Ep. 28 - The Exorcism of Gina

[Gina 00:15] Hello friends and welcome to I Scream, You Scream, your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries and paranormal perplexities. I'm Gina.

[Kathryn 00:26] I'm Kathryn.

[Gina 00:27] And every month we choose a new topic and a new flavor of ice cream to go along with it. This month, we're talking about demons and we are enjoying some apple cinnamon ice cream while we do so. So as a reminder, if you've been hanging around with us for a little while, why not tell a friend that we're here and then we can all be friends together? I think that sounds like lot of fun. But anyway, until then, grab a spoon and let's dig in.

[Kathryn 00:49] Me too.

[Kathryn 00:53] I'm sad, Demon Month is over. I've really enjoyed Demon Month. Well, it's not over yet. It's almost over.

[Gina 00:57] I have like, yeah, we still got one more. We still got one more. I knew that I was gonna enjoy Demon Month and yet I was still surprised at how much I enjoyed Demon Month.

[Kathryn 01:07] Me too. I think both of us learned so much this month. Which, it's not like that doesn't happen other months, I just... I don't know.

[Gina 01:12] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 01:16] This was a special month. I enjoyed this month.

[Gina 01:16] I feel like we're new women. Yeah. Like I'm Kathryn and you're Gina now.

[Kathryn 01:23] Yeah, we are the same. We're two people with the same soul. Wait, what if we possess each other?

[Gina 01:25] I would love if you possessed me. Can a human possess another human? I would use that power for evil.

[Kathryn 01:35] I know you would. I literally, I just got lost in my brain and that was kind of a scary moment. I was just had like a flash forward to everything that would happen and I was like, no. So many enemies. I'd come back to my body. I'd come back to my body like, whoa, God. What is just destruction in my wake?

[Gina 01:40] No. That would be the best freaking... It's like that GIF from Community where Troy walks in with the pizza boxes and everything is on fire and he's like, oh God.

[Kathryn 02:01] Oh my god. Truly. It would be like, I feel like you would just like... Okay, let's play a game real quick. You have to guess what I would do if I possessed you, and I'm about to guess what you would do if you possessed me. And I'm not guessing, I know for 100% certainty, you would just go down the list of all the people I've ever bitched to you about, and you, as me, would like, take care of that shit.

[Gina 02:08] Okay.

[Kathryn 02:31] You would just take care of it for me. I'd come back with 100% enemies and like Phil would be confused and like that would be my life forever more. But in like a good way. Yeah, I know. I know that's what you would do.

[Gina 02:41] That is exactly what I would do. See, I feel like I can't picture exactly what you would do if you were me, but I know that when I re-entered my own body, what I would wake up to, and in my head, you would put me in the woods, in this magical little fairy grotto thing with a little house on some moss and just little animal friends running around, and it would be a very peaceful, snow white, mystical in the woods situation. There would be some kind of like dark magic element to it that I don't know. But for rite now, it's just like a nice.

[Kathryn 03:18] I was laughing because I literally was thinking the exact same thing I was sitting here like I don't know exactly what I would do but I would do everything in my power to just make sure that you could have like a nice little snooze like I would sleep a lot for you to make sure that you came back feeling rested and I'd make some tea and like...

[Gina 03:24] You...

[Kathryn 03:40] Snuggle up with Rue, I would literally just vibe in your body and just get it to a place of pure relaxation so that you could come back like refreshed and rejuvenated.

[Gina 03:52] You know what I love about this? It's like these made up versions of ourselves are both doing the nicest thing that we think we can do for the other person. And they're completely on opposite sides of the spectrum.

[Kathryn 04:02] Truly. And they're totally opposite. Going to like one, it's like a type of like spring cleaning, but just different versions thereof.

[Gina 04:09] You... No. Well, I'm glad we talked about that.

[Kathryn 04:20] I could not wait to possess each other, truly.

[Gina 04:23] I can't wait to possess you either. We, my friend, need to rate our ice cream.

[Kathryn 04:26] You... I know. Do you want to go first? Or do you want me to go first? Okay, you go first. Have to... Oh, good! Good.

[Gina 04:31] I'm happy to go first. Five million out of five. This is the best ice cream I've ever fucking had. I would eat this every single day. I love it so much. That's it. No notes. Honestly, no notes. I'm going to be making this again.

[Kathryn 04:45] No notes? Okay. Good. Well, send me the recipe because mine is gonna be a three. So, it's so flavor, 10 out of five. Flavor was bomb. I loved the flavor. I just someday, not today and not any day soon, but someday.

[Gina 04:55] No, okay, is it because of the cider?

[Kathryn 05:12] I will respect a recipe and just follow it start to finish. I don't know when, not this month, not next month, but I just, the texture just not it. I just had it thawing for an hour and I still had to chisel my way through. So.

[Gina 05:30] Mmm, that's not what you want.

[Kathryn 05:33] The ice cream, like, yeah, and eating the texture, it just tastes like I'm eating an apple slushie, which is good. Like, I'm not complaining about that. It's just this month was definitely better than last month, but the process, it wasn't the eating of the treat. It was the journey to get to eating of the treat that, like, was not it for me. But you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to let this thaw. I'm gonna use it to make an apple cider latte. Have you ever made one of those? It's my favorite thing. It's my favorite thing to make at home. Just mix together a little bit of apple cider and oat milk, steam up the milk, mix in some espresso, top with cinnamon. So...

[Gina 06:03] Mmm, no. And it's not like apple cider concentrate. It's just normal apple cider.

[Kathryn 06:23] I just use apple cider. You could use concentrate. Yeah, I just put a little like just enough so that you can get the flavor. Some people think it's a little weird with the espresso. I think it's bomb. I think it's so good. Yeah.

[Gina 06:24] Okay, cool. I think that sounds good, because I feel like that would be similar flavor-wise-ish to like a chai latte with espresso in it, like a dirty chai.

[Kathryn 06:43] So, yes, we once went to a coffee shop on the way to Michigan. I don't know, the coffee shop, I guess, was technically into Michigan or in Michigan, but on our way to a destination in Michigan, we stopped at this coffee shop and they had, it was the fall, so they cider chai.

[Gina 06:55] Thank...

[Kathryn 07:03] Latte or like no, it was just a cider chai. No espresso. And I was like, yeah, chider. Thank you. I knew it had a name. Yes, chider. And I was like, hey, let me help you out. Have you ever put espresso? Have you ever made a latte out of this? Put a little espresso in it. She was like, I don't know if you want to try that. I was like, listen, friend.

[Gina 07:07] A chider. Yum.

[Kathryn 07:27] Trying to make it sure all the time. It sounds awful, it sounds disgusting, it sounds wrong, but trust me. So, she made it for me. We got it to go, we were on the road. She was like, you have to let me know, like, don't go anywhere, like, take a sip first. I was like, this is bomb. She was like, oh my god, really? So they all started making them like for each other so that they could try it. And it was like a little local independent place. So they were like, oh my god, maybe we'll add this to the menu, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we have to go back this fall to see if they added it. Yeah.

[Gina 07:57] You do, yeah, you have to go back. That's such a cool feeling.

[Kathryn 08:00] I don't know if this might be a thing. I don't think I invented this or anything like this, but like they had never made it before.

[Gina 08:05] I'm no expert, but I did work at a coffee shop for a few years and I never heard of it. And I worked with some very pretentious coffee snobs.

[Kathryn 08:09] You... I thought you were gonna say you have made it before. Well, it's bomb, highly recommend. Okay, yeah.

[Gina 08:16] I've made chiders before. I've made a dirty chai. I've never made an apple cider latte.

[Kathryn 08:22] So good. Yeah, it's so good. And it is a little weird. I do have to warn people. So.

[Gina 08:26] Just thinking about weird drinks. You're not a matcha person, rite? I feel like I remember that about you.

[Kathryn 08:30] I tried to be, I want to be a matcha girly and it just makes me gag every time, like involuntarily. I think they're beautiful. I love seeing someone drink a matcha latte. Yeah, I love, I want to like them so bad. I just haven't, I haven't trained my palate.

[Gina 08:35] That's okay. They are gorgeous, yeah. Well, if there's anyone listening to this who's a matcha fan, do yourself a favor and try a white chocolate matcha latte. Thank me later, that shit is so fucking good.

[Kathryn 08:55] I'm also not a white chocolate person, but I'm imagining those two flavors and like I can respect it. You know what I mean? It's like that's not for me, but like I love that. I love that idea. You know what I mean? Like I love that for you. Yeah, exactly. It sounds correct. That sounds like a fun time.

[Gina 08:58] I white chocolate. But I support it from afar. Yeah.

[Kathryn 09:16] So we have to announce our topic and ice cream flavor for next month.

[Gina 09:21] Which we definitely planned ahead of time and didn't just figure out.

[Kathryn 09:24] We definitely did. There was no editing. We did not just chop off a minute and a half of this recording while we panic planned this. Anyway. Sure, I'll do it. Next month. The topic is going to be mass hysteria slash panic slash whatever. And...

[Gina 09:32] Hahaha! Do you wanna do it?

[Kathryn 09:49] The ice cream flavor is going to be Neapolitan. And the reason that we've totally had planned for a very, very long time and did not just come up with off screen is we wanted to do just the most popular ice cream flavor of all time, which we suspected was vanilla, which it is, but it's followed closely by chocolate and strawberry. Not surprising to anyone, I'm gonna guess. So we decided to do all three. So we're gonna do Neapolitan. Also, prioritizing not needing to make it. I've decided to take a leave of absence from making my own ice cream. So we're going back to just needing the lactate. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. So we still have one more Demon episode. You're listening to it rite this second. And after that, we'll be talking about mass hysteria and eating Neapolitan ice cream. So...

[Gina 10:27] Yeah. You've earned your leave soldier. You've served your country well.

[Kathryn 10:48] Get ready, go and get your Neapolitan so you can join us. I still am curious. I do wonder if anyone ever eats ice cream while they listen to us. Let us know. And if you ever make your own ice cream, let us know. Rite, two more bites and then I'll get started with my story.

[Gina 11:02] I am planning my Lilith altar, the way. I know I said I would buy some stuff over the weekend and I didn't. But I have a spot picked out and everything.

[Kathryn 11:06] Hmm. I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, I meant to ask you. That's okay. There's still time.

[Gina 11:15] So, if you're like me, when you saw the title of this episode, you may have been surprised. So, Kathryn and I have a spreadsheet where we write down the topics that we're gonna be doing just so we can plan ahead. And one day, I went in there and I saw the exorcism of Gina. And so I thought Kathryn was gonna fucking exorcise me on the pod. So I left a comment.

[Kathryn 11:21] Yeah. She fully did.

[Gina 11:38] That was like, is this side eye emoji, side eye emoji? And Kathryn responded, I was hoping for this reaction, but also it is not what you think it is. So I'm excited to hear the actual story.

[Kathryn 11:42] Yeah. I was fully, I have to be honest, I heard about this story months ago. Like, I haven't known this story very long. I was searching for, we decided to do Demons a while, like in the onset of this podcast. You know, we've had this scheduled out for a while. So. I was deciding what stories I wanted to do and I saw that I wanted to do an exorcism story. So I found this and I picked it strictly on the name. Like I straight up was like, well I hope this is interesting because this is going to get the exact reaction that I want to get. And I will say, much to my dismay, this one's a little bit of a mood dropper.

[Gina 12:25] Ha ha ha ha! Mmm.

[Kathryn 12:35] A little bit. I'm gonna be getting a little rage-y. I'm gonna try to keep it tightened up a little bit, but yeah. I already warned Gina that we have to get our laughs out now because you are not gonna be happy by the end of this. But yeah, we're gonna go on this journey together. And buckle up because here we go. So in March 1990, Cardinal John O'Connor was the Archbishop of New York and he made a statement at St. Patrick's Cathedral in regards to two exorcisms that had recently been performed.

[Kathryn 13:22] He gave a detailed description about how heavy metal music and pornography had led to an increase in satanic worship, hashtag shout out satanic panic. Because of this, he stated in this very controversial discussion, the fact that quote, exorcisms have come out of the dark of the past and returned to the world of the present. Super spooky. So we're in the midst of the satanic panic. So why was this so controversial? You know, like, wouldn't everyone just...

[Gina 13:50] Mmm. You... Wow.

[Kathryn 13:50] Already agree with this, isn't everyone already afraid of the devil? You'd think that it wouldn't be such a controversial statement.

[Kathryn 14:00] Basically, at this point in time, two sort of contradicting things were happening in America. One, everyone had this extreme fear of Satan and devil worship. That's the satanic panic. But two, there was a growing understanding of what mental illness was. We were on our way to what is now our present understanding of mental health issues.

[Kathryn 14:32] This created kind of a unique, I'm going to say push and pull, because a lot of the kids whose parents suspected them of devil worship were actually just depressed and needed therapy, as we know now, you know, so there was like two kind of contradicting things going on at the exact same time. So it made it like there were two camps whenever the devil or any of this was kind of brought up.

[Kathryn 15:02] So I think that because there was a growing understanding of mental health, people thought they understood mental health issues a lot more than they actually did. This is kind of like a hindsight is 2020 situation. Like we kind of mentioned that in the Rod Ferrell episode that people who needed help were thought of as just crazy. The progress that had been made was that people needed therapy and therapy could help people, but there was still this idea that the people who needed the help were not like us, you know, they were different, they were weird. And some people still thought that it was because of the devil, you know what I mean? So it was all kind of intertwined, but like heading in the opposite direction.

[Gina 15:34] Ahem.

[Kathryn 15:44] Despite the fear in Satan that so many people had, most people did view exorcisms, like the actual rite of exorcism, as quite archaic. It's not something that people thought of as a direct threat to anyone that they knew, you know, or anyone that they came into contact with. It was just an archaic practice that was reserved for Hollywood. It wasn't something that actually happened to people you knew. So the admission from an official Catholic leader that yes, in fact, demonic possession is real, and we see it, and we perform exorcisms on the reg, it was just shocking to people. Like, they weren't expecting it. They knew they had to fear Satan, but they didn't know they had to, like, fear that type of Satan situation, you know?

[Gina 16:32] Yeah, way to fuel the fire.

[Kathryn 16:34] Exactly, and that is exactly why it was controversial. We'll be talking more about that later because that's exactly what he did. To the extent, that after the statement was made, a separate New York bishop named Father LeBar, who he was the official exorcist of the New York diocese,

[Gina 16:39] Okay.

[Kathryn 16:57] Received over 75 exorcism case requests from across the country. So this, you know, statement got people thinking like, okay, well so and so has been acting weird. We know possession's real again, so that must be what's going on. Yeah. So one of these case requests came from the family of a young girl named Gina.

[Gina 17:11] My god. Hey-ho.

[Kathryn 17:24] So that's who we're going to talk about today. So Gina was a 16-year-old girl living with her family in Florida. Just like your family. Oh my gosh. I just made that connection. Oh my god, was this you? I want to say Miami area.

[Gina 17:32] Jesus. Do you know where in Florida? Okay, now.

[Kathryn 17:38] So, over the course of several years, she would have violent seizures, and as she said in her own words, quote, saw demons and stuff. So, she had been having kind of unexplainable issues for quite a while before, you know, this story started getting picked up and gaining traction. It would eventually progressively get worse to the point where she would spit, vomit, scream in strange voices, and have visions of what she considered to be demons. It got so bad at a certain point that she was forced to stop going to school and she didn't return for several months. So yeah, that's like, man, I remember missing a day of school was like a big deal. She was gone for like an entire semester, it seems like. Her parents naturally felt really helpless. They didn't know what was going on. They didn't know what to do. So they admitted, Miami, rite here. I knew it was gonna come up.

[Gina 18:37] Okay.

[Kathryn 18:38] So they admitted her to Miami Children's Hospital and she was being treated by a doctor named Dr. Warren Schlanger. He, stop, I know, I know. I know, I was trying to move past that.

[Gina 18:52] I'm so sorry, Dr. Schlanger. I'm sorry, I'm - mad respect, but yeah.

[Kathryn 18:57] Mad respect, but woof, you know, that's rough. We don't, well, sometimes we choose our last names. I never have. So, he diagnosed her as having quote, recurring psychotic episodes. It hasn't been officially disclosed how exactly she was being treated to the full extent of her whole treatment plan. But she was in and out of the psychiatric division of the Children's Hospital a few times at this point in the story. Despite this treatment, it appears that she wasn't getting any better. And her mom kind of just went back to feeling like, well, what the hell do we do now? You know, she was still feeling very helpless, and she wasn't feeling like they were getting answers fully to the extent that, you know, she clearly wasn't getting better, so something was missing. So her mom started searching for alternative measures, and she ended up reaching out to a local spiritualist healer and setting up an appointment for an exorcism. Gina did not want to go, but it kind of, I don't want to say it didn't matter. It definitely matters that she didn't want to. It didn't make a difference, I'll say, because they were like, we don't know what else to do, so this is what we're doing. We need to get this figured out. That exorcism, based on what I read, seemed quite violent. They sometimes can be. Trigger warning, it is said that as part of that process, Gina was cut repeatedly on the back and chest with a pair of scissors. Yeah.

[Gina 20:28] My god, with a pair of scissors?

[Kathryn 20:33] Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was like a trying to expel the demon situation. Yeah, it was quite violent. Yeah so unfortunately to add salt to that wound the exorcism did not work and it is said that she even seems to get worse in the aftermath. So I'm like, yeah no shit like hello, I would too. So they just felt like they had no solution. They weren't seeing any progress. They'd already taken her to the hospital. They took her to a spiritualist. They just didn't know what to do. So they ended up returning to the church. They had previously been part of the Catholic Church and they were starting to feel desperate. So Gina's mother reached out to the Archdiocese to see if Gina could be approved to have an exorcism through the Catholic Church.

[Kathryn 21:27] This is when Father Labar gets the request amongst, you know, the many others. Not sure if Gina's mother had seen or heard that statement from Cardinal O'Connor or if the timing just worked out. I'm not sure. I'm assuming she did and maybe that's why. She was like, let's try the Catholics or whatever. But I can't confirm that for sure. So they launched an official investigation that lasted six months because in order to be qualified for an exorcism in the Catholic Church, they have to do a full investigation into the case. So there's a list of criteria that a person needs to hit essentially in order to be considered, sounds weird to say, but be considered like possessed enough for an exorcism, I guess. One is unusual strength, and this is relative to the person's normal level of strength. You know, if someone was never previously strong enough to pick up a dresser and throw it across the room, then suddenly they are. That's what we're looking for here. Then levitation, self-explanatory.

[Gina 22:18] Mm-hmm. I thought these were gonna be a little bit more real. Okay. Sorry, I'm not saying that this wasn't real, but just like, I didn't realize that Catholics believed in like levitating. Yeah, okay, sorry.

[Kathryn 22:45] Mm. Well, yeah. Yeah, I see what you're... Yeah. Yeah, Catholics believe in all sorts of shit. You'd be surprised. So, yeah, unusual strength, levitation. Three is knowing things you couldn't possibly know. So like, you know, two people are talking in the car and they come inside and you've like suddenly heard their whole conversation or something, but you were upstairs at the time. Like just something like that. And then this one, I feel like...

[Kathryn 23:21] We've all, we've all seen this in exorcism movies, speaking a language you've never learned or even heard before. And oftentimes more archaic languages.

[Kathryn 23:32] We don't have all the details on how they reached the conclusion. Like we don't know if she was doing all four of them, if like she hit three markers and that was enough. There are some stories that are essentially hearsay. It was, you know, so-and-so's neighbor heard from, you know, such-and-such teacher that she thought she heard the mom say that she blah, blah, you know, so I'm not going to include any of those here because there weren't a ton of them and they all seemed like just rumors. So we'll just, what's important is that she was approved for this exorcism and that's all that matters.

[Gina 23:54] Yeah.

[Kathryn 24:07] So, yeah.

[Gina 24:09] So you, just want to clarify. So the criteria that you mentioned, like levitating, speaking in tongues, change in strength, is it like you have to tick all of those boxes or is it like just a few of them?

[Kathryn 24:19] I'm not sure, and I don't know if that's... yeah, I don't think that that's explicitly stated anywhere. Those are markers for possession. It could be, someone levitates while speaking some weird dead language and they're like, for sure, you know,

[Gina 24:25] Okay.

[Kathryn 24:38] I looked for that too because I was curious but because another layer to it is, there's a lot of, I'm going to call it misplaced secrecy when it comes to this type of stuff. So it's like, we know what the exorcism team wants us to know. It was decided that the exorcism would be performed by a priest. And this is exactly what I was just talking about. I knew it was coming up. He was referred to within this case as Father A, A for anonymous.

[Gina 24:49] Okay.

[Kathryn 25:09] So we don't know the name of the man who performed this exorcism because, you know, he wanted to stay anonymous, which is interesting because you would think that it would be the other way around. Like, why are we protecting the identity of the priest? But we know an awful lot about the patient.

[Gina 25:23] Mm-hmm. The underaged girl.

[Kathryn 25:31] Mm-hmm. The underage mentally ill girl who got the exorcism. Yeah, seems weird. Yeah. So despite that, just gonna keep rolling through it. Do-do-do. JK, that'll definitely come back up. Don't worry, friends, we're not done. Okay. So they assembled a team of people to help with the exorcism, which included a psychotherapist,

[Gina 25:35] Mm-hmm. Okay, immediate suspicion.

[Kathryn 26:02] Not the one, not the doctor that was treating Gina previously, a nurse, a Spanish translator, because her I believe her parents' English was very limited. So they hired a translator. And a few women to help restrain Gina when she slash the alleged entity would try to fight or resist the rite. One of the warnings that Father A gave to the team beforehand was that they should not address Gina directly in any way. It's commonly thought that when someone is the victim of possession, a demonic possession, the entity can sometimes try to basically suck other people in.

[Kathryn 26:37] And the more people it can gain control of or manipulate or jump to or whatever you want to call it, the more power it's going to have. So if someone is exhibiting signs of possession, one of the biggest for an exorcism team is you only let the priest or whoever is doing the exorcism be the one to interact with the entity slash person. When an exorcism is being performed, the thought is they are speaking directly to the entity. But it's like it is that person also. So just to clarify. But the part of the reason I say that people are taught that you kind of have to assume that it's the demon no matter what, because they're thought to be so manipulative and it might be we've all seen them in the horror movies, rite? You know, like so and so comes to and it's me, it's me and then it's still the demon or whatever. So they could be trying to trick you. That's kind of the thought process behind those rules. They also were not allowed to give her any warning or indication that the exorcism was coming in the time leading up to it. Right? I know. Yes. And it's it's it's for the same reasons, you know, if...

[Gina 27:38] Hmm.

[Kathryn 28:07] The demon got wind that he was gonna be evicted, shit could hit the fan. So they basically, which I'm kind of thinking, it's a demon. Wouldn't it just be able to see what was going on? Aren't they kind of omniscient or no? Yeah.

[Gina 28:21] Yeah, because isn't like knowing things that you're not supposed to know, that was like one of the criteria.

[Kathryn 28:27] So we got a plot hole in the rules, but that is what was said. You know what I mean? That was the part of the process for whatever fucking reason. Anyway, so this is all that secrecy that I was kind of talking about before. And it is an official part of performing the rite of exorcism, which we talked a little bit about in...

[Kathryn 28:55] Your last episode, there is a specific script that is supposed to be followed and a particular plan in place to make sure things go smoothly. So from the investigation through the act of exorcism, there are certain markers and certain boxes that need to be checked that is like officially part of the process. The original rite like the actual script written for the event of the exorcism was written in 1614 and performed in Latin. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I didn't want to say too much last time because at the time your story took place in the last episode, it was one of those like people still weren't... I know you mentioned there was a lot of ad libbing and a lot of like... and that was still happening. There was...

[Gina 29:29] Hey, that's like legit. Yeah, totally the same timeframe. All rite, cool. It would have been really new.

[Kathryn 29:53] An official script you were supposed to follow, but not everyone followed it yet. It wasn't an official, it was official, but it wasn't, word spread slowly back then. You know what I mean? So it was kind of that timeframe is exactly like as this was coming to fruition or whatever. So yeah, the timeframe of your last story was exactly when this formal process officially started. And it was originally performed in Latin and it wasn't updated until 1999. So almost 10 years after this current story. Yeah. And I think honestly, the biggest difference is previously it was required to be performed in Latin. It wasn't until 1999 the biggest change was you could just perform it in your native language. I think that was the biggest change. I'm sure they changed some things. I know Catholic mass changed around that time, maybe a few years after that. So I don't know. They did like a whole millennium overhaul for some fucking reason. I don't know. So that was probably part of it. Yeah, for sure. But that's what I always say.

[Gina 30:54] New year, new church.

[Kathryn 30:59] Anyway, so, so yeah, not only are there kind of tight rules for the actual exorcism, but the church is also really strict about who is allowed to perform exorcisms in the first place, which is why I was so kind of caught up on whatever bad shit was happening in your last story that everyone needs to go back and listen to that if you haven't. Yeah, if you're brand new to us, go back. Listen to all of them, but particularly...

[Gina 31:15] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 31:25] Leave that last one because I'm still thinking about that thing. So anyway, there's a document that is produced by the Vatican called the code of canon law. And essentially just a list of regulations that the Catholic Church needs to adhere to. Grain of salt, because I don't know and follow the rules anyway. So the two rules that refer to exorcisms specifically...

[Gina 31:25] You...

[Kathryn 31:50] Can be found in Canon 1172, and they are as follows. One, no one can perform exorcisms legitimately upon the possessed unless he has obtained special and expressed permission from the local ordinary. And two, the local ordinary is to give permission only to a presbyter who has piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life.

[Kathryn 32:15] So super like vague and intentionally convoluted. Exactly. I'll tell you what this actually means. So your average run-of-the-mill priest is not going to be approved to perform an exorcism. They must go through specialized training provided directly from the Vatican. Because possessions are extremely rare, contrary to what Father O'Connor said...

[Gina 32:21] How do you measure that?

[Kathryn 32:45] And they require such specialized knowledge. The Vatican has required that each diocese has essentially one designated person who is trained in exorcisms. So each locale has their guy, their demon guy that you can go to and be exorcised by. Yeah. So the minimum role you need to be qualified to be trained to perform an exorcism is a priest.

[Gina 33:03] It's kind of cool.

[Kathryn 33:12] So basically the only official people in the Catholic Church that can't are nuns and deacons. Priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope can perform exorcisms if they've been trained. But no one else, basically. Yes.

[Gina 33:29] I have another question. I should know this, but I don't. Are women allowed to be priests?

[Kathryn 33:35] No, you—it's okay that you don't know it because it's a stupid fucking thing. But yeah, I forgot about deacons. No offense to any deacons who are obsessed with this podcast. But at first, I know I'm—we're bit, you know, my first boyfriend's name was Deacon. He sucked. Yeah, we don't even have to edit this out. I feel like he knows he did. Yeah, it wasn't spelled this way, though. It was like spelled differently from the church deacon but...

[Gina 33:40] Okay. We got a big deacon following, yeah. Really?

[Kathryn 34:05] Anyway, so that was my first thought. I was like, basically we're just saying women aren't allowed to perform exorcisms, but they're also not allowed to be deacons and they're not allowed to perform them either. The only role a woman can play in the Catholic Church is nun or Sunday school teacher, basically. Yeah. Cool, cool, cool. I remember when I was little being so confused. I always thought it was fiction when I would be watching a movie or something and there was a female pastor or minister. Because I was like, they can't do that. Isn't that so funny? Look, a woman preaching. Hilarious. Yeah. Yeah.

[Gina 34:26] Solid, solid, yeah, yeah, the two genders. Yeah. Talking about God, huh? Because when you were reading, when you said he must be, I felt my face do the thing where I was like, pardon me, and then I remembered that yeah, Catholicism is completely different than Protestantism.

[Kathryn 34:54] That was intentional. Yeah.

[Gina 34:54] Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[Kathryn 35:15] Yeah. I always thought—because I, well, for context for our listeners, I was raised Catholic. We've talked about this before. But yeah, just thought it was so funny when women were religious figures. Which I feel bad saying but I didn't know, you know, that was my experience. Yeah. Yeah.

[Gina 35:25] But when you're a kid, yeah, you don't know any better. Yeah, yeah, I get it.

[Kathryn 35:19] I am still dealing with that. Anyway, go listen to our Lilith episode. There's a reason my mom did not send us to Catholic school. I'll just put it that way. Anyway, back to Gina. There's some controversy with the fact that her case was...

[Gina 35:25] Yeah, please do. You...

[Kathryn 35:38] Approved for an exorcism because two of the biggest boxes that you need to check in order to even be approved to start an investigation into whether or not you need an exorcism—so this is before you even look at whether or not they're levitating or any of that—is you have to be an approved priest, you know, so like you have to like make sure that the correct person has been notified. And two, the only other like modern day requirement is the victim needs to undergo an extensive medical evaluation to rule out any disordered mental health.

[Kathryn 36:16] Gina did undergo a medical evaluation and it was determined by Dr. Schlanger that she had psychosis. So what the fuck? Why were we able to move forward with any of this at all? On the one hand, it had been made very clear that she was exhibiting signs of psychosis. We know that. On the other hand, there was a psychologist assigned to her case by the Catholic Church who...

[Gina 37:10] And that feels very vague. What does that mean?

[Kathryn 37:12] Yeah, sure does. She didn't go into detail about what that means. But some suggest—I will say, we're just gonna look our hardest for an answer that is very clearly not there. But we're looking. Uh-huh. We're looking. Some people suggest that it is due to the fact that Gina wasn't responding to treatment at all in any way. And that's why they were technically allowed to move forward because it was like a, you know, she's been diagnosed with psychosis, but...

[Gina 37:24] Mm-hmm. Okay.

[Kathryn 37:48] She's being treated for psychosis and she's not getting better. Therefore, it's demons. I want to reiterate, we don't know how she was being treated or to the full extent of what her treatment entailed.

[Gina 37:54] Okay.

[Kathryn 38:03] I don't know when in the story this happened, but at a certain point, ABC's 2020 gets wind of this story. They had followed her story for a little while and their news segment on Gina culminated in a recorded broadcast of her actual exorcism.

[Gina 38:26] I thought that that was supposed to not... What? That's not like against... any rules? To do... You can just do that?

[Kathryn 38:38] Well, the reason it's not against any rules is because televising the exorcism was approved by Bishop J. Keith Simmons, who was the bishop of the diocese where Gina lived in Florida.

[Gina 38:53] Why would he approve that? That sounds horrible. That sounds so traumatic. I, yeah. Yeah, keep going, I'm sorry. Holy fuck, that's awful.

[Kathryn 38:59] Yeah, it is. I have answers to these questions, but I'm letting you move through your stages of grief because yes, why the fuck would anyone approve a 16-year-old girl's exorcism to be broadcast on national television?

[Gina 39:15] Yeah, I can't find any reason why that would be okay. I'm genuinely trying to be like, okay, well maybe it was because of la la la la. Yeah, okay, tell me.

[Kathryn 39:22] Well, let me tell you what Father Simmons had to say about it. He said the reason he approved the broadcast was he, quote, hoped that it would help counteract diabolical activities around us.

[Gina 39:40] That's my excuse for everything from now on. I'm hoping to counteract diabolical activities.

[Kathryn 39:45] Right? Like what the fuck? What did you just say?

[Gina 39:52] Like, look, I'm laughing because that statement is funny. It is fucked though. Like that's messed up as a reason to do this, not okay. As a statement, like as a standalone thing, very funny.

[Kathryn 40:03] Absolutely 100%. Man, if I could just do whatever I wanted to counteract diabolical activities around me, I would have the best time of my life. I'd be in jail. 100%. Yeah.

[Gina 40:09] Like are the, it was for the diabolical activities, your honor. I plead diabolical. Well like are the, I'm gonna try to stop being so judgy. Do they think that the demons watch TV? Like, and we'll see that.

[Kathryn 40:35] I love that you're trying to not be judgy, because I'm like, fuck this bishop. Fuck 2020 and fuck ABC. Fuck all of them. This is so fucked up.

[Gina 40:44] I mean, I know that this definitely was in the era of television that did not take into account people's mental well-being as it pertains to publicizing their life for the world to see and poke fun at. Still doesn't make it okay, but it totally fits with 90s.

[Kathryn 40:50] Mm-hmm. Yeah. I want to clarify. My hindsight is 2020 version of myself is saying fuck 2020 and everyone involved. Also though, Devil's Advocate I watched 2020. It's got the most bonkers shit. I do enjoy a good 2020 special, but it's tabloid journalism. It always has been and it was back then and people knew it. Like no one was surprised that of the shows out there to want to cover something like this. No one was surprised that it was 2020. You know, like it was very, this is the type of, you know.

[Gina 41:38] What they do. Yeah. I, yeah. I have some additional questions. Yeah. Yeah. You might get to all of this. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I'm steamrolling anything. But did her parents approve of this is my first question. They were okay with it. Okay. Did they show Gina's face?

[Kathryn 41:39] It was tabloid journalism. Yeah, exactly. Don't—you know what I'm saying? I'm not saying it's okay, but no one was surprised that this is the station it was on. Yeah, yes, yeah. They agreed, they were like.

[Gina 42:08] Okay. I have one more final question.

[Kathryn 42:10] I'm struggling with this story. I'm sorry, I'm trying. I too am trying to like, this is me trying to stay neutral, everyone. This is me trying my hardest to stay neutral. But okay, ask me, I'll get deeper into that the last couple questions, but yes, what's your other question?

[Gina 42:15] I'm trying to be... yeah. Trying to be impartial here. Okay, I feel like you've told me this one already before. Was Gina her real name? Did they use her real name as part of the broadcast?

[Kathryn 42:34] So to my knowledge, Gina was her real first name. There's never been any indication that it was a fake name. So...

[Gina 42:42] Okay.

[Kathryn 42:43] My assumption is it was, if it wasn't, they wanted you to think it was, which I hope it wasn't, but I don't know. So I did watch part of the recording. I didn't watch all of it, but I watched it for the purposes of sharing the story. And in the recording, she's behaving exactly as you would expect someone in the midst of an exorcism to behave.

[Kathryn 43:19] It was like a movie exorcism. From what I saw, there was no physical violence against her, at least shown. She didn't appear to need to be like super restrained or anything like that. Honestly, everything we just talked about, the reason I couldn't continue watching was like, just felt very violent that this was available for me to watch in the first place. Like, it felt just...

[Gina 43:35] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 43:38] She was fucking 16 years old. She's a hormonal teenage girl, underage, and she's actively mentally sick. We know that. And they were showing her face, as you asked previously, on national television. Fucking hate it.

[Kathryn 43:54] And there were closeups, you could see who she was. Like there was no attempt at hiding anything. Father A's face was blurred out. I'll tell you that. Yeah. Yep. A for anonymous. Yeah.

[Gina 44:02] Fucking what? Really?

[Kathryn 44:07] This is me staying neutral. Yeah. In 1991, when this was happening, you could reasonably expect that removing all identifying information, like you didn't know where she lived, you didn't know her last name, that I understand how that could seem like enough to keep someone anonymous, not knowing what technology would turn into today. I imagine it would be very easy to find out who she was today. Please don't.

[Kathryn 44:33] Please don't do that. I'm not going to tell anyone not to watch the video. It exists. It's out there. Do so if you want to. I'm not, I don't have any opinions on whether you do or not, but I will say if you do choose to watch it, just like keep in mind that this was a 16-year-old girl. And just go forth with respect. That's my only request.

[Gina 44:54] I am really struggling to uncouple my hindsight is 2020 brain from the impartial listener to a story brain right now. That's really rough. That's hard.

[Kathryn 44:58] I know. Yeah. I definitely—I'm not on any like—I'm not defending anyone. I'm like trying to find an excuse for my own self. You know what I mean? Still fuck that. But I'm hoping that there was like a genuine lapse in judgment and not the, you know, let's prey on this innocent sick child for...

[Gina 45:09] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

[Kathryn 45:23] ...views.

[Gina 45:25] Don't forget to like and subscribe. Anyway.

[Kathryn 45:28] Anyway, so I will say it is sad that after the exorcism Gina was much calmer even in the days following the exorcism. Despite this, she was still exhibiting psychotic behavior. It was just milder than it had been previously. So did she have a demon that they got rid of or was she fucking exhausted from being exorcised?

[Kathryn 45:50] She did go back to the psychiatric ward for two weeks. This time she was prescribed an anti-psychotic and after being on medication for a couple weeks she started to return normal. Hmm, weird.

[Gina 46:09] Hmm. Hmm. You know what, they really should make a rule that you need to have a thorough psychological evaluation before an exorcism to make sure that it can't be treated by anything else.

[Kathryn 46:25] My god, that's such a good idea. I don't know why no one's thought of that before. Seems like that'd be helpful.

[Gina 46:29] I'm not saying I'm a contender for the job upstairs, but the big guy's not doing his job.

[Kathryn 46:34] Are we God? Are you God and I'm the Pope, I think? Pope Kathryn the First? My god, can you imagine? Wait, that has such a ring to it.

[Gina 46:38] I think we are done. Yes. Yes. We could bling out your little Pope Mobile.

[Kathryn 46:48] Could, obviously we will, hundo P. I think I would make a good pope.

[Gina 46:50] I'm gonna get disco ball. You'd make a fucking great pope.

[Kathryn 46:56] I'd be the people's pope.

[Gina 46:57] Yeah, you would. Sorry, please continue. I needed a moment of like, haha.

[Kathryn 47:00] Anyway, yeah, sometimes you just need a moment of comedy. But I am serious, I would make a good pope. Anyway, so yeah, so she's on meds, she's getting better, weird how that works. Worth noting in case anyone's confused why we're like, LOL, depending on the severity...

[Gina 47:09] You would.

[Kathryn 47:21] ...of a person's psychosis, it can take up to a few weeks for an antipsychotic to start working to its full potential. And that's if you get the dosage right to begin with. So yeah, it can take a while to find a type and amount, et cetera, of medication that will alleviate symptoms. So that's why I say previously, I don't know what her treatment was. I don't know if she was already on anti-psychotic medicine or if this was the first time she was on it. But this is the first time that they started to notice a difference. You know, regardless of any of this, Gina fully believed that she had been possessed and she 100% credited the exorcism for her feeling better. And she went on record thanking God for her recovery.

[Gina 48:14] Thank God that was her experience of it. I mean, if it was geni- like holy shit.

[Kathryn 48:18] Okay, can we land on that for a second? Because... yes. I... I don't ever want her to tell us who she was, especially if she doesn't want to, but I want so badly to talk to her because I'm so caught up on the knowledge that she didn't want to go to that first exorcism.

[Kathryn 48:52] That was the only thing I could find on her personal opinions on this whole situation until this—until, you know, her crediting the exorcism for feeling better. And regardless of what we think, if that is how she feels and if she feels like this was a good thing and this was a good thing for her, great. Love it. That's like all I need to know.

[Gina 49:01] I think that that really easily could have fucked a whole life up. And I'm glad that it doesn't seem to have done that. Same.

[Kathryn 49:07] 100%. Yeah, and I hope she still feels that way. That's the only other thing I will say. Let's go back to the fact that this fucking exorcism was broadcast on national television. Sorry, but let's talk about it some more. It caused a huge rift among Catholic leaders.

[Kathryn 49:25] There were a lot of people who strongly opposed the fact that it happened. And we're not talking about the fact that the exorcism happened. We're talking specifically about approving this to be on ABC. So many people claimed—I think the most popular, based on what I found, the most popular response...

[Kathryn 49:42] ...for those who opposed it was that if nothing else, it detracted from other more prominent issues at the time. A lot of people cited like homelessness and war and poverty and all of these other things that people could be focusing on. But instead, they're focused on worrying about becoming possessed. Basically, all this broadcast did...

[Kathryn 50:02] ...was make people think that possession was a lot more common and a much bigger issue than it actually was. And that pissed off a lot of priests because—I like to think that most church leaders, not just in the Catholic Church, do want to like better the world, whether you agree with the way they do it or not. But so many of these leaders were very strongly in agreement that this is not...

[Kathryn 50:30] ...the way to make the world better. Like this fear tactic is not what we should be focused on. So this case is often cited as—basically exorcisms within the Catholic Church before this happened, I hesitate to say most, but based on what I was reading, it seems like most Catholics were kind of...

[Kathryn 50:54] ...almost embarrassed to be associated with stories about exorcism. It really was thought of as an archaic practice and kind of cliché. It was "The Exorcist is just a movie," you know what I mean? It was that kind of "You're Catholic? Oh, have you ever seen an exorcism?" "Oh my god, no." And people...

[Gina 50:54] Hmm.

[Kathryn 51:12] ...were like, why is this a focus? Why are we bringing this back? A lot of people were very surprised by Cardinal O'Connor saying, "Well, yeah, we do them." And when I say people, I mean church leaders as well—people in the church. A lot of people were very surprised by him saying, basically acting like, "We do them all the time." Because these other guys were like, "No, the fuck we don't."

[Gina 51:38] You...

