The Alexian Brothers Exorcist Origin

I'm brother Warren Longo I'm an Alexian brother and I been in a lexeme brother for 60 years the Alexian Brothers is not a well-known congregation but we have been in existence for 800 years and our history is one of helping those that are most unwanted the laddie had just came out with the book and in the movie in the 70s called The Exorcist and it was oh it was the talk throughout the United States in fact because it was very it was about an exorcism that was based on a true story and it happened of course that I while I was they had a seminar at a Mundelein College and I was asked because they found out that I was an Alexia brother and that the Alexian Brothers were somehow associated with the exorcism that took place in st. Louis in 1949 one of the reason why I know the history so well is because I have a case study that was done by Father Bishop who helped Father border and who was the exorcism keeping track of what was happening I became in possession of the diary he probably around 1968 and that was when one of our brothers in Chicago left Chicago and I took his place and so I took his office took it over and one day I think it was maybe after three or four or five months in the very bottom of the drawer it would must have slipped underneath the drawer I was cleaning the drawer very carefully and I saw something like a paper so I really grabbed and it was this case study it's in our archives but this is an exact duplicate of it after bladdy wrote the book as I say the there was a great interest and even today whenever I asked that people I've been in Saint Louis for 25 years whenever I asked I do orientation of our new new employees I ask them what do you know anything you know about Alexian Brothers and especially those here in st. Louis and and ever be there be someone who say well my grandmother or my grandfather talked about an exorcism and I said yep I guess that's what we're noted for is the exorcism and I would like to emphasize the Ministry of the brothers in this whole phenomenon the exorcism by the way took place in 1949 that's where it began and it began in January of 1949 in Mount Ranier Maryland were this young boy which we call and in all of them by the way this case study brother Cornelius was the you might say superior or rector of the administrator of the hospital and it's right on the property that I'm living on it was in the old hospital and he got a call in which it was requested by father Bowden to have this young boy and he called him Robby to be hospitalized because there was a lot of things happening to the boy and even though he was doing the exorcism previously the boy wasn't getting the rest and he needed to have supervision in terms of his physical needs as well as his psychological needs and his spiritual needs while the exorcism was going on which is a series of prayers what the Catholic Church has had for since the Year 600 I believe there was many myths about the Exorcist many myths but this is the real the real thing what happened was in January of 1949 a young boy we call Robbie we're probably the brothers promised we would never give out his name and they really appreciated that and we haven't we've always nicknamed him Robbie so Robbie was a about 15 years old and he was having his and was very much involved when we G boards and things like that and this was around the area of Mount Rainier Maryland and so after and so he got sort of interested in these Ouija boards and and after she died aunt Tillie they called her after she died he was living with his in the same house with his grandmother and one evening in January of Si 1949 they both heard a scratching sound like there was mice or something scratching in the house and and they saw a picture of Jesus sort of move around shaking leg and they thought what's happening behind the wall they checked there was nothing it was in another room but just some strange things were happening and when he went to bed he heard some clawing marks and he didn't know what to think about that and so he informed his mother and his family that these strange things are happening and they also were witnessing these very strange things especially at night during the day he was okay but it was at night where we were they kept on hearing this clawing kind of stuff and some odd things going on things going across the room levitating on their own and so they called their minister who was a Lutheran minister and they told him what was happening so the minister I believe the minister brought him to his own home and put him into a guest room and just observed him because they thought if he took him out of the environment maybe everything would would be okay well it wasn't because he heard the same things he as he sat there on a chair while he watched him Robbie he saw Robbie twisting and and saying things and as hearing scratching sounds and the mattress things are going across the room and he said oh my gosh he said so the next day when we saw his parents he said you know let me tell you something the Catholic Church as a special prayers for devil possession which we don't have and I would advise you to go to st. James which is a nearby Catholic Church and talk to the priest there and see what he has to say because they do have this ancient Rite of exorcism these special prayers that they say so that's what the parents did and so the priest in fact did the same thing the priest of st. James Parish he went and but he he observed Robbie in Robbie's home and he just sat in a chair and he observed Robbie in the evening and it was very similar to what the Lutheran pastor had seen strange phenomenon happening scratching and all kinds of things and him screaming and and and even saying some words and in Latin which he didn't think he knew cuz he he wasn't didn't take up Latin in school and so he told he reported to the to the parents Robbie's parents that yes there was something going on and that he maybe should get the right of permission to do the exorcism but before that happened a few evenings after that Robbie was in the morning he was in the bathroom and all of a sudden he screamed because