Book targeting evil welcomed by priest expert

An Irish expert in deliverance ministry and exorcism has welcomed a booklet brought out by the Catholic bishops’ conference of England and Wales said to help Catholics “protect themselves from the powers of darkness”.

In a statement, the bishops said Deliver Us From Evil does not provide a formula of words to be prayed over others, but is a set of “useful prayers and supplications, humble requests for the Lord’s help, that can be used by Catholics in times of fear, distress or temptation”. The book is published by the Catholic Truth Society.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Dublin-based Fr Pat Collins CM said he was “delighted to hear” the bishops of England and Wales were bringing out such a “timely booklet”, adding that it is clearly dealing with “the everyday battle against the powers of evil which would come in different forms”.

Speaking of the English version of the Rite of Exorcism published by the American bishops, Fr Pat said it has an appendix which includes prayers that “could be said in the battle against evil, many of which are ones that lay people could say”.

“I think what they have done is taken a lot of the prayers from that and augmented it with prayers that would have been fairly well known in England and Wales and brought out a relatively modest little booklet of 64 pages, with prayer resources for those who want to win in the struggle with the dark side. We do very little original work like that in the Irish Church,” he added.