On Hallowed Ground

My name is Charles B Rhett and I’d like to recount for you some of the events leading up to the most intense moment of my life. I’d like to begin by stressing that Priesthood is no joke. Its a very committing choice to give the rest of your life to the all father. I’ve been fascinated with a very different side of priesthood though… different from your typical Father.

Ever since I was young I have been captivated by the concept of Exorcisms.

Now I’ve always been a religious man. Always believed in God and by right I have to believe where there is good, there is also evil. Therefore, Hell must exist along with the Devil himself. I always believed that the human soul was pure and that the body, the vessel for that soul, was also pure in the sense that nothing evil could penetrate it. How naive I was. I discovered that I was right to a degree, but I failed to realize that the human soul is pure until it experiences a festering rot from the evil within. We are all sinners, but some of us sin more than others. It wasn’t until I met the Andrews family that I fully understood how deep this rot could reach.

Shortly after I became a priest, the Vatican had caught wind of my interests in exorcisms. The concept was always known to us in the faith but was rarely talked about. It was even taboo at times to mention the word around other members of the clergy. Regardless, I was sent out to the Vatican to meet with some members of team that specialized in this very thing. I was briefed on a particularly despicable sounding case in Butte Montana.

The brief started off how I imagined it would, with a few prayers and a description of the family. The youngest and only daughter, Sherry was a 13 year old girl with good grades and a very bright future. Her mother, in her early 40s was widowed and currently with an older less patient partner who had a checkered past of alcohol and drug abuse. The team informed me that they had already sent a priest out to the home to investigate, but returned without answers.

Demons are notoriously intimidated by men of God.

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Because I was so new to the faith, I think this team expected that whatever is dwelling in this house would be more apt to show itself with someone less “connected“ than a seasoned lifelong priest. I packed my bags and headed to Butte.

Pulling up to the house, nothing felt immediately off. The mother came out to meet me and explained that they have been struggling with this for quite some time. Her partner came out to greet me as well, but went out of his way to come off friendlier than the brief had suggested. Sherry was shy, but eventually came out and introduced herself. They seemed like a normal family to me, but I realized this presence would do anything it could to get the presence of God away from the home as quickly as possible.

I had arrived later than expected, but Sherry’s mother had dinner on so they had invited me in to join them. As we all sat down I could feel tension rising in the room. They must not sit down as a family all that often. Sherry seemed on edge. She kept staring at her mothers partner as if she was trying to tell me something. Every time I looked over at her she would quickly look down to hide her face. Her mother and partner were eerily silent. After some pleasantries and comments about how great the food was and how well Sherry was doing in school I decided to ask about the issue at hand. But before I could, the mothers partner abruptly got up and went to bed. Once he was out of the kitchen and upstairs, the tension eased a bit and Sherrys mother told me that I wasn’t too long ago that Sherry’s father had passed away from a heart attack in this very house. Her late father wasn’t an angry person, in fact the very opposite. He was the best husband and father she could have asked for so it hit them both very hard when he passed. Sherry took it the hardest, though she maintains her grades in school because she knows that’s what her father would have wanted. At first glance this just seems like a family navigating through the grief process having lost a loved one.

Evil likes to capitalize on grief. It wears down the soul and attaches itself to the negativity that festers within.

As days progressed the malevolent presence started to show itself little by little, but what I couldn’t figure out was who it was attached to… Sherry seemed like a resilient young girl, the mother was clearly hurting from the loss of her husband, though filling the hole left by him with someone so soon was her only mistake and her partner just seemed like a recovering drug and alcohol addict. something was off here and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

Click Here for part Two