he saw in the mirror in the bathroom sort of scratched on his skin l owe you I s Lewis and he's screaming at his mother he stormed into the bathroom what's going on and he said this this is loo this is on my body and she looked at it said oh my gosh and then she dawned on her maybe this is a sign maybe we need to go to st. Louis get out of this environment get out of this house because they had relatives in st. Louis so in fact a bell Norwich is a northern suburb of st. Louis they had relatives so that's what they did they took the boy and I went to st. Louis Bell Noir and thought maybe this was going to be the end of it and but again the same thing started to happen and it so happened that one of the relatives in Bell nor of the boy was going to st. Louis University so she said that she would go to the head of st. Xavier Church which is the College Church of st. Louis University College Church and talk to the rector there or the the pastor there about what was happening to see what advice he could give and it was happened to be father bowdern and father Beau Dern was an elderly man he was a very down-to-earth person and she told them about this and he said well let me go out there and and just take a look so he did the same thing as the others did and saw that strange things were happening and he said wow the boy would be spitting and all kinds of stuff and so he said well you know there's something going on here and so he said I think I I'm going to see the the Cardinal Cardinal Carberry and see what he says about this and maybe he can appoint an exorcism a priest to do this who's got some experience in this area and it was up to the Cardinal Carberry then when he reported what he had seen that Carnac Harbor he thought maybe the Cardinal would say well I'm going to put so-and-so because I believe every diocese has somebody who is trained to be an exorcist I believe and today at least I think that's the case and but he said that father Bowden was supposed to do it Baldr was a very wise down-to-earth wise man he had a lot of wisdom and I think Carberry Colonel Carbury did the right thing and so he began to perform the Rite of exorcism in the home and he even took him to the rectory and did the same and things were getting out of hand again he was spitting he would spit at the priest he would spit out all those that were surrounding him and he would aim it just perfectly and he things were going across the room and odd things were happening and you could hear some scratching and and he would say some really bad cuss words that would come out of a you know 1415 year old guy kid and by the way he was examined back in Mount Rainer and the doctor didn't find anything wrong with him you know because it seemed like during the day he seemed to be more normal than at night so finally it came to a point it was this was in March that father Bo Doran said you know we can't continue where the family is getting tired everybody is getting tired this boy needs to be put into a hospital they tried by the way to put him in a hospital when he was in Mount Rainer area but every hospital said no no they said D they just didn't want anything to do with him but he said I know a hospital here in st. Louis that will take the boy because they are noted for taking anybody that nobody else will take and so father padorin called brother Cornelius who happened to be the rector of the hospital and said I have this boy were performing an exorcism on him but he needs he should be put in your psychiatric department because he needs physical care or spiritual around-the-clock care and we just cannot provide that and he needs to be around the clock and it's wearing the parents out for him to be too to continue to be with him and so this will give them some rest at the same time and so brother couldn't use without any hesitation said sure bringing the boy here so they brought the boy to the fifth floor of we had three floors of psychiatric patients at the old hospital on Broadway which now we have a new hospital on Broadway which is not ours by the way Alexian brother sold it some 15 20 years ago but it was the an old he was the old hospital and we had a wing of psychiatric care and it was there that father padorin continued with the exorcism one of the brothers who just died about three years ago who was one of the brothers that participated in the exorcism uh on his deathbed he asked that some documentary be done to really show the Alexian Brothers because not much has been said about the Alexian Brothers and their role in this exorcism a lot about the Jesuits which is fine but not very much about the Alexian Brothers role brother John a grinder who passed away about three years ago was one of the brothers that took care of of him and the brothers took care of him 24 hours a day around the clock the brothers took turns one of the the the brothers that was a really a favorite of Robbie was brother Emmet brother Emmet was a very nice guy you could help unlike the guy and brother would take him even outside even though it was March it was during the over on the Lenten season even though just to get him outside a little bit and the boy appreciated brother taking him out getting him out of the building of course he would be there to supervise him and in fact at one point the boy began to run a little bit and brother Ameth helping him pop and get caught up to him and said you know we you got to stay with me I have a responsibility of making sure you remain safe one of the things that was very popular in 1949 I know what that in 1949 I myself was an 11 year old and I remember very very well that the great there was great devotion to Our Lady of fátima brother Cornelius the superior of the the hospital director of the hospital he bought for the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima because Mary in the according to our us Catholics is a very powerful intercessor for us and so he put it in the lobby of the hospital and it was and we still have it and the brothers around the clock not only did they care for him physically his physical needs changing the bed helping him to the bathroom or whatever he needed but they also they they saw the phenomenon that was happening for example they saw dishes flying across the room when they brought the tray and they saw him shouting and screaming and spitting at them and boy could he did he have a good aim he would spit right in the face of the priest or right in the face of the brothers and at one time he fell out of bed during one of his sort of convulsions you might say and the brother had to help him get up and he slung at the brother and all kinds of things so the brothers were very much involved it was about Holy Week it was March and he had been in the hospital for about Oh three weeks and now it was Holy Week and at this time brother Cornelius brought a statue this is a picture of it of Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Michael is noted to kill the dragon which is basically to kill evil to kill the the lack of goodness to kill evil to kill darkness and so he put this on his bedside stand this Archangel Michael the Archangel statue which is now in our archives in Chicago and father Bowden and the priest that were there and the brothers - they all felt that this was Holy Week and that it was at this time that probably the prayers of exorcism would take effect and because they were very hopeful after all and so it was came Good Friday Holy Saturday and nothing happened and then and by the way these prayers were always done in the evening because that's when he was this he would almost change his personality and they're all sort of they're all they were done in the evening and then it was Easter you know Holy Saturday evening Easter morning nothing happened and so I think the brothers and the priests were disappointed because they thought for sure Easter Sunday the resurrection that this would take place that the prayers would be effective well so they did the same thing on Monday April the 17th was of 1949 was Easter and so they thought this was going to work out real good well nothing happened and so that night Easter night nothing happened and as always a well we're going to come back Monday so Monday evening father Bowden came back and it was a very interesting evening because it was that evening at 10:45 p.m. in the midst of father saying the prayers that I will quote it and it's quoted in here and it's quoted in it's a very exact quote now again this is Easter Monday of 1949 April 18th father bo darned kept reciting in his new quiet voice Robby was screaming and arching his body against the torment father boy Dorne said his last amen there came than absolute quiet a quiet that seemed to fill the room father Bishop who was the the one who did the case study and the journaling you might say day-to-day surreptitiously check the time on his watch it was 10:45 p.m. suddenly from Robbie came a new voice a clear masterful voice rich and deep Satan Satan I am st. Michael and I command you Satan and the other evil spirits to leave the body in the name of dominoes dominoes is a Latin word for God immediately now-now-now Dobie knows that father padorin realized was the word the word that the demon had said that Robbie would never speak now begins as father bishops diary the most violent contortions of the entire period of exorcism in what father Bishop believed was the fight to the finish for seven or eight minutes Robbie screamed and twisted on the bed then he calmly said he's gone Robbie looked around at the priests and brothers and said he was feeling fine and to this day he doesn't remember a thing that happened when the devil left him the moment he left there was heard like gunshots father a bishop says that some Jesuits were praying in the College Church and that they around 10 55 or something and this happened around 10:45 10:50 in the evening a Monday evening and Monday after Easter that a light shone some kind of a light and and they could almost look like a figure of an angel which they attribute to Saint Michael the Archangel so frankly where I go when I go on retreat in in Milwaukee the retreat grounds which is a sisters convent has a statue of Saint Michael the Archangel with a spear and it always every time I walk by the witch I walk by there every day when I'm on retreat because I go for my walk it always reminds me of this the story of this exorcism and I we know they got married and everything was fine by the way he even him and his family I turned Catholic they weren't pressured whatsoever they wanted to turn Catholic and Robbie received his Holy Communion during Holy Week during the day because it was a good time to do it because he was sort of a little more normal I know that Robbie communicated with brother Emmett and then brother Emmett passed away Oh quite a few years ago and after that none of the brothers had heard and he doesn't remember any of that period which is good because you know that could be haunting you but he was never haunted by them the Church's stance is they believe that evil can possess somebody but at the same time we also understand there's a lot of fake devil possession to the new hospital was built in 1978 here in st. Louis and the old hospital was being knocked down and brother Thomas before the wrecking crane was going to come the next day the day before they came the area where the exorcism took place and by the way though that room was never used again for any patient it was a really really a storage room he went up and saw the the room that was going to be knocked down bulldoze the next day and he saw that there had been a witchcraft or something there was all kinds of candles and things like that and writing on the walls so somebody had a seance you might say there the room was used but it was never used for a patient a good friend of mine he worked in the receiving room and in fact I remember him saying that one day he went in there and he accidentally locked himself in he was scared because he locked himself in the very room that because he was getting putting some storage in there and he forgot about the fact that he should have not have closed the door because it locked of itself even to this day especially around Halloween there's something that comes to the hospital and say is this