This post originally appeared on The Campus Citizen.
Growing up on the west side of Indianapolis, Vincent Lampert was an ordinary Hoosier kid. He was raised in a strong Catholic family, he graduated from Cardinal Ritter High School in 1981, and he went to Indiana University Bloomington to study political sciences.
After two years he transferred to St. Meinrad Seminary and began his road to the priesthood.
When he was a kid, he would have never guessed that he would end up being the Archdiocese of Indianapolis’s exorcist.
Appointed to the position in 2005, he has traveled to Rome to be trained at the Vatican, received requests from all over the world, and performed about 10,000 exorcisms. Exorcists are appointed by their bishop and are treated the same as any other functioning member of the Catholic church. The past of Saint Malachy Parish in Brownsburg, Lampert is one of about 50 exorcists in America who are recognized by the Vatican.
There are lots of misconceptions about exorcisms and exorcists floating around because of movies and television. Lampert says that The Exorcist (1973) is probably the most accurate, although exorcisms never occur at the “creepy house at the end of the street” but instead in a church.
“The Devil doesn’t get to decide where he is defeated,” Lampert said …
Continue reading on TheCampusCitizen.com
