I begin today with awful news about Father Carlos Martins, the Catholic exorcist I’ve praised recently in this place. This broke over the weekend:
A St. Jude relic traversing the United States came to a stop this week, while the priest organizing the tour faces an Illinois police investigation over alleged inappropriate conduct involving children.
The priest, Fr. Carlos Martins, is well-known for ”The Exorcist Files,” a 2023 podcast series featuring dramatic audio portrayals of allegedly demonic encounters Martins claims to have experienced in ministry as an exorcist.
According to a statement from Queen of the Apostles parish in Joliet, Illinois, Martin was accused Thursday of an unspecified “incident” involving students which prompted Fr. Michael Lane, parish moderator, to contact the police.
Martins “was confronted with the information,” Lane wrote, and “we informed the priest that he must depart from our parish and our diocese.”
You might assume, as I initially did, that “inappropriate conduct involving children” involves sexual misconduct. It’s not true. It’s not remotely true! I gathered more information on the incident — information I am not yet authorized to make public, but will as soon as police finish their investigation — but I can assure you that this is nonsense. As we will all soon know, it’s an example of an innocent Catholic priest held up to humiliation and contempt, including by Catholic authorities, in a hysterical overreaction by people eager to believe the worst about all priests.
RELATED: Exorcist Fr. Carlos Martins Alleges Defamation by The Pillar
I have every confidence that Father Martins will be exonerated, and soon. Watch this space for the whole story, as soon as I can tell it. It’s important to me, though, that you all know that this is a bullsh*t slander against a priest who did nothing wrong. You all know that Rod Dreher is the last person to side automatically with a cleric accused of wrongdoing against a child. My outrage over this kind of thing, and decades of lying and cover-up by Catholic authorities, cost me my Catholic faith. But justice is justice; what Father Martins is suffering now is profoundly unjust. Even after he is cleared, there will be many people who assume he is some kind of dirtbag abuser.
Note well that this happened right after his excellent new book, The Exorcist Files, was released. It’s not the only bad thing that has happened surrounding the book’s publication. Shortly before, Father Martins had an accident that broke two of his ribs. And his literary agent heard a noise in his house, and went downstairs to find that a pipe had burst, flooding the first floor. The agent, an older man, slipped on wet tile, broke two ribs, and sustained a head injury. Now this.
Continue reading at Rod Dreher’s Diary