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Police Officer and Two Other Adults Criminally Charged After Holding Teen for 12-Hour Exorcism

180px-saintfrancisborgia_exorcismA South Australian police officer Senior Constable Roger Sketchley, 28, and two other adults have been charged with holding a teenager for 12-hours in an exorcism ritual after he complained of stomach pains. The officer is part of a Lutheran Church in Australia.


The adults were running a youth camp and restrained the boy after he told them of stomach cramps. It appears that, in this church, you immediately go for the exorcism kit rather than the Tums when faced with stomach problems.

With all of the exorcism cases and abuses, we may have to create an exorcism and the law seminar, here and here and here and here.

For the story, click here.

8 thoughts on “Police Officer and Two Other Adults Criminally Charged After Holding Teen for 12-Hour Exorcism”

  1. Pingback: Daily Briefing — 7th-8th July 2009 « Little Alex in Wonderland

  2. When will they come for you? Coming soon to any from of Religion. But is this really a valid exorcism. FYI, the Catholic Church does not have a the exclusivity for exorcisms. Would Mike S. care to share on this?

  4. Exorcism is clearly covered under the dept. of law.

    This is not an exorcism story but it’s a story about church and how religious ideology can account for so much pain in our lives. (Plenty of secular ideology works the same way.) from This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=360

    “360: Switched At Birth

    On a summer day in 1951, two baby girls were born in a hospital in small-town Wisconsin. The infants were accidentally switched, and went home with the wrong families. One of the mothers realized the mistake but chose to keep quiet. Until the day, more than 40 years later, when she decided to tell both daughters what happened. How the truth changed two families’ lives—and how it didn’t.”

  5. Rich,

    In some corners of this nation Episcopalians are the snake handlers!

  6. I thought exorcisms were a Catholic thing or a fundie/evangelical thing, but Lutherans. I would think they’d view this as papist nonsense.

  8. While I am not shocked at this kind of behavior from Australians, I am a bit shocked it involves Lutherans. All the Lutherans I know, and that’s a few, are all much better behaved than that.

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