where the famous exorcism took place and the lady at the front desk has to usually say to him yes but this is not the hospital because the hospital has been knocked down in 1978 and the new hospital is 1978 so the ex's took place in 1949 so but there was a lot of even a friend of mine who told me that he lived in the neighborhood here and the kids when he was a little kid they all had all these myths about a green scum coming down from the fifth floor and all kinds of happenings and that is not the case and none of the brothers I had any bad experiences after the exorcism no they in fact oh they had a good experience with the family because the family was so grateful and certainly Robbie was extremely grateful to the brothers for for helping him and for housing him and for for all that they they did for him around the clock the church certainly recognized that there can be a possession but at the same time I think the church is knows that it could be something psychologically because there's a lot of things that that we don't know today that we will know 20 years from now about the human mind about the human brain and about how we can be obsessed with something and this could be and the church would have no problem with that I believe that the brothers although they are open to the phenomenon of things we don't understand about the human mind and all that that we might understand 20 years from now but that they were those that really saw it they have said to me when I was a young brother that they believed that this was a true devil possession from what did they had seen because there was just too many things that happened telling even some secrets that person had that how would he know that what do you know these they didn't know the priests and stuff like that so I would say that the III can lean either way but with the brothers with what their testimony I would believe that this is one of the cases where it was probably a true position but I think the brothers believe that something demonic happened and it's especially the older brothers but they too are open to it could be another explanation they're very open that they think that this was probably so because of the testimony of what I have seen and what some of the older brothers are three of us older brothers here that have heard testimony from the brothers who have passed away after this happened several of our brothers were so affected by this that they left the community to go to a more stricter monastic community one of them who I met went to Yosemite to the monks the trappers of Gethsemane and he had witnessed this and he had fected so much that he wanted to dedicate his entire life to God and prayer and that's what he did for the rest of his life he died at gas M&E Oh quite a few years ago but he gave this whole life he just transferred himself from our more active community to a very monastic community dad prays all day long so that's how it affected him most organizations whether they're whether they are a spirit or whether they are religious or secular organizations have a 200 year life cycle and then they go out of existence why are we on our fourth life cycle it's because if you want to remain you have to do two things keep loyal to your values and reinvent yourself so after the bubonic plague which passed over the Rhineland the brothers then looked around and said what is the great need now we're calling that time the big arts and they found out that people with mental illness because people with mental illness were looked upon as demon-possessed they thought there were demons in them and nobody wanted to touch them but the brothers did what nobody else wanted to do and that is why when brother Bonaventure thalen came to st. Louis in 1869 he not only set up a hospital for medical surgical patients but he had a wing for the mentally ill patients then that is exactly where Robbie was set up in a private room there Christopher Coffman who was a historian from st. Louis University did our history and he went into our archives of Europe and he said he was amazed because the brothers were involved in helping the criminally insane helping witches there were so-called witches which they were not who were being burned at the stake and the brothers were the ones that that tried to give them peace that tried to get near them and pray with them because after all we know today that they were witches at all they were they were doing herbal medicine and they were women who probably had those like extrasensory perception and and and so the brothers took care of them and then in our own day I remember very well when the brothers decided in 1986 at one of our big meetings that the plague of the 1980s was AIDS at that time and so the plague which we did in the 1300s was now a new plague of the 1980s and so we opened up a home for people we're living with AIDS and because nobody else would really do it and we're I think one of the first Catholic organizations to to do that and we still have that going and right now we are going through another lifecycle and we're dealing with prisoners we're dealing with the with those with addictions and all the rest of those kind of things which are plaguing our pleasant present society all I want to say is that in in this whole thing whether you believe or don't believe in the devil that's not to me it's not important we all believe in evil there is evil we see it every day we seed in the bombings we see it in the torturing we see that in shootings at schools and terrorist attacks we see it every day but this indicates that good can overcome evil good can overcome evil and it did the brothers worked very hard day and night and they didn't do it with a lot of fanfare or a lot of publicity they did it with the kindness of their heart I'm very proud to be a part of that tradition that to this very day does exactly what we've done since the bubonic plague which is to help the most vulnerable the most unwanted and the most outcast persons in society

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Id: nDFAr09p0NE

Length: 32min 48sec (1968 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 07 2016