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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2167 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Catholics also believe in witchcraft; using divination and magic is explicitly forbidden in the catechism of the Catholic church.

Protestants and Catholics both believe in demons and practice exorcisms, but Catholics practice is a bit more media-friendly because they have a formal system for it, ancient lore, and visually striking, immediately identifiable vestments.

Also, an educated priesthood that generally doesn't believe in demons.

I would guess that the majority of Catholic priests believe in demons, although as far as I can tell there's no solid polling data on it. They certainly have a number of notably vocal exorcists, which is notable in part because (IIRC) the Catholic Church requires a psychiatric evaluation before performing an exorcism to screen out more mundane issues.

Education isn't a barrier to religious belief (indeed, in the United States, education correlates with religious practice) so I'm not really sure that it's as important to this question as you think, particularly since there's an obvious selection bias in the priesthood. I do get the impression that many Catholic clergy in the United States (and I assume the EU) were often much less attached to church dogma than one might think, but as I understand it the situation has reversed and younger priests in the US are trending much more conservative.

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