Is there an official Catholic repository where people can read actual exorcism accounts?

i just read one this weekend... and can't remember for the life of me where it was but i doubt there is an official place accessible to the general public

Several of the exorcism movies out there are based on real accounts.

Yeah but Hollywood's idea of 'based on a true story' is 'all details are invented but the characters are named after people who actually exist'

I would imagine the Church's position would be one of "don't sensationalize this stuff"; which I think is just a good policy on the matter.

I have a very skeptical friend who's interested in the topic... I was curious if I could find some sources where he can see firsthand that these are not attempts of the Church to glam up the issue to give people the wrong reasons for pursuing the holy.

Yes, I'm sure that may be the case with "The Exorcist", and they will all have had some poetic license taken, but I found "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" to have the ring of truth to it. As far as movies go, I'd say it is the one I think is the closest.

Have you read the book "The Rite"?

I spoke to a very holy Catholic psychologist after viewing Emily Rose because I'd been disturbed by it. (No surprise. I normally don't watch things with supernatural themes that aren't strictly Catholic because my imagination is too uncontrollable.) This lady said she felt that the movie was somewhat irresponsible not to have clearly made the association between possession and the nature of a portal for entry. Emily Rose was made susceptible by a combination of things that weren't well explained.

It may be the closest to reality, but from what I've heard it took considerable liberties...

This book by a Father Gabriele Amorth might interest you, he was one of the chief exorcists in the Vatican I believe;

Source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/An-Exorcist-Tel ... 494&sr=8-1

An official repository? No. I second the recommendation of The Rite (the book, not the movie).

Good book - in it most exorcisms are rather benign. The sensationalism seems more Hollywood than reality.

"Hostage to the Devil" by Fr. Malachi Martin: true and thorough accounts of many exorcisms on 5 or 6 persons. I had to put the book away after i read three of the accounts. Sickning stuff.

(Dont' read it before you go to bed)

I would not recommend ANYTHING but Malachi Martin, he is a reliable source.

??

Did you mean he isn't a reliable source?

Stupid autocorrect 'but' should be 'by'

I disagree.

I am for certain that he is identified as unreliable precisely because he is polemical in today's Catholic Church.

So you think that in 1958 Cardinal Siri was elected Pope, but then the Cardinals forced him to abdicate when the Soviet Union phoned in a threat to nuke the Vatican? And that Siri was elected Pope again in 1963, and twice in 1978, before being forced to abdicate again in each of those conclaves, so that therefore, neither John XXIII, nor Paul VI nor John Paul I nor John Paul II nor Benedict XVI are legitimate Popes, because the real Pope (the Pope in exile) was Cardinal Siri aka Pope Gregory XVII, who was Pope from 1958 to 1989, and that since Siri's death in 1989 the Church has been without a Pope?

Because that is what Malachi Martin believed, and it is, by comparison, one of his more sane and rational opinions.

The sedavacanists have their "theory". If Fr. Martin said this, I certainly disagree and this is a dangerous position. However, this theory in itself does not negate the truth of things that he has personally witnessed and writes about. We can't say he is a liar since he (perhaps) holds to a particular theory that is theologically unsound. Writing about things he has personally seen and heard is one thing; writing about personal theological opinions-even perhaps based on hear-say is another.

I suppose that if what you wrote is true, I would not suggest to anyone picking up his book incase they can't make such distinctions as they read.