Catholicism, forced them to abandon their culture or face brutal punishment. Read more