[Kathryn 51:53] You know, this is not a thing that we need to be focused on. So that reaction kind of led people to question the church pretty strongly, is a big deal, especially we're coming to kind of the end of the satanic panic, but we're still in it, you know?

[Kathryn 52:14] Basically, it tipped a lot of people off to thinking that there might be an alternative motive or some agenda. It kind of just caused a rift and caused a lot of people to not fully believe or at least question their belief insofar as it related to the church specifically. Yeah. One...

[Gina 52:18] Interesting.

[Kathryn 52:18] I found a quote, there was an interview after the broadcast from a priest named Father Richard McBrien. And he went on Nightline. And he basically just went on to shit talk all the people that were involved in Gina's case. And, you know, call out Father O'Connor for riling so many people up. He claimed that they, as a group, presented exorcism the way they did...

[Kathryn 52:56] ...to basically just push an agenda. They had no intention of actually saving souls, which is a pretty big claim against a fellow religious leader. He went on to say, quote, "The real objective of that project was to help bring back that old time religion when everyone..."

[Kathryn 53:07] "...women especially, knew their place, when Catholics obeyed without question every directive from on high and when there was never any question that the Catholic Church was the one true church with all the answers to all the important questions we have about life both here and hereafter."

[Gina 53:25] Cool, big words, damn, okay, okay.

[Kathryn 53:27] Yeah. Right? Yes. Yeah. Father was pissed. Okay.

[Gina 53:32] Mm-hmm.

[Kathryn 53:36] Unfortunately, if that was the agenda, it kind of worked, much to a lot of people's surprise. I'm talking in present tense now, but it has grown since the 90s. Exorcisms are no longer super rare. Actually relatively quite common. And I say relatively because there was...

[Kathryn 53:58] I don't want to say visible growth because again, there's so much secrecy and numbers are skewed and things are hidden, et cetera. Depending on where you look...

[Kathryn 54:08] It is thought that not just in the Catholic Church, across many different religions, that exorcisms have steadily risen. And to support what Father McBrien had to say back after the broadcast in 1991, the people who have come forward about the fact that they've either given or gotten an exorcism, does suggest that the people who are more likely to receive an exorcism or be a victim of possession are more commonly from low-income areas. It's mostly women.

[Kathryn 54:42] They're often immigrants or people who don't speak or easily speak or understand the same language as the person who is performing the exorcism. And conversely, the people who have come forward to say that they have performed exorcisms or are actively performing exorcisms are often of higher financial status than those being exorcised. And it's literally always men, particularly in the Catholic Church. I have yet—I'm sure there are women out there who are performing exorcisms. I haven't found any. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but they definitely don't exist in the Catholic Church for reasons we have already discussed. So if nothing else, there is a very clear social disparity between those who are performing exorcisms and those who receive. Just something to keep in mind, don't really have a neat or nice closing to the story. Basically...

[Kathryn 55:38] The way I can summarize it is this broadcast and Gina's story specifically is often used as an example on both sides of the aisle. People who support this decision and are deep in the Catholic Church and strongly believe in possession and exorcisms are like, "See, this child was saved," you know, whatever, praise be to God. Others are like, "Wow, she was horribly taken advantage of and used to push an agenda during a really delicate time in society." I'm not gonna tell anyone what to think, but everyone knows what I think based on the way this story was told. This was me being neutral. I did a very good job, I think. So yeah, that's the true story of 16-year-old Gina who was not of consenting age, who's...

[Gina 56:30] I think you did a good job.

[Kathryn 56:40] ...extremely vulnerable and horrific life experience was televised for everyone in the nation to see. Thanks for coming. Bye. Like and subscribe. Yeah.

[Gina 56:48] Bye. Oh man. Yeah. I have a whole lot of feelings, not a lot of words. You know what I mean? I hope she's okay.

[Kathryn 56:54] Yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah. Honestly don't remember what I've said for the past hour. My brain is just like repressing everything. But I think I already mentioned...

[Gina 57:05] Hahahahah

[Kathryn 57:10] As long as she's happy and as long as she feels good about everything that happened, my issue is not—I know I was kind of dogging on exorcisms there toward the end. It's not exorcisms that I have a problem with. If you got the demon in you, do what you need to do to get it out. It's everything else that I'm like...

[Gina 57:12] Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[Kathryn 57:31] ...kind of having mixed feelings about and all the feelings that are mixed are all bad. So yeah.

[Gina 57:36] Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. One big bad feeling Sunday rite in the soul.

[Kathryn 57:41] Yeah.

[Gina 57:42] How very demonic. How—what was the diabolical activity around us or whatever it was?

[Kathryn 57:50] Yes. Yeah. The way I intended on sharing the story was I thought I was going to just be talking about the broadcast. And I think that at a certain point, I realized I don't know if the broadcast—rephrase, I don't know if what happened in the broadcast was necessarily the important part of the story. I think it's everything that led up to it, the fact that it was approved slash why the fuck and like what happened afterwards. Like I really fully thought I was just going to be explaining this video to you, you know, and then it was like, man, this goes deep. Like, God damn it. Yeah. So anyway, I'm sorry. It's not going to get better.

[Gina 58:28] So much to it. Yeah. Ugh. Spoken like a true pope.

[Kathryn 58:40] Tune in next week where I bless you with another really disheartening story. But we're gonna have fun. We're gonna eat Neapolitan ice cream.

[Gina 58:42] Hehehe. Yeah. In the spirit of mass hysteria, we'll all be having a great time, whether we want to or not. Whether you want to or not, we're having a great time. Perfect. Really makes I scream, you scream feel different, doesn't it?

[Kathryn 58:57] Mm-hmm. Yes! That's what—that's, should that be our new slogan? Have a—have you're having a great time whether you want to or not. God. Truly. Well, I mean, yeah, the implied is we're all screaming, so... You, me, and our girl Lilith.

[Gina 59:19] Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yes, yes, I need to finish my altar. Alright, well, until mass hysteria month, little spoons. Keep it cool.

[Kathryn 59:32] Keep it creepy.