“Does Your Diocese Currently Have an Exorcist on Staff?”

William S. Chavez, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Stetson University

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey

In 2004, the Vatican requested that all Roman Catholic dioceses appoint and train an exorcist, but as Father Vincent Lampert, former exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, told local news in 2011, “to date, less than one-third of [U.S.] dioceses have done so.” Lampert estimated in 2023 that “there are at least 175” active priest-exorcists in the country but not all are known to the public. No single project to date has determined the full regional extent of the Catholic Church’s public ministry of exorcism, one of its oldest priestly faculties; to complicate matters, the Church has implemented information barriers to prevent diocesan and individual exorcist priests from speaking to journalists and researchers.

In 2020, one of my exorcist contacts shared the following: “Our new bishop has asked me not to provide any interviews going forward. I am able to give presentations [in the state] but not outside. However, given that I already had given you an interview and this is a follow up, I do not think that I would be in conflict with my bishop.” I completed a research project on exorcists in 2021, narrowly avoiding these expanding institutional barriers that restrict the Church’s public-facing exorcism ministry.

I resumed research on exorcists in the summer of 2025, but my former contacts led to dead ends in the form of retirements, promotions, demotions, and restrictions. “At this time, I am no longer able to give interviews at the request of my bishop,” said one priest-exorcist I previously interviewed. Another wrote that “My own bishop has asked his priests to decline such requests with gratitude, but consider referring interested parties to experts from other regions.” Few emails to Catholic exorcists and staff within their dioceses produced replies. I had hit a wall.

Despite my training in quantitative research methods, I study religion because of the human element, and I prefer methods of ethnography, site visits, and semi-structured interviews for data collection. To explore the Church’s increasing refusal to participate in academic research on exorcism required a shift toward survey and statistical analysis. With two undergraduate research apprentices, I conducted a geospatial canvas of Catholic exorcists across the 175 major U.S. dioceses. We yielded a roughly 60% response to our survey, and 71% of dioceses responding were initially receptive to our project and research questions. Equally interesting were respondents’ reactions to the project and reasons for not participating.

The Vicar General of the Diocese of Phoenix stated, “While the diocese does not generally publicize the identity of the priest or details of the ministry, it is appropriate to say that such a ministry exists and is available when needed under the authority of the bishop.” Roughly 45% of our responses were similar, affirming the presence of an exorcist on staff, anonymous or by name. In preparation for canvasing, we utilized brute-force Google searches and read hundreds of pages of news articles, diocesan websites, and social media content to determine the information known to the public prior to our calls. Twenty-five percent of surveyed dioceses stated that their region possessed no exorcist on staff, over five times the number determined through previously available information. Thirteen percent of exorcist confirmations were from dioceses with no prior public position or information available in the press. 

Fifteen percent of dioceses provided what we term as a “non-denial denial,” a curt response that rejects a research premise and/or declines participation in the study but does not confirm any information about exorcists in their community. Non-denial denial responses illuminate the Church’s larger culture of secrecy and discretion in regards to exorcism practice. The Diocese of Oakland, for instance, could not confirm the existence of a priest-exorcist in their diocese let alone provide any information about such a figure. The Diocese of St. Petersburg stated that “such information is not for public knowledge.”

Other dioceses provided explicit rejections; these also were vague. A bishop’s administrative assistant for the Diocese of El Paso stated that “There isn’t anyone at [this] diocese that can assist you.” A representative at the Diocese of Crookston instructed the researcher to speak with a priest at their local parish or diocese. A bishop emeritus from the Diocese of Yakima apologized, remarking that we had “chosen a very challenging project.” A deacon at the Archdiocese of Boston likewise cited exorcism as a “very complicated matter.”   

Having to negotiate through the Church’s information barriers, our canvasing calls, emails, and information searches found that at least 57% of the 175 U.S. dioceses have had at least one exorcist active during the last thirty years. To better understand the contemporary practice of Catholic exorcism, we must study not just possession experiences, exorcists, or exorcism rites but the structural dynamics between global and regional Catholic social bodies that regulate the disclosure of information about the ministry of exorcism. 

Note: My research apprentices and co-investigators Júllya Lopes-Machado and Nicole Henry have since graduated from Stetson University, but they continue to be involved with the research through conducting interviews, analyzing and organizing data, and assisting in writing for publication, including this essay. We will present our key findings at American Academy of Religion’s annual meeting in Denver in 2026. 

This Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions.