Taiwan Court Expertise Expands

Gotta love those Taiwan courts. First they claimed expertise in English grammar, now they have knowledge of exorcism that puts clergymen to shame....

Four clergymen were ordered yesterday by the Taoyuan District Court to face a detention of 30 to 40 days for injuring a woman during an attempted "spiritual healing" of her.

The priests allegedly used bed linens to bind the woman when trying to exorcise evil spirits from her, following the same practices as seen in the movie "The Exorcist."

Refusing to accept this kind of healing, the woman got hurt while struggling to become free.

The four clergymen were invited to expel evil from the woman by her younger sister, who thought something must be wrong with the woman, as she liked to stay home alone.

Now, you or I might agree that the priests were out of hand, and pointed to small problems like the failure to obtain the consent of the possessed, or the use of violence against another human being. We might also have had a few tart questions for the gendered nature of the conclusion that exorcism was necessary (would a man who liked to be alone have been construed to be possessed?). But our Taiwan courts, heroic in their omniscience, gave the real reason why the priests had to be jailed: they were incompetent exorcists.

Taoyuan District Court ruled to have the priests detained for 30 to 40 days, on the grounds that exorcising evil spirits does not require such violent practices.

See? If only they had asked the judge first, he would have told them how to handle the exorcism properly.

[Taiwan]