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Devil inside you? Call the exorcist hotline

By | December 3, 2012, 4:21 AM PST

"Please hold the line. Due to the recent escape of Beelzebub, our call volume is very high at the moment. An Exorcisms R Us representative will be with you shortly."

I couldn’t make this up. Actually, I could. But this is real, brought to you by the Catholic Church.

The diocese of Milan has set up a hotline for souls interested in an exorcism, the BBC reports, noting that, ”People calling it will be able to book an appointment to see a local priest with specific training.”

Milan has also doubled the number of priests who specialize in exorcisms, from 6 to 12, and has published their names and phone numbers.

Why the expansion?

“Monsignor Angelo Mascheroni, who has trained priests to carry out exorcisms for the past 15 years, said demand had soared recently,” the story says.

Crazy, eh? I mean, a call center? That’s so last year. Why not use Twitter?

Image: callcenterdirectorybiz

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Mark Halper

About Mark Halper

Mark Halper is a contributing editor for SmartPlanet.

Mark Halper

Mark Halper

Contributing Editor

Mark Halper has written for TIME, Fortune, Financial Times, the UK's Independent on Sunday, Forbes, New York Times, Wired, Variety and The Guardian. He is based in Bristol, U.K.

Follow him on Twitter.

Mark Halper

Mark Halper

Mark has no financial holdings in the companies he writes about. He occasionally travels at the expense of companies or their press relations agencies in order to report on a company or industry event related to it; Mark will prominently disclose this information when appropriate. This relationship will have no influence on his coverage. Companies he covers do not get to review columns in advance, or select or reject topics.

He writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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who you gona call
GhostBusters
Posted by ruellej@...
3rd Dec
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-facepalm-
This is just crazy. Demonic possession was something people invented in prescientific eras to explain things we didn't have explanations for at the time: epilepsy, mental conditions, ergot poisoning, and so on. It's ridiculous people still believe in this kind of thing, when we have good explanations for these kinds of things today and medical treatments for them that actually work, rather than make things worse as many exorcisms do.
Posted by LeonBA
10th Jan
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