The Comedy Tree News Archive
The Vatican Offers Exorcism Courses - February 24, 2005
A Vatican-linked university is offering courses on exorcism in a bid to educate clergy and the public about the alleged illness and the lure of the devil.
The class, "Regina Apostolorum", is being offered at Rome's Pontifical Academy as a response to the number of work days lost by employers, with increasing numbers of employees claiming ‘demonic possession’ as their reason for absenteeism.
Demonic possession is now the third most popular excuse for calling in sick, after flu and period pain in the testicles, costing the continent an estimated 666 million Euro per year.
Lola Hullabaloo, of KPMG Human Resource Management, says educating management and staff about the illness is great way to spend inflated HR department budgets.
“Last week, one of my staff rang me just after 9am and said he was feeling extremely evil, had very bad skin and that my mother sucks cocks in hell. I recognised the symptoms immediately”.
The Vatican is also concerned about a growing number of people who learn about the devil through the Internet, believing that he lurks amongst internet pornography.
“One minute you’re paying your gas bill and then the next minute the SWAT team is breaking through your door and you’re screaming, ‘I didn’t know they were so young! I didn’t know they were so young!’” said Carlo Climati, a teacher at the Academy.
In 1999, the Vatican issued its first new guidelines since 1614 for driving out devils, after concerns that the guidelines were almost as old as the maintenance and safety manuals used by London Underground.
Among the widely accepted signs of demonic possession are speaking in unknown tongues and demonstrating physical force beyond one's natural capacity - symptoms often seen in the north of England at 11pm on a Saturday night.
