On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers
college in Germany, died she starved herself to death. For months she
had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months
two Catholic priests - with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop
of Würzburg - additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl
with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital -
her body was littered with wounds - her parents, both of them
fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having
called for medical help. None of the priests was punished on the
contrary, Miss Michel's grave today is a place of pilgrimage and
worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the
seventeenth century Würzburg was notorious for it's extensive witch
burnings).
This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and
has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80]
*Christianity kills the cat
On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers
college in Germany, died she starved herself to death. For months she
had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months
two Catholic priests - with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop
of Würzburg - additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl
with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital -
her body was littered with wounds - her parents, both of them
fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having
called for medical help. None of the priests was punished on the
contrary, Miss Michel's grave today is a place of pilgrimage and
worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the
seventeenth century Würzburg was notorious for it's extensive witch
burnings).
This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and
has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80]