Dear Omar:

The Smurl Case is one of a infestation of a house and harassment of its owners, and not possession of a human being. The Church will rarely officially get involved in infestation cases, thus the article's reference that the Church had to be "forced" to get involved infers something that is unfair. This is not the same thing as refusing to perform an exorcism on a human being. The Rite of Exorcism applies to human beings.

In any event, even in a exorcism of a human being who is possessed, exorcisms sometimes are not successful, or are successful only after repeated exorcisms over a long period of time.

There is one famous case where the official exorcism did not work, but when a lay woman, a religious sister, prayed for the person, the person was delivered.

In the Smurl case we are talking about an infestation. The same is true there too. House cleansings (exorcisms) may not be immediately successful and have to be repeated.

While God can certainly cast out a demon from a house or a person in a nanosecond, He rarely does that. So the question is why does God allow the demons to stay even when confronted with the prayers of the Church?

There can be many reasons that we can suggest, but only God knows His own mind, of course. Some of the reasons that we know about include the need for the people involved to learn something, perhaps about the majesty and power of God. Perhaps God is allowing the suffering to continue to strengthen the spirits of the people involved.

But one of the major reasons that exorcisms do not work right away is that there are "hooks" in the lives of the people involved that allow the demons to hang on. That is why our Deliverance process is a counseling one over several months. We explore all areas of a client's life to help rid himself of all hooks that demons may use as an excuse to remain in the person's life.

For example, one of our sessions deals with issues of Forgiveness. If a person is holding a grudge or otherwise not forgiving someone, that can be a hook for a demon to hang onto. Thus, in order to have a successful deliverance we need to help the client resolve his problem of unforgiveness. If the client does not forgive, then even if we cast out demons, they would just come right back using the hook of unforgiveness as the entry point.

Sometimes it may take several exorcisms to get through these issues.

In the Smurl case there is another reason why things did not go quite successfully -- because of the Warrens and their ungodly methods.

The Warrens, and the Smurls, resorted to psychics and occult means. The Warrens also brought in the schismatic Bishop McKenna, a person in rebellion against the Church, and used all manner of means that is an affront to God. The demons do not have to obey a rebellious bishop. They do not have to respond to occult techniques. In fact, such things gives them power to remain.

The Warrens have done considerable damage to people because of the occult techniques they often employ. Since they, unfortunately, have become the model of "ghost hunting" and such, most of the Ghost Hunting teams out there are highly contaminated with the Warrens ridiculous theories (that also at times violate Christian theology) and dangerous techniques.

We are actively involved in trying to re-educate people who have been contaminated by the Warrens. All of the "ghost hunting" shows on TV show signs of their contamination. The approach of the Warrens was not in accord with Christianity.

With such an improper approach, success in casting out the demons from the Smurl's house became lightyears more difficult.

I might add here, that much of the phenomena of poltergeist is not demonic. In most all cases of poltergeist there are pubescent girls (or boys) in the house. The poltergeist phenomena seems to be associated with the extreme libidinal energies that somehow cause kinetic effect. The intensity of items in the house flying across the room, for example, seem to be in direct proportion to the proximity of the child. The more distance one is from the child the less intense the phenomena. The child seems to be the focal point. As the child moves through puberty, the phenomena stops.

This illustrates the very complex dynamics that can be involved in these cases. 

As to the veracity of the Smurl case, Joe Meineke, my co-host to this forum, may have a better idea as to that. I will see what he has to say and post it later